Assess: how to tell whether a candidate can actually do the job
Assess is the third letter of the STACK Method. Assess is the work of figuring out whether a candidate can do the job you are hiring them to do. SMB owners over-weight gut feel and under-weight evidence, and they pay for it on the back end when a hire who interviewed well cannot perform the work.
The gut-feel problem
Most SMB hiring decisions are made on the basis of two factors: how comfortable the owner felt in the interview and how confidently the candidate spoke. Both are weak predictors of job performance. Interview comfort measures interview comfort. Confident speech measures confidence in speech. Neither measures whether the candidate can run a punch list, close a deal, manage a P&L, or supervise twelve people through a busy season.
The fix is not to ignore gut feel. The fix is to put it in its proper place: as one input, weighted appropriately, alongside structured evidence.
What structured assessment looks like
Four practices cover most of what an SMB needs.
1. The scorecard
Before interviewing, write down what success in the role looks like in twelve months. Three to six outcomes, each measurable. The scorecard becomes the rubric. Every interview question maps to one of the outcomes. Every interview debrief grades against them. The technique is influenced by Topgrading and similar methods, but it does not require the full apparatus. A one-page scorecard solves ninety percent of the problem.
2. The structured interview
Same questions, same order, across every candidate for the same role. Interviewers compare candidates against each other on the same dimensions, not against a moving target. This sounds bureaucratic. It is not. It is the single highest-leverage interview practice that exists, and most SMBs do not do it.
3. The "show me the work" principle
Wherever possible, the candidate does the work in some form during the interview process. A sales hire builds a mock account plan. An estimator estimates a real-but-anonymized project. A plant manager walks the floor and tells you three things they would change. Watching someone do the work for twenty minutes tells you more than ninety minutes of behavioral interviewing.
4. Reference checks that actually work
Most reference checks are useless because they ask useless questions. "What was it like to work with Pat?" produces nothing. The questions that produce signal are specific: "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate Pat's performance?" If the answer is below an eight, ask why. "Who at your company would have rated Pat lower?" gets you the truth most checks miss. References are willing to tell you what is real if you ask in a way that gives them permission.
What personality tests are good for
Personality tests are mostly noise as hiring decision tools. They are useful as conversation starters for onboarding and team dynamics. Predicting job performance from a personality inventory is, in most validated studies, a coin flip with extra steps. Use them after the hire to help the new hire and their manager understand each other faster. Do not use them to decide who gets hired.
A scenario
A fifty-person B2B distributor in Hilliard had two candidates for an inside sales lead. Candidate A interviewed beautifully, told great stories, and the owner loved her. Candidate B was awkward in the interview and spent half of his "show me the work" exercise asking questions about the territory. Hire B. The work he showed was sharper, the references rated him a nine and explained why, and the scorecard outcomes mapped to his actual track record. Eighteen months later he is the top producer.
Common questions about Assess
Why do I keep making bad hires even when interviews go well?
Because interview comfort and confident speech are weak predictors of job performance. The candidate who interviews great may be someone who interviews great for a living and has done it a hundred times. Performance in the role is a different thing entirely. The fix is to put gut feel in its proper place: one input among several. Run structured interviews, use a scorecard tied to specific outcomes you need in the first twelve months, get evidence by watching the candidate do something close to the actual work, and check references in a way that produces signal instead of noise. When gut feel and the structured process disagree, that is information to slow down, not a tiebreaker for going with your gut.
What's the difference between a structured interview and a regular one?
A structured interview uses the same questions, in the same order, across every candidate for a role. The interviewers compare candidates against each other on the same dimensions instead of against a moving target. A regular interview, the kind most small businesses run, is a conversation that goes wherever it goes. The structured version sounds bureaucratic. It is not. It is the single highest-leverage interview practice that exists. It is also the practice most SMBs do not run, which is part of why hiring decisions feel like coin flips.
Should I use a hiring scorecard?
Yes, and the scorecard does not need to be elaborate. Before you start interviewing, write down what success in the role looks like in twelve months. Three to six outcomes, each measurable. That is the scorecard. Every interview question should map to one of those outcomes. Every debrief should grade candidates against them. A one-page scorecard solves about ninety percent of what fancier hiring methods are trying to solve.
How do I assess a candidate for skills I don't have myself?
It depends on the role, but the answer is almost always some combination of four things. Behavioral interview questions for the meta-skills: do they think well, do they own their outcomes, can they explain their reasoning. Work samples for the actual doing: the welder welds, the accountant works a real-but-anonymized scenario, the developer writes code. A knowledgeable proxy: bring in someone who does have the skill, a friend in the trade, a fractional CFO, a peer business owner. Thirty minutes with someone who speaks the language is worth more than ten of your behavioral questions. And targeted reference checks asked of people who can actually rate the skill. Layer all four. None of them alone is enough.
How do I tell if a candidate can actually do the job?
Four questions sit underneath every hire: Can they do the work, will they do the work, are they a fit, and do they own their outcomes? "Can they" is a capability question, answered by work samples and structured interviews. "Will they" is a motivation question. "Fit" is about the environment. "Locus of control" is about ownership. Get evidence on all four before offering. Skipping one is where most bad hires come from.
Are personality tests worth using for small business hiring?
They can be, but as one signal among several, not as the decision. A personality test that flags concerns is a prompt to ask better follow-up questions, not a reason to pass on a candidate. Big Corporate, Inc. tends to over-rely on tests because they need defensibility. Small businesses can use the test as a starting point for a real conversation, which is the more useful version.
What is a work sample and how do I create one?
A work sample is a short version of the actual job, done by the candidate as part of the interview process. The format varies by role and there is no universal recipe. A sales role can be tested with a quick roleplay or short presentation. A welder gets a sample weld at the shop. An accountant cannot do a real budget on the spot, so the work sample becomes a structured technical conversation with specific scenarios.
How many interviews should a small business run per candidate?
As few as possible. How you get there is up to you, but when it stretches to two, three, four separate visits or calls, candidates start dropping. Strong candidates have other options and they will not burn six hours of PTO on a process that drags. The better move is to design one substantial visit that gathers everything you need. If two managers will weigh in on the decision, have them interview the candidate together or back to back in the same visit. Optimize the process to respect the candidate's time away from work. Doing this well also signals how you will treat them once they are hired.
What is the single biggest predictor of whether a hire works out?
Locus of control, whether the candidate believes their outcomes are mostly the result of their own actions or mostly the result of things happening to them. Internal-locus candidates outperform external-locus candidates in nearly every SMB role studied. Probe for it in interviews. Ask about a time something went wrong and listen for whether they own a piece of it or hand the whole thing to circumstance.
How we run Assess inside a partnership
In a Fractional Recruiting engagement, the scorecard, the structured interview, and the reference protocol are built per role and run consistently across every candidate. The owner still makes the call. The owner just makes it on better evidence. The next step after assessment is the close: see Close.