How (and why) we recruited for The Tooth Fairy using Predictive Index

COVID-19 hasn’t been good for business for Gateway. Recruiting activity has of course plummeted and so I decided to start a networking group for leaders in industry so that they could get some advice and insights on their job search.

We’ve been holding biweekly virtual meetings and during one I walked them through the process that we use employing Predictive Index in setting a behavioral and cognitive job target to recruit for.

The exercise also helped participants to understand the clues to the desired behavioral traits in a job posting. This in turn would allow them to take parts of their personalized PI and apply them to their application for a role.

The Tooth Fairy was a humorous and whimsical attempt at using PI to set the job target. We had 4 stakeholders who answered PI’s questionnaire ahead of the meeting and after they negotiated the profile they took questions from the wider group on what other areas that they might want to consider.

Skip to the end for the job description that I wrote for them.

Not surprisingly we started with a diverse range of behavioral traits but as the stakeholders discussed the role, the organization and the deliverables we managed to fine tune them a little bit.

The image at the top shows what we came up with.

You’ll see that we came up with a reserved and independent person who conforms pretty heavily to rules, process and governance.

Three of the four stakeholders identified a Caraftsman profile, somebody who is steady, detailed and works well in an environment with structure and process.

Funnily enough, this profile can be sensitive to criticism so it’s a good job the money under the pillow is always met with a positive response.

So here’s the job description.

Job Description – Tooth Fairy

An opportunity has opened up with our client, a global organization, serving the needs of childcare and early childhood development.

Your role will be to retrieve children’s milk teeth from under their pillows and leave money in place. The amount of money will be largely dependent on the socio-economic profile of the house occupants and the neighbourhood in which you are exchanging.

Reporting to the Regional Department Head, you will work a regular night shift with occasional needs for overtime depending on the caseload.

Travel will be extensive and obviously fully expensed, you will also be required to carry extensive supplies of coins and bills to exchange for children’s milk teeth. Those teeth should be returned to head office for disposal.

Routes will be emailed late afternoon every day, this is a typically reactive business with little room for error, demand absolutely must be satisfied as we have a very exacting client base.

Skills and experience

  • No previous industry experience is required.
  • There is absolutely no customer contact, this is a delivery role
  • Valid driver’s licence is absolutely essential
  • Comfortable with company policies that don’t always conform to local laws.
  • Strong excel skills.
  • Commitment to delivery, working on compressed deadlines.
  • Ability to pivot to customer demands on short notice as the delivery schedule isn’t generally distributed until 2 hours before sunset.

Interested applicants should email a resume to…..