Predictive hiring: How HR can identify employee engagement during the interview
And why brilliant resumes often lead to expensive hiring mistakes
The resume shines, the interview goes smoothly, the references seem flawless. But six months later, it becomes clear that although the new colleague is highly qualified, they have long since quit quietly. A classic mismatch that not only eats up salary and recruiting costs, but also destabilizes teams, strains customer relationships, and delays projects.
Gallup estimates the global cost of lack of engagement at $8.9 trillion per year. That’s almost nine percent of global GDP. Only 21% of employees are engaged at work, 62% do the bare minimum, and 15% actively work against their managers and teams. These figures illustrate that the problem does not begin on the first day of work, but already during the recruiting process. Many companies carefully check whether candidates can perform the tasks. However, the crucial question is: Will this person be really committed to the job?
What drives engagement
Engagement is not a “nice-to-have,” but rather the most important performance driver in modern organizations. Gallup and other studies identify three areas of relationships that have a significant impact on motivation, loyalty, and thus also results:
- Employees – managers: Trust, clarity, and meaning are crucial here. Up to 70% of the differences in employee engagement can be directly attributed to the manager.
- Employees – Colleagues: Teams with high engagement have 59% less turnover, even in organizations with generally high turnover rates.
- Employees – Customers: Engaged employees increase customer satisfaction by 10% and sales by up to 20%.
These relationships are not soft factors. They determine whether a project succeeds, whether a team sticks together, and whether customers remain loyal in the long term. Nevertheless, traditional interviews hardly capture factors that indicate a successful relationship on these three levels. A standard question such as “Are you a team player?” says nothing about whether someone can actually build functioning relationships in the work environment.
Personality as the key to engagement
Personality research has shown that traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and low neuroticism scores (emotional stability) are reliable predictors of performance, loyalty, and customer focus. However, traditional questionnaires cannot measure these traits reliably. Instead, recruiters get:
- Social desirability: Candidates know which answers seem “right.”
- The interview persona: Applicants’ answers that reflect a deliberately constructed image rather than their authentic personality.
Companies feel secure, but the results are distorted – and bad hires are inevitable.
Language reveals engagement potential
Companies that want to make sure they get engaged employees rely on a thorough personality analysis of their applicants, using the latest AI tech and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Studies show that people can consciously control what they say, but not really how they say it. Choice of words, sentence structure, punctuation – all of these reveal initial signs of personality patterns that are difficult to conceal. Based on open-ended text responses that candidates formulate in a relaxed atmosphere at their desk, AI recognizes factors such as an increased risk of egocentrism or a strong orientation toward cooperation –differences that are crucial for assessing engagement potential long before it becomes apparent in everyday work. Important: Higher scores aren’t a reason to disqualify a candidate, but they give the interviewer important clues about what questions to ask during the job interview.
Engaged employees accept leadership
An often overlooked aspect: commitment depends not only on how well a manager leads, but also on whether employees can recognize and accept good leadership. A study from 2021 shows that employees with high self-efficacy and openness remain more committed even under mediocre leadership, while others are quicker to withdraw. This means that it is not only managers who are responsible for commitment. The personality of the employees also determines whether leadership is effective. Those who accompany change constructively, place trust in others, and support decisions remain motivated longer, even in difficult environments. These qualities are critical to success, especially in demanding industries such as consulting or finance, where uncertainty and regulation are part of everyday life, or in the tech sector, where priorities are constantly shifting.
Employee engagement drives business success
The economic effects of high employee engagement in companies are measurable:
- 37% higher productivity in highly engaged teams,
- 23% higher profitability because motivated employees create better customer experiences,
- 65% lower staff turnover.
This contrasts with the immense costs of hiring the wrong person. On average, this costs 1.5 to 3 times the annual salary and often runs into six figures for senior roles in IT, consulting, or finance. A more precise selection based on authentic personality profiles costs only a fraction of this. And usually pays for itself already by avoiding a single wrong hire.
From skill match to commitment match
The crucial question for CEOs, HR executives, and recruiters today is no longer: Can this person do the job? But rather: Will they be engaged in doing it? AI-based personality analyses and the evaluation of open-ended text responses provide a valid answer to this question. These methods are difficult to manipulate and can be integrated into the recruiting process immediately.
Those who identify tendencies toward relationship skills in the three critical areas – with managers, teams, and customers. Before the first interview not only make better hiring decisions, but also strengthen the resilience and competitiveness of their organization.
Prof. Dr. Florian Feltes
Prof. Dr. Florian Feltes is co-founder and co-CEO of zortify and a forerunner in AI-supported HR innovation. Together with his team, he develops intelligent personality diagnostics and helps companies identify the perfect candidates—without expensive assessments and without bias. His vision: a world in which every company can effortlessly form high-performance teams and create work environments that allow human potential to flourish.
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