You’ve been spooked!
August 27, 2010 by Iain
After recent reports surrounding MI6 some interesting facts have been released about how they recruit their agents…
The notoriously secretive agency recruits the brightest and best from top universities. But instead of the traditional tap on the shoulder from their Oxbridge tutor, MI6’s new spooks go through a disappointingly mundane recruitment process.
Roles are advertised in the paper, candidates are invited to attend an interview and, just like thousands of companies across the country it protects, MI6 asks potential spooks to complete a psychometric test.
So why does MI6 use psychometric testing? To reduce the risk of recruiting the wrong person for the role. Sound familiar? It should if your organisation uses psychometric assessment tools. Whether you are organising a sales call, engineering a new product or integrating yourself into a foreign society, natural temperament, character and ability will be the key to your success.
As we’re now into spook speak and the world of James Bond, what would you say his profile would look like? I’ve taken a guess below:
Generalist Persuader
An ability to assume a strong leadership role of a generalist nature with a need for autonomy and authority. A clear preference for initiating and setting own direction an orientation towards achieving results and sense of urgency to set and realise goals. An aptitude for keeping a wide variety of tasks on stream a predisposition towards persuasiveness, able to sell his own ideas to others in a diplomatic manner.
Sound right? What temperament traits would you say James Bond displays? Leave a comment below…
Well, it seems to me that what we call Emotional Intelligence….a high degree of self-awareness, able to read others and your impact on them….in real terms a Machiavellian character…the ability to adapt your behaviour to best suit your surroundings, be it people or the plot that is unfolding…….This seems to me to be useful in a “Spy”….
Also the ability to blindly follow your boss and pretend there are WMD wherever they tell you?
How do they spot those nasty spooks? Infiltrators, those determined to cause a bit of chaos?
Paul, with difficulty. Often a misunderstood part of recruitment is the difference between ‘natural behaviours’ and ‘learned behaviours’.
Natural behaviours includes your goal-orientation, competitiveness, ability to work within guidelines etc.
Learned behaviours are the parts of us we can change – attitudes, beliefs, maturity etc.
Good interviewers will be able to draw these areas out by using good questioning – you can see a sample here in McQuaig’s Interview Guide – http://www.holstgroup.co.uk/images/sample_ws_job_fit_interview_guide.pdf
Natural behavioural questions start on page 4, learned behaviours on page 11. Please note that this is a sample report – the questions are different for every role, but it should give you a flavour.