QUALITY OF HIRE
Quality of hire is the metric everyone reports and nobody owns.
You can’t average your way to a better hire. You fix the decision that makes each one.
23 questions. About ten minutes. A scored read of where your hiring breaks.
THE RECOGNITION
The dashboard says 3.9 out of 5. Nobody can say what that means, whose number it is, or why turnover keeps contradicting it. Meanwhile the hiring managers grade their own hires - and grade themselves kindly.
TRANSLATION
You call it quality of hire. We call it drift - the gap between the standard you set and the standard your process actually enforces under pressure. Same disease. Ours is measurable.
Research heritage since 1999 · 60%+ of the Fortune 500 have used Qualigence · 85% retention on placed candidates over 24 months
THE SCIENCE
Why selection - the science under every service.
Most firms compete on access - who they know. We compete on evidence - what a candidate has actually done under pressure, tested against a definition of winning your team wrote down before the search opened. That is the 6-Step Performance Engine™: define winning, test identity and behavior against it, protect the standard through feedback and the decision.
It’s why 85% of our placed candidates are still performing at 24 months, and why 60%+ of the Fortune 500 have used Qualigence since 1999.
WHAT WE INSTALL
A definition of winning per role
Written before any candidate enters. Performance at 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months against the outcomes the role must produce. The debrief and the 90-day plan both check against it.
Evidence files instead of gut scores
Every finalist evaluation produces a written file: what was tested, what the evidence showed, the gaps and remaining risk. Not a culture-fit impression. A document the decision review reads.
Retention read at 24 months
85% of our placed candidates are still performing at 24 months. That number exists because we wrote the standard at intake and checked against it. We publish it because other firms don't.
Take the template with you
The Definition of Winning Template. Free, no form.
THE PLAN
One call. Bring the role and the problem you haven't been able to solve.
The engine takes it from there - research, screen, evidence, debrief.
You own the decision. We built the system that made it defensible.
Quality of hire is determined at intake - not measured at 90 days. The decision is the product.
QUESTIONS
What does quality of hire actually measure?
Most organizations measure it as a satisfaction score or manager rating set 90 days post-hire - self-assessed by the same person who approved the hire. That number doesn't correlate to retention because it's taken before the hire has been tested under real pressure. Real quality of hire measures whether the hired person is performing at the standard set at intake at 90 days, 12 months, and 24 months.
Why does quality of hire keep contradicting our turnover numbers?
Because quality of hire is usually rated before the hire has been tested. The manager who approved the hire is also the one rating quality - and they grade themselves kindly. When that same person leaves 14 months later, the quality number looks like a lie. It wasn't a measurement problem. It was a standard problem.
How do you measure quality of hire in a way that holds up?
Write the definition of winning before the search opens - performance at 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months against specific outcomes the role must produce. Evaluate at each checkpoint against that standard. The question isn't 'good hire or bad hire' - it's 'did this person do what the role required, under the conditions it demanded.' That question requires a written answer, not a gut score.
What's the fastest way to improve quality of hire?
Fix the intake. Most quality problems are decision problems set before the first candidate arrives. When the definition of winning is vague, every interviewer measures a different role, feedback goes subjective, and the decision becomes a vote. A written standard at intake is the single highest-leverage intervention.
Make quality of hire a number you'd defend.
23 questions. About ten minutes. A scored read of where your hiring breaks.
