What if you could nearly double the number of high performers in your organisation without spending extra on recruitment? The untapped potential sits within your existing recruitment process – all you need to do is close the Hiring Execution Gap. Here's how:
In recruitment, we need to talk more about the "Hiring Execution Gap" – the difference between what research tells us works in hiring and what companies actually do day-to-day.
Our industry has been quite focused on debating individual assessment methods: Should we use tests or not? Are CVs really that bad as a selection method? Should managers still conduct reference checks? While the methods you choose do matter – some tools are significantly more predictive than others – we've been missing something crucial.
As Malcolm Burenstam Linder, CEO and Founder of Alva Labs explains:
"The real challenge isn't finding a single perfect assessment tool – it's about closing the gap between the research on effective hiring systems and how we actually execute hiring in practice"
– Malcolm Burenstam Linder, CEO & Founder Alva Labs
According to Dr. Paul Sackett's latest research (2022), implementing research-backed hiring methods can improve your high-performer rate from 31% to 60%. That's 29 more high performers out of every 100 hires, without spending any extra money on recruitment!
The ultimate goal of improving our hiring processes is clear: to shift the talent distribution curve to the right. Every organisation has a distribution of talent – from low performers to high performers. By implementing more effective hiring systems, we're not just making gradual improvements; we're systematically shifting the entire curve toward higher performance.
"Moving the talent curve one hire at a time is how TA creates massive business impact," Malcolm explains.
"This is the competitive advantage that helps companies win"
– Malcolm Burenstam Linder, CEO & Founder Alva Labs
The real insight – what Malcolm calls "the aha moment" – is the power of combining methods.
"It's not about picking the one single silver bullet in the selection process," Malcolm points out. "It's about thinking about the entire selection system from end to end."
This comprehensive approach starts with:
• Truly analysing the job you recruit for – what core criteria, skills, and traits will determine success
• Building a tailored selection process to cover all important skills and traits
• Assessing key skills consistently for each candidate, both for accuracy and fairness
• Combining all data collected throughout the hiring process – preferably in a weighted, mechanical way
• Applying this approach consistently across the entire company
As Malcolm puts it: "This is where the magic happens."
Let's look at what this means in practice. When we examine the predictive validity of different hiring processes:
• A traditional unstructured process has a predictive validity of around 0.2
• A semi-structured process with some solid tools reaches about 0.4
• The gold standard approach can reach 0.6
Imagine you're making 100 hires in the next 12 months:
• With the traditional process, you'll statistically land about 31 high performers
• With the best practice process, you'll land about 60 high performers
That's a 29-point swing in talent quality. Same number of seats, same hiring budget, but just a smarter selection process – one that shifts your organisation's talent curve to the right.
"The last part here is the key thing," Malcolm emphasises.
"Data is one thing, but how do we actually act on that data?"
– Malcolm Burenstam Linder, CEO & Founder Alva Labs
At Alva Labs, we're obsessed with closing this hiring execution gap. And we believe this can be a lot easier to achieve for all teams than it is today – that's why we're building what we call the Hiring Success System.
Our system efficiently achieves predictable hiring outcomes at scale by:
The system takes your role description (which likely lives in a Word document somewhere) and translates it into a codified role requirement with the key skills, traits, and attributes needed. Then it designs a selection process using the suite of tools relevant for that specific role – whether personality tests, logic tests, structured interviews, or other assessments.
Crucially, we close the feedback loop by following up on outcomes and constantly learning from them.
"This is not the only way to solve the hiring execution gap," Malcolm acknowledges. "Some have the luxury to have a staff of 100 IO psychologists to build this themselves. Some are not as fortunate, and this might be one way to approach the gold standard or world-class level of hiring execution."
The concept of moving the talent distribution curve to the right is at the heart of what effective talent acquisition teams strive to achieve. It's not about making occasional good hires – it's about systematically improving the quality of talent across your entire organisation.
As Malcolm puts it: "Some great hires may happen by chance. But exceptional hiring at scale? That only happens by design."
When you implement research-backed hiring systems, you don't just improve individual hires – you fundamentally elevate the capability of your entire workforce.
That's how TA delivers tremendous impact to the organisation. That's how companies and teams win.
Want to learn more about how to take your recruitment to the next maturity level?