Continuous Improvement

Whether you’re about to implement the Talgo approach for the first time, or you’ve been doing it consistently for awhile, it’s important to have a process in place to review and improve upon your starting point.

The Japanese philosophy for this is known as Kaizen (“continuous improvement”) and it’s not just a production strategy—it can also be an essential component of your approach to talent. One area you can examine is your sourcing strategies to regularly fine tune your top-of-funnel quality.

One critical step in this process is analyzing recent hires—both high performers and those who fell short of expectations. What distinguishes them? Is it their work ethic, their problem-solving skills, or something entirely different? Whenever you create a Target for the first time you are implicitly engaging in this type of pattern recognition to some degree. It can nonetheless be helpful to create a process to review new data and ask these questions consistently.

For instance, some of our clients discovered a surprising trend: regardless of their alma mater, candidates with high academic achievements often brought an exceptional level of hustle and dedication. This insight led them to prioritize academic performance in their sourcing strategy, regardless of the prestige of the educational institution. This is an example of an observation that led to a direct shift in emphasis in their sourcing strategies.

The optimal frequency for conducting such a review will depend on your sample size, how quickly you are growing, how dynamically the role is changing, and other considerations. I’d say at most once per quarter, and at least once per year.

Make sure to look at both your hiring wins—especially the ones who exceeded expectations or succeeded in surprising ways—as well as your hiring mistakes. It’s human nature to prefer to “move on” from the pain of mishires, but they are often ripe with insight about what should change—either in your Target or in your sourcing strategy.

Remember, the goal is not to overhaul your entire approach every quarter, but to make informed, data-driven tweaks that continually keep your Targets and sourcing strategies up to date.