Criteria CEO & Co-Founder Josh Millet
05/20/22 • 32 min
Josh Millet, CEO & Co-Founder of Criteria, breaks down our old, outdated ideas of standard hiring processes and explains the importance of using newer and improved science-based assessment tools. Josh founded his company, Criteria, 15 years ago and uses his experience in software development and organizational psychology to delve into the flaws of our hiring systems. Josh highlights the gap between the scientific evidence and the indexing measures that organizations are using to hire their employees and gives some insight into how to minimize this gap. We gain an understanding that, although experience and academic achievement seem related to success, they should not be the only factors influencing your ability to get hired. In order to implement this process, organizations need to rethink the boundaries of their talent pool and use new methods to filter potential employees. This episode is helpful for both the employee and employer, delving into how to be better prepared for the hiring process and how to implement this process for better business outcomes!
Key Points From This Episode:
- A welcome to today’s guest, Josh Millet.
- A look at Josh’s career background and the origin of his company, Criteria.
- Exploring different jobs Josh had before he discovered his ideal place in the working world.
- The influence of organizational psychology on his business plan.
- Exploring the business's goals while understanding the needs of its target market.
- Understanding the gap between scientific research and organizations' hiring practices.
- How hiring based on resumes and interviews recognizes the wrong talent signals.
- How Criteria creates objective and standardized assessments for measuring talent signals.
- A brief history of why companies are indexing incorrectly, leading to inaccurate evaluation.
- Shifting the interview process from hypothetical problem-solving to work-based situations.
- The ineffective, non-diversifying, and problematic outcomes of focusing on resumes.
- The importance of hiring adaptable, problem-solving, and versatile employees for the evolving business world.
- How Josh created effective, bias-reduced, and objective assessments as a tool to funnel a talent pool of candidates.
- The importance of intentionality in all aspects of the talent-acquisition process.
Tweetables:
“Demanding experience, especially for entry and mid-level type roles, is really systematically excluding early career folks.” — @joshmillet [0:06:47]
“A better way to predict performance and measure potential is to look for stronger talent signals rather than indexing heavily off the weaker ones like years of experience and educational pedigree.” — @joshmillet [0:10:40]
“The more complex the role is, the more important learning ability is.” — @joshmillet [0:16:32]
“Assessments and structured interviews essentially establish rules and objectivity that allow you to make more informed talent decisions that aren’t swayed by things that really aren’t predictive of success.” — @joshmillet [0:23:31]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Josh Millet, CEO & Co-Founder of Criteria, breaks down our old, outdated ideas of standard hiring processes and explains the importance of using newer and improved science-based assessment tools. Josh founded his company, Criteria, 15 years ago and uses his experience in software development and organizational psychology to delve into the flaws of our hiring systems. Josh highlights the gap between the scientific evidence and the indexing measures that organizations are using to hire their employees and gives some insight into how to minimize this gap. We gain an understanding that, although experience and academic achievement seem related to success, they should not be the only factors influencing your ability to get hired. In order to implement this process, organizations need to rethink the boundaries of their talent pool and use new methods to filter potential employees. This episode is helpful for both the employee and employer, delving into how to be better prepared for the hiring process and how to implement this process for better business outcomes!
Key Points From This Episode:
- A welcome to today’s guest, Josh Millet.
- A look at Josh’s career background and the origin of his company, Criteria.
- Exploring different jobs Josh had before he discovered his ideal place in the working world.
- The influence of organizational psychology on his business plan.
- Exploring the business's goals while understanding the needs of its target market.
- Understanding the gap between scientific research and organizations' hiring practices.
- How hiring based on resumes and interviews recognizes the wrong talent signals.
- How Criteria creates objective and standardized assessments for measuring talent signals.
- A brief history of why companies are indexing incorrectly, leading to inaccurate evaluation.
- Shifting the interview process from hypothetical problem-solving to work-based situations.
- The ineffective, non-diversifying, and problematic outcomes of focusing on resumes.
- The importance of hiring adaptable, problem-solving, and versatile employees for the evolving business world.
- How Josh created effective, bias-reduced, and objective assessments as a tool to funnel a talent pool of candidates.
- The importance of intentionality in all aspects of the talent-acquisition process.
Tweetables:
“Demanding experience, especially for entry and mid-level type roles, is really systematically excluding early career folks.” — @joshmillet [0:06:47]
“A better way to predict performance and measure potential is to look for stronger talent signals rather than indexing heavily off the weaker ones like years of experience and educational pedigree.” — @joshmillet [0:10:40]
“The more complex the role is, the more important learning ability is.” — @joshmillet [0:16:32]
“Assessments and structured interviews essentially establish rules and objectivity that allow you to make more informed talent decisions that aren’t swayed by things that really aren’t predictive of success.” — @joshmillet [0:23:31]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Previous Episode
LandTech Chief People Officer Sarah Wasif
Joining us on Talk Talent To Me today is Sarah Wasif, Chief People Officer at LandTech. Today Sarah outlines what scaling looks like for the company and how she plans on executing growth. Next, she outlines the important things to be considered when a company grows and how you can be adaptable to things that may not work on a larger scale. Sarah then tells us how and what elements of a business should be localized when moving into different areas and what should remain as is. Sarah discusses some of the tricks she has found helpful when trying to keep original employees happy and maintain the company’s original value system before telling us how she ensures that new employees align with those values and are a good fit. Lastly, Sarah discusses how the world has changed to incorporate an emphasis on personal behavior in the workplace. Tune in to find out how to expand a company globally and stay true to its values.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Introducing today’s guest, Sarah Wasif.
- Sarah explains her background and how she landed up working at LandTech.
- What scaling looks like for Sarah over the next few years.
- How Sarah plans on executing her growth plans for the company.
- How she will see what will work and what won’t in a company of a larger scale than before.
- Sarah outlines the pillars used in her strategies.
- Pillar one: the way you attract people.
- Pillar two: how you retain them.
- Pillar three: sustainability.
- How elements will have to be localized as the company expands globally.
- Why Sarah thinks Americans index more on equity in a company.
- Examples of areas LandTech are going to focus on before they expand.
- How the company keeps the original team members happy as the team expands.
- How maintaining the values of the company will keep employees happy for years.
- How to ensure new employees align with company values.
- Sarah explains the safe conversations she wants to have with potential employees.
- The importance of teaching people about how the world works.
- Sarah outlines how business has changed to emphasize employee behavior.
Tweetables:
“I haven't joined and worked in a business where some of those early individuals are still A, here, and B, as passionate as the first day I landed eyes on them nearly four years ago.” — @Sarah_Wasif [0:15:12]
“I think I would have paid really good money, not even in my early career, even in school, [for someone to teach me] how the world operates.” — @Sarah_Wasif [0:22:27]
“The concept of emotional intelligence is no longer a soft, fluffy, nice to have. I think companies and successful companies are really honing in into it.” — @Sarah_Wasif [0:23:40]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Next Episode
Insider SVP of People & Culture Nailah Banks-Embden
Talk Talent To Me LIVE RSVP:
New York City - The Canary Club - June 1st
San Francisco - Shelton Theatre - June 8th
London - The Steel Yard - June 16th
Today on Talk Talent To Me, we are joined by Nailah Banks-Embden, SVP of People and Culture at Insider. Nailah explains how she was able to introduce a culture of inclusivity and diversity at Insider and how she was able to make culture a priority for the company. Nailah also delves into how Insider is going to focus on career development this year before giving us an overview of how they will help employees use their abundance of resources effectively. She tells us how she knew that Insider was ready for a change and what that entails as well as who will be responsible for their future plans. Finally, Nailah tells us what her hopes are for the future of the company and gives a word of advice to people who aspire to forge their career in the same direction she has.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Introducing the guest Nailah Banks-Embden.
- An overview of Nailah’s background and how she ended up in her current role at Insider.
- Why experience in recruiting and connecting with experts in the field is imperative.
- Nailah explains the process of interviewing for her current job.
- What Nailah was looking for at the time of interviewing for her current job with Insider.
- How she reflected and figured out what she wants in her career.
- The importance of allowing employees to be themselves in company culture.
- How she was able to ensure that Insider was ready for a culture of inclusivity.
- How she went about turning that culture into policy for the company.
- How Insider is going to invest in career development this year.
- The strategy at Insider is to help employees use their resources most effectively.
- How Nailah knew that the company had outgrown its previous systems.
- Nailah explains who will be responsible for all the content Insider plans to create.
- What her ideal outcome of all these changes is.
- Nailah’s opinion of Slack as a source of communication.
- Discussing the abundance of software used today.
- Advice Nailah would give to people aspiring to have roles such as hers.
Tweetables:
“One of my number one values is authenticity and bringing my whole self to work and not having to compartmentalize who I am when I'm at work.” —Nailah Banks-Embden [0:09:23]
“Don't be afraid to take a risk. Take that leap and if it doesn't work out, you gain experience, you learn from it, and you're better the next time you embark on a new role.” —Nailah Banks-Embden [0:22:36]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
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