Episode description

Today we are looking at using behavioral assessments for more successful hiring outcomes. When evaluating candidates, hiring teams tend to focus on hard skills like computer proficiency or technical aptitudes, but even a highly qualified candidate can be wrong for a job if they lack the right soft skills such as emotional intelligence, collaboration and problem-solving.   Here we discuss how behavioral assessments can be used to help hiring teams support decision-making to determine who can work most effectively in the organization.
 
 Our guest today is Melanie Shaffer, President/Founder of Talent Suite. She has spent over 16 years in the Talent Management space both in a boutique firm setting and in a national publicly held recruiting firm where she received numerous awards for her national rankings and client feedback. She has always had a passion for partnering with her clients to understand their business challenges, values and culture allowing her to become a trusted advisor in developing meaningful and measurable talent performance strategies.  Melanie equips her clients with the ability to align, measure & design optimal human capital performance for selecting and managing talent by providing turnkey solutions, processes, training and coaching.
 
 Your HR Problem Solver host is Mark Mitford, a strategic HR leader who is business and HR focused.  Mark is a management team advisor with 20+ years working as an HR executive in mid-size to Fortune 50 companies. He brings in depth, hands on experience successfully leading and advising company and business leaders through all life cycle stages.  Mark is viewed as a key advisor to C-Level Executives and has strengths in Improving Company Culture, Performance Management, Compensation Benchmarking, Employee Engagement, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Coaching, Succession Planning and Mergers and Acquisitions.
 
 During his career, Mark has successfully held HR executive positions in companies such as PepsiCo, Ericsson, Nortel, Telmar, Texas Instruments and Safeco.  Mark has also worked for private equity backed organizations, S Corporations, and publicly traded firms and has lived and worked extensively overseas.  He has led several Enterprise wide transformations including Cultural Change and IT transformational change at Fortune 500 companies. He holds two Masters’ degrees, one in Organizational Psychology, and an MBA in Strategy and International Management.   
 
 In 2013, Mark transitioned from a Corporate HR career to start his own HR Strategic consulting company, HR Catalyst Consulting with the goal of helping small to mid-market companies in growth or change and in need of Human Capital leadership to drive their continued growth and success.  You can reach us through our website – hrcatalystconsulting.com