Make Better Bets

Here’s something you’ve probably never heard before:

Your best recruiters are really good at applying Bayesian probability.

This may seem like a ridiculous statement but understanding and appreciating how Bayesian inferences are being applied by your staff to identify and select talent can significantly improve your recruiting process.

Now, for the few readers left willing to follow my train of thought let me briefly explain what I mean by this.

Think of your most experienced recruiter as a professional poker player. Most anyone can learn the math behind poker, but a pro considers more than just the cards in his hand to determine risk and reward. He will make initial assumptions about how the people at the table will play their hands, but then adjusts his original assumption (or base rate) based on the intel he gathers as the games move along. His many hours at the poker table tell him that the young kid with tattoos will play bold and risky but with each hand he will adjust that impression until he has a clear picture that will give him the edge. These are Bayesian inferences, which can be defined as a method for adjusting the probability of an initial hypothesis (or belief) as more evidence or information becomes available.

Your best recruiters are able to draw from their years of experience to build an initial impression of a recruit that is fairly accurate (the base rate). They are also really good at collecting better information about the recruit and then adjusting their initial impression based on how they weigh and judge the relevance of that information. Conversely, less experienced staff will create less accurate initial impressions and will incorrectly adjust or fail to adjust their initial impression based on the data they are able to collect. If you can get your less experienced recruiters to think more like your experienced recruiters, then you can increase the probability of getting the right athlete on your team. Here are five recommendations, leveraging what we know about Bayesian statistics, that may help to improve your next recruiting class:

1. Define the Ideal. Have your staff clearly define the specific characteristics you are looking for in each position. Physically and Technically, what are the ideal characteristics? What are the Character traits that are important for the ideal athlete to possess and how do you observe them behaviorally? Your staff should talk through each trait, possibly even argue it out, until everyone is on the same page as to what “right” looks like. This will improve every recruiter’s base rate.
2. Calibrate to Reality. Recruiters can often fall prey to “Talent Blindness,” whereby an athlete’s incredible talent blinds the recruiter to other glaring issues. Consequently, your staff will fail to accurately adjust their initial impression because they over-value talent and under-value other factors that would have led to a higher probability of getting it right. To reduce this error, take the time to calibrate your staff to evaluate ALL of the ideal factors and not just talent.
3. Challenge Assumptions. Not even your best recruiters always get it right. Experts have a tendency to go with what they know, which can prevent them from seeing new data or patterns. As such, creating an environment where your staff can safely challenge one another can provide additional data that will increase the probability of making a better scholarship offer. For example, young recruiters may be familiar with a new form of social media that paints a picture that is different from the experienced recruiter’s initial impression. Allowing the younger staff to challenge the initial impression of a seasoned recruiter can lead to new data that could increase the probability of getting the right athlete on your team.
4. Collect Good Data. If you are not capturing quality data on the various factors being used to make recruiting decisions then it becomes very difficult to improve your recruiting process. Implement a system for your staff to capture their initial impressions about an athlete and the data they used to make that impression. As well, record any new data that influences their original impression. By collecting data, you and your staff can test and refine your base rates and also be more effective and faster at adjusting your understanding of an athlete that will further increase the probability of getting it right.
5. Conduct Post-Mortems. Establish a meeting once you’ve completed a recruiting class to properly reflect on your recruiting process, assess performance, and incorporate lessons learned to make next year’s recruiting class better. We call this an After-Action Review or AAR. Building in this routine will refine your base rate and identify better data that can be used to increase the probability of selecting the right athlete.

I recognize that recruiting is an inherently risky process that will never be a perfect science. You will often be put in situations where you must offer a scholarship with limited information. The good news is that every team faces this challenge. Therefore, teams that are better at making accurate initial impressions and taking full advantage of data they collect to adjust their impressions will increase their odds of making the right recruiting decisions. Implementing some or all of these recommendations here will help you and your staff to make the best bets based on the “cards you were dealt”.

The content in this post was influenced by: Duhigg, Charles. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business. 2016.