The following is an excerpt from Chapter 15 of Volume I of The Mortgage Professional's Handbook:

THE KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL TALENT ACQUISITION IN 2030
Patricia Sherlock, Founder and President
QFS Sales Solutions

Three Future Talent Acquisition Trends in Mortgage Banking

In my view, there are three TA major trends for mortgage lenders going forward:

1. People Analytics, Rookies, Upskilling and Reskilling

As more sales industry veterans leave the workforce, mortgage firms will have to commit to rethink on their overwhelming dependence on “gut feelings” during the interview process and on other on flawed performance such as previous pipeline reports and W-2s.

Lenders and TA groups will have to shift from reliance on historical information and move to predictive analysis using leading metrics. A more data-driven approach to human capital management will require using data and being comfortable with the analysis. TA will become a hub of all business decisions vs its current administrative role as a clean-up group when personnel problems occur.

TA groups will step to a more proactive, forward-thinking position and leaving behind its touchy-feely reputation in business. Empathy will still be part of its interaction with employees, but data analytics will become increasingly important to drive bottom line results.

People analytics will be critical when attracting new employees from other industries due to workforce shortages as mortgage professionals age out of the business. Rookies will no longer be limited to college graduates, but will encompass individuals with a wide variety of business and personal backgrounds who will have to receive the tools and support to be successful. The challenge for TA groups will be is identifying candidates with the talent for a position where a lender will be investing training dollars. Without people analytics, businesses increase the risk of making poor hiring decisions and losing their training investment.

For a TA group, the identifying and analyzing a potential employee’s internal behaviors and cognitive ability will become a critical component in the selection process for all positions.

Understanding a person’s strengths and weaknesses requires a more scientific approach in identifying traits for a position whether a candidate is applying to join a firm or is an employee who can move from operations to sales or vice versa. This is where TA groups will have to use assessments and be knowledgeable about the science behind them.

In my 20+ years of providing pre-hire assessments to the mortgage industry based on actual validation studies on what personality traits predict mortgage sales success, I find that many companies are still basing their hiring decisions on outdated methods that are not predictive of job success. Interviews and W-2s are significantly less effective indicators of success in origination. It is way past time that mortgage companies adopted a more scientific approach in their evaluation of sales candidates.

Not all personality assessments are suited for personnel selection. Case in point: as Myers -Briggs executive Sherrie Haynie said in a recent Forbes’s article, “…we have long held the position our assessment shouldn’t be used in hiring, but rather for team-building, conflict management, leadership development and other non-selective purposes.” Haynie further stated “using a personality assessment for hiring when it wasn’t designed to be used for hiring can raise legal issues and is unethical use.”

Understanding the differences between assessments can be complex. Personality assessments must meet a suitability test before being used. Suitability is defined as whether the assessment is reliable and valid. Reliability means that if the same person takes the same test multiple times under similar circumstances, they will get similar results. Validation refers to its ability to measure what it purports to measure. Some assessments can’t be shown to meet both requirements and should not be used by lenders.

TA groups will be also be challenged to tap into their present company staff and identify employees who can move to future positions. The reskilling and upskilling of current employees and moving them into other positions has always been lacking in mortgage banking but in 2030 this will be an essential component of their responsibilities. Reskilling and upskilling require analyzing an individual employee’s strengths and weaknesses and whether they are a match for a specific position. Just because an employee wants to move into a certain position doesn’t mean that they should be transferred to it. Employee preferences are important but talent matters too. TA groups will need to use a science-based approach to evaluate their current skill sets and identify what reskilling is needed to move an employee forward.

Read the rest of this chapter in The Mortgage Professional's Handbook!

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