Evaluate Your Company's Y (Tao) of Hiring Score

Performance-based Hiring™

The Y (Tao) of Hiring

You won't see or attract stronger people until you fix your current hiring system — and that takes time.

The Y (Tao) of Hiring — Why? and What? Before Who?
Type 1 Error
False Positive

You hired the wrong person. The hire looked right — on paper, in the interview, on gut feel — but wasn't. The cost is visible: poor performance, team disruption, the expense of starting over.

The mistake you know you made.

Type 2 Error
False Negative

You missed the right person. They were there — in the pipeline, in the market, perhaps in the interview — but your process couldn't see them. They went elsewhere. You never knew.

The mistake you never know you made.

Most companies rush to solve the Type 2 problem — "why can't we attract stronger people?" — without first fixing the Type 1 problem that makes their process untrustworthy in the first place.

You cannot reliably recognize the right person until you've built a process that stops hiring the wrong one. Type 1 before Type 2. Always.

You won't see or attract stronger people until you fix your hiring system — and fixing the system means more than correcting errors. It means replacing a transactional process with a relational one, where the assessment runs both ways, and where the strongest candidates feel pursued, respected, and genuinely evaluated — not processed.

That transformation takes time. Months to stop the mistakes. More months for the market to notice. And ongoing commitment to build the relationships that surface people who were never going to apply to your job posting.

That's the real Tao of hiring — not a fix, but a journey from transaction to relationship.

↓ Tap each phase to expand

The starting reality
The broken state
Where most organizations begin
Type 1 dominant

"Bad hires are visible and felt. Missed great hires are invisible — the organization never knows what it lost."

  • Skills-based JDs — requirements lists that screen out strong non-traditional candidates
  • Gut-feel interviews — unstructured, prone to affinity bias, low predictive validity
  • Urgency-driven decisions — bad hire exits create the very pressure that causes the next bad hire
  • No success definition — without knowing what "right" looks like, you can't reject wrong or recognize right
Type 1 errors dominate · Type 2 errors invisible
Months 1–3
Fix the process
Layer 1 — Discipline
Stop the bleeding

"The instrument-level fix is simultaneous — a valid process solves both error types at adoption. But deployment is always sequential."

  • Performance-based Job Descriptions (PBJDs) — define the role as outcomes, not a skills checklist
  • Key Performance Objectives (KPOs) — what does success look like at 3, 6, and 12 months?
  • MSA interview technique — Most Significant Accomplishment reveals actual comparable performance
  • Hiring Formula applied — Ability × Fit × Motivation = Results, replacing gut feel with evidence
Type 1 errors stop · Type 2 still limited by who shows up
Months 3–12
Change the signal
Layer 2 — Reputation
Market notices

"Reputation is a lagging indicator of process. You have to earn it by doing it consistently before anyone believes it."

  • Job postings read differently — outcomes instead of requirements signal a different kind of employer
  • Candidate experience improves — people leave interviews feeling respected, not processed
  • Recruiters talk differently — "here's what you'll accomplish" is a genuinely different opening
  • Word spreads in market — referrals increase; active talent begins to differentiate you
Active talent pool improves · Passive talent still unreached
12+ months · Ongoing
Relational hiring
Layer 3 — Relationship
Type 2 solved

"The strongest people are not looking — they must be cultivated. Assessment must be bi-directional. A-players evaluate you as hard as you evaluate them."

  • Passive talent reachable — the process is credible enough to invite someone who wasn't looking
  • Bi-directional assessment — two professionals evaluating mutual fit, not an interrogation
  • Talent brand established — A-players self-select in because they've heard what working there looks like
  • The hire is the beginning — the relationship started before the role opened
Type 2 errors systematically eliminated

Performance-based Hiring™

Let's talk about
your hiring system.

If you're ready to stop making avoidable mistakes, reach out. We'll start with a direct conversation about where your process is breaking down.

Presented by Lou Adler · The Adler Group · Performance-based Hiring™

Lou Adler · The Adler Group
Performance-based Hiring™ — 50 years in the making.
Type 1 before Type 2. Always.