In a recent episode of the podcast You Should Know, Assaf Bar-Moshe, Chief of Research and Development Officer at HiringBranch, discussed new research that challenges the common practice of scoring job candidates on individual skills such as empathy, active listening, and reassurance. The episode, titled "Assessing Skills One at a Time Is Costing You Better Hires," highlights findings that could reshape how employers evaluate frontline talent in customer service roles.
Bar-Moshe explained that HiringBranch's research found that reporting these skills as isolated scores yields only moderate correlation with human annotators, whereas a combined proprietary model shows much stronger correlations. This suggests that the interaction of these skills, rather than their individual presence, is more indicative of on-the-job success. "If a candidate can express empathy, but is unable to solve the issue correctly or to comprehend the issue correctly or to reassure the customer, then this empathy is nice, but it's actually useless," Bar-Moshe said.
The Montreal-based assessment company uses an open-ended, voice-and-writing assessment design that measures four pillars of customer service: acknowledgment, reassurance through positive language, empathy, and active listening. Their approach is linguistic rather than personality-based, employing a "sociopragmatic analysis of the words that the candidate is actually saying." This method, developed by a team of IO psychologists and linguists, uses years of textual data to build machine learning models that predict these skills, then validates them against actual job performance months after hire.
One of the key insights from the discussion is the importance of context in assessment. Bar-Moshe noted that calibrations differ by client, industry, and even geography, with regional variations across markets like Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal shaping different scoring weights for the same role. This means that a one-size-fits-all approach to evaluating customer service skills is inadequate. Instead, assessments should be tailored to the specific demands of the job and the cultural nuances of the region.
The podcast also touched on the practical implications for hiring managers. Bar-Moshe previewed a self-serve capability in development that would allow hiring managers to build assessments from a library of conversation flows and skills, reducing reliance on weak or generic job descriptions. This could democratize access to sophisticated assessment tools, enabling smaller companies to benefit from the same insights as larger enterprises.
William Tincup, co-host of the show, shared a relatable anecdote about a retail confrontation over mispriced broccoli that turned on diplomacy rather than policy, illustrating the real-world importance of these skills in customer interactions. The episode underscores that hiring decisions based on isolated skill scores may overlook candidates who excel in holistic customer service, leading to costly mis-hires.
The full study will be available under the AI research tab on the HiringBranch website, offering further insights into how employers can improve their hiring processes. As the workforce evolves, this research serves as a reminder that the sum of a candidate's abilities often matters more than any single trait.
