Leveraging two-way try ons to drive better hiring matches 

TL;DR: At RCG Talent Solutions, we created our Signature Search service to help social impact organizations find and hire their talent. What’s special about our service is our “Two-Way Try On” methodology, where semi-finalist candidates “try on” a role during a paid performance task and showcase their skills in ways that go beyond the traditional interview. Ultimately, this allows both parties – candidates and hiring managers – to make more informed decisions. Over the last 18 months, we have placed 55 leaders and paid out more than $100,000 in performance task honorariums. 

Traditional hiring practices aren’t cutting it 

When I partner with organizations looking to hire great talent, I often see scorecards that cite the same qualities of a strong candidate: Someone who can navigate ambiguity, has a growth mindset, and will take an assets-based approach with their colleagues. I see these same competencies listed again and again. 

But over the course of my career, I’ve also seen that leaders who score highly during an interview struggle at one time or another on the job because they’re just human and no one is perfect. When a person faces a challenge or has to navigate something new in their work, ideally they will leverage their skills and competencies to learn and grow. But other times, they don’t learn and grow, and it becomes clear they should never have been hired in the first place. Not only can this be psychologically damaging for the employee, it is burdensome for the organization and bad for its culture. 

At RCG Talent Solutions, we are constantly looking for ways to improve hiring for all involved, including the candidate, the organization, and the broader talent acquisition ecosystem. Because we have seen first-hand that traditional hiring practices – big talent pools, weeding through resumes, hour-long interviews – don’t necessarily yield a strong match. These seemingly routine practices just aren’t cutting it. 

And, they hurt candidates. When it comes to finding the right fit for them, they often make a big leap of faith in accepting a position, knowing fairly little about the organization or what the responsibilities of the role fully entail. They don’t get the chance to be in the work before signing on to do it, increasing the chances of surprises along the way. Well-intentioned hiring managers can only learn so much from a resume’s list of credentials or skills that may highlight accomplishments but don’t speak to true competency. 

Routine hiring practices similarly hurt organizations. Hiring managers bring in people they hope and expect will do well – but don’t often get to see what they seek most in candidates in action: problem solving, collaboration, initiative. They don’t get a full picture of who the individual is, increasing the “risk” they take in bringing them on board. 

It’s time for smarter hiring 

At RCG, we’re trying something new to give both parties the chance to experience one another in a more meaningful way so decisions can be made with more information, experience, and understanding. 

I joined RCG almost two years ago to scale our Signature Search service, which centers on a search methodology that my colleague, Erick Roa, now COO of Making Waves Foundation, had built and piloted. This methodology includes a “two-way try on,” where semi-finalists “try on” a role during a paid performance task. Tackling a simulated work challenge they might really experience on the job gives candidates a chance to showcase their skills beyond what they can describe in a resume. This also gives hiring managers a strong look at whether candidates’ capabilities can really address an organization’s challenges. Ultimately, both parties can make more informed decisions about roles, skills, and professional values. In the last 18 months, we’ve placed 55 leaders this way, paying out more than $100,000 in performance task honorariums. To date, 93% of our placements are still working in the roles they were hired for.

Our Two-Way Try On approach serves the candidate and organization, and I believe is the future of hiring. For candidates: Nonprofit professionals want and expect to be challenged – they just need to know what a job really is, so they can find the one where they’ll add value and be successful. That’s the guiding principle I return to when a hiring manager engages me on a Signature Search. For organizations: It’s my job to help the hiring manager be honest about what the gaps are in their organization and what they need in a leader. The performance task is the way to marry these two needs. 

Here’s how it works: I start by asking a hiring manager to identify a challenge the person in this role will be faced with during their first year – or even the first three to six months – in the role. Sometimes that challenge is really broad, such as “the need to increase revenue.” So we talk about how to narrow it to a manageable performance task. For example, we might discover that the role will really be focused on finding ways to diversify revenue streams. After providing the semi-finalist with some context about the organization’s revenue streams, we might ask them to come up with one specific way the organization could diversify and then present that idea during an interview.

What I’m really doing is preparing the hiring manager and the candidate to think of the interview in a new way: as a collaborative, iterative experience for both parties. Oftentimes roles are handed to the more-charismatic and better-connected candidate who can sail through an interview while another skilled and capable, but perhaps lower-profile one, gets overlooked. I want hiring managers to see beyond tangible work products and project plans and consider a candidate’s thought process. Doing this helps overcome biases. It doesn’t take long for a hiring manager to discover that charisma alone doesn’t go far in solving problems. 

Hiring managers love this approach because, let’s face it, there’s nowhere for a candidate to hide. Two-way Try On is a chance to see how a potential new leader thinks about the organizations’ challenges, responds to feedback, and collaborates with team members. And, I’ll admit, there’s no better feeling than when I see a low-profile candidate knock it out of the park during a performance task. 

We know this is working. Candidates tell me, time and again, that the process gives them a glimpse of their manager’s workstyle and what the actual job looks like. An organizations’ challenges are a whole lot more transparent when you dive into a piece of that work. Occasionally, candidates find that a role isn’t what they wanted, and they withdraw an application. And that’s helpful, too, because we want people to be in environments where they’ll thrive – and, we want organizations to find the best long-term fit.  

We’re learning and adapting to unlock best practices 

We know this model isn’t perfect yet, and we’re constantly grappling with ways to make it more equitable. For example, we believe that paying something (rather than nothing) for a candidate’s work during a performance task is important; we wish more firms would do it. But putting a dollar amount on the value of someone’s work is complicated, and we are continually evaluating our methods to make them as fair as possible.

We also acknowledge the risk that a performance task produces a false negative. What I mean is, there is a possibility that an otherwise skilled candidate could choke during a performance task. They’re working in a vacuum, after all, and don’t have the benefit of collaborating and iterating the way they would on the job. But that risk feels lower than the benefits we’ve seen. 

As a first-generation American and college graduate, I know what it's like to be overlooked or underestimated. I know the power of privilege and the subsequent results of lack of access. That’s why I’m honored to be trusted by our partner organizations to be on this journey of strategizing strong talent acquisition processes and hiring decisions. And why I’m grateful for the many candidates who have trusted me with their career aspirations.

If you are a hiring manager looking for an innovative way to fill a position, I invite you to learn more about our Signature Search service. If you are a job candidate looking for the right role for you, check out our active searches. If you are a human treading water in a role – navigating ambiguity, learning, and rocking that assets-based mindset – check out our Expert Advisory service which now includes over 70 experienced mentors across all functional areas.