CASE STUDY

Trajectory Investments

Evaluating the Selection Rovers in a New Region

Trajectory Investments had expanded its investment services rapidis into foerien markets over the last four years. Although it had given careful attention to developing and honing its selection processes in its North American locations. Jarkson gave a tigh as he edfeedback from the compana Pacific Rim Region HR lead Gang Liam's latest email a summarized that only $50$ percent of me recen new financial services advisors in his region were considered "satisfactory" by their managers. Jackson sat back, acknowledgirig that the hiring process that had worked successful in North America for the last $10$ years samply wan't effective us produrung the same results in the Pacific Rim

Jackson had been involved with the project team that had developed the selection process for financial services advisors in North America at its usception. At the time, Trajectory had brought in Right Fit Consulting to help build the steps. The process, essentially was that appirants completed an online application, which was then erven an auto$-$assessment srove The srove was heard on the applarant's education and experience. Applicants meeting a minimam score of $50$ were invited to participate in an on$-$site assessment. at an assessment centre. North American applicants were referred to a local branch of Talent Assessors Ine where they completed assessment centre exercises in mised groups, including people who had applied to other pastions in other organizations. These exercises included a leuderliess group discussion a situatiooni judgment test, and a financial services aptitude test. Trajectory was then promiled with an overall assessment centre score for each candidate

Candidates scoring above $20$ were imited for an interview with Trajectory HR personnel as well as with the applicant's prospectne manager. Jackson recalled the careful attention that the team had paid to developing a solid structured interview with bath behaviour description and situational questions based on critical incidents. He was proud of the integrity of the sovrume guide and the thoughtful instructions that would add reliability and validay to the interview process. At the conclusion of each uiterview, the HR person and prospective supervisor would each compirte independent scores for the candidate, and then would meet to discuss their assessinents Successful candidates were then offered the job

HR had been collecting soformation about the performance of the hices made since the implementation of the hiring process cores on the interviews and indirations of whether the hire was ultimately successful at performing the financial services advisor job $($as evaluated by the hire's manager as part of the annual performance evaluation process$)$ were tracked Jackson pulled up the latest report on the rates of sucress of hires from the North American operations $($see Table $1)$ Based on the success of previous applarants and the number of applications typically received. Trajectory focused on hiring applicants who scored $20$ and higher on the interview

Wises the company first began expansion into the Pacific Rim Jackson had recommended that financial serices advisors be hired using the same process that had been honed in North America. A free adjustsoents were needed, however Fist. the application

screening tool was not available in all countries. Strict cemorship policies in China made the online screening application that Trajectory used in North America inaccessible for Chinese applicants. As a result, for the Pacific Rim region, the screening assessment was considered optional When applicants were able to successfully tog onto the tout their scores were used, but applarants were able to meme onto the assessment centre tage even if they didn't complete the job applicatus As Jackson reflected on the procem now, he knew that it would be possible for applicants to get through to later stages without the desired financial

education and experiener that Trajectory desired As for the assessment centre, Jackson admitted that there, too, the company had eut some corners. There was not a network of firms offering assessment centre services as all major centies where Trajectory was in operation in the Pacific Rim as there was in North America through its partnership wim Talent Assessors Ciang Lim tad established relationships warm local assessment centres in the cities of the major operations, but he had experssed that there was not a standardized process used by each of the firms. Some firms would run applicants through the amesament erntre indendually, which Jackson knew meant that they couldn't be running a leadertess gimp disestasion. In short, ratings from one assessment centre location were at necessarily equitabls comparable sa

assessments from other locations. Jackson rubbed his teamples to

headache beginning to form behind his eyes

Next. Jackson considered the internem process used in the