Sarah, HR Director of a 120-employee SME, still remembers that one hire that seemed perfect on paper. The candidate looked ideal: prestigious degree, solid experience, a convincing interview. Three months into the job, he left the company, leaving behind a destabilised team and an unfinished project.
Perhaps you've encountered a similar scenario. It highlights a striking reality: recruitment remains one of the most strategic – and risky – decisions within an organisation.
A poor hire can cost between 30% and 150% of the employee’s annual salary, not to mention the impact on team dynamics, productivity, and employer branding.
These hidden costs add up quickly: wasted training time, delayed projects, demotivated teams, and sometimes a deteriorated work climate. Yet many of these errors are avoidable when we rely on reliable data and proven methods, rather than intuition alone.
Here are 4 common pitfalls recruiters fall into, and how predictive assessment solutions can help you avoid them.
1. Relying Solely on the CV or a Traditional Interview
Marc, a sales director, was impressed by a candidate’s flawless CV. MBA, big-company experience, impressive communication skills during the interview. On paper, a perfect match.
In practice, the new hire had a directive approach ill-suited to a consultative client base and a low tolerance for failure that paralysed him when faced with rejection.
❌ The problem: A CV tells you about the past, not real potential. And if not properly structured, interviews are subject to halo effects, likability bias, and stereotypes. The result? Technically “good” candidates who are poorly aligned with company culture or the role's real demands.
✅ The solution: Psychometric assessments reveal what neither the CV nor the interview shows. By combining personality tests, reasoning assessments, and motivational profiling, you get a comprehensive insight into a candidate’s strengths and development areas.
In this sales example, assessment would have revealed a low appetite for prospecting and high rejection sensitivity – red flags that would otherwise go unnoticed.
2. Recruiting Without Clearly Defining Success Criteria
Julie’s story perfectly illustrates this second pitfall. A fast-growing start-up was recruiting a project manager. After several interviews, opinions diverged: the founder valued autonomy, the HR Director prioritised interpersonal skills, and the future manager insisted on technical expertise. Without a shared reference, making a sound decision was impossible.
❌ The problem: Many companies recruit without clearly defining what success looks like in the role. This lack of clarity leads to vague criteria, inconsistent decisions between HR and managers, and candidates poorly matched to the real business challenges.
✅ The solution: Clearly define competency expectations by creating or adapting a key competency framework for each role. This predictive model becomes a shared compass for everyone involved in the selection process.
For a project manager, you might define six critical competencies: planning, cross-functional leadership, resilience, communication, problem-solving, and adaptability. All assessments and scores are then benchmarked against these criteria, ensuring objectivity, consistency, and efficiency.
3. Overlooking Cultural and Team Fit
Thomas had all the technical skills needed to join this creative marketing team. A former strategy consultant, he excelled at market analysis and planning.
However, his structured and competitive mindset clashed with the team’s collaborative and experimental culture.
Six months later, he resigned, drained by an environment that didn’t suit him.
❌ The problem: Even technically brilliant candidates can fail if they don’t mesh with the existing team dynamic. Poor cultural fit is one of the main causes of early turnover, often within the first six months.
✅ The solution: Assessing personality, values, and interpersonal style allows you to anticipate how well a candidate fits with a team, manager, or specific work environment.
If your team values collaboration and consensus, a highly competitive and individualistic profile, no matter how impressive, may disrupt the balance. Better to redirect such a profile towards a more autonomous role where their strengths can shine.
4. Multiplying Interviews Without Shared Methods or Tools
Emily’s company held three interviews for every hire: HR, line manager, and director.
The issue? Each asked their own questions based on personal criteria, without a shared framework.
The result: subjective and sometimes conflicting assessments, and decisions that were hard to justify.
❌ The problem: Multiple interviews run by different people without a unified method often create more confusion than clarity. Without shared scoring or interview guidelines, decisions are vague, subjective, and often disputed.
✅ The solution: Structured interviews, with targeted questions aligned to assessment results, allow managers to fairly evaluate candidates.
With shared rating criteria (e.g. leadership, active listening, assertiveness) and consistent questions in asynchronous interviews, the evaluation process becomes fair, evidence-based, and well-documented.
Assessment tools don’t replace human insight. But they provide a reliable, objective, and actionable foundation to support better hiring decisions.
Sarah, our HR Director from the beginning, has now embedded these methods into her recruitment processes. Today, she recruits with greater confidence, enjoys more stable teams, and has earned increased trust from her managers.
Because behind every decision, there’s now trustworthy data that complements – not replaces – human expertise.
