Any military organization is a highly regimented structure with very strict rules dominating its way of life and culture. For this reason, fairly few parallels can be drawn between it and the world of business, especially because the objectives are rarely similar.
However, as ever, the military has found many different ways of structuring efficiency in their organization, even if some may critique some departments as being less than optimal, to put it politely.
Moreover, while you might not be able to court martial a problem employee (despite that being a small wish at the back of your mind), you can still use some of the techniques that come from managing staff and investing in people from the military. After all, they have to look after their people to keep them ready, and they have to review to welcome the right people in.
This presents an interesting question – is there anything the military can teach us about hiring for business? We believe so. In this post, we’ll discuss a few steps you may wish to integrate.
Psychometric Testing
Military organizations routinely use psychological evaluations to see if recruits fit the mental requirements of specific roles, especially for the more technical or complex jobs. This can often test if a person will make good decisions under pressure, work well with a team, and follow protocols.
Businesses can take a page from this playbook without going over the top, such as with simple personality and psychometric assessments to help understand how candidates process information and interact with others. That’s not to say you’re looking for a perfect machine, but at higher levels or in technical roles it will help you see how their brain works and if they have the ability to think creatively through problems.
Interview Challenges
Conversations in an interview are fine of course, but an interview practical can often show much more in relevant fields. Smart businesses are catching on to this approach, so they might implement a mini-work scenario.
A marketing candidate might need to critique a campaign on the spot, or a technical SEO agent might need to audit a web page. Perhaps a project manager might receive a fictional crisis to resolve and talk through the steps they’d go through in a real-world scenario. This shows how well someone thinks, and as they can’t perfectly prepare for it, they’ll give you a more honest answer which is always welcome.
Considering A Future
Of course, you can’t have a hire commit to a minimum term of service like they do in the military branches, but you can always talk about where this person sees themselves in their career or field, and if this is a discipline they want to pursue. You might take a military-style approach by asking: “Could this person grow into multiple roles? Do they have the foundation to learn new skills as our needs change?” This means often putting a premium on curiosity and learning capacity alongside current abilities.
The military invests heavily in promising recruits because they understand the cost of turnover, which is often important for your business too. As such, it’s good to talk to people who are serious about going far in the organization, even if you can’t stop them leaving as you could in a more regimented structure.
With this advice, you might take some advice even from the military to hire with more clarity and purpose.
