The Science Behind Wisnio - go beyond the resume

Focusing on surface-level candidate characteristics like skills and experience is easy to do. However, it is the underlying constructs of an individual's behaviour that determines a candidate's suitability for a role, and this data isn't on their resume.

Wisnio combines behavioural science and machine learning technology to give you objective insights into the deep-level characteristics and motivations of individuals.

Going beyond surface-level characteristics helps leaders better understand the candidates they interview and how well they will fit into the teams they'll be joining.

Fit theory and its role in defining team and role contexts

Fit is defined as the degree to which individual and organisational attributes are compatible, and is an important cornerstone of team analytics and candidate assessment¹. According to behavioural science research, fit takes two forms:

Supplementary fit focuses on values and personality

Research suggests that supplementary fit relates to attitudes towards peers, job attitudes and organisational citizenship². When focusing on supplementary fit and value matching in hiring, the results are:

• Stronger organisational culture
• Increased engagement
• Improved employee retention

Focus on person-team fit

Many enterprises have shifted focus towards company culture-fit approaches when hiring. However, understanding the fit between individual differences and organisation-level characteristics, especially in large enterprises, is near-impossible.

To top it off, there can be huge differences in internal culture between teams or departments in a single company.

There is also the issue of balancing diversity and fit to create teams that are aligned and well-rounded. Doing this requires a clear, objective understanding of individual and team preferences, as well as the right tools to make these insights clear and easy to grasp.

Success is where fit meets diversity

A team made up exclusively of creative people may lack pragmatism, and a team of methodical people may lack room for flexibility in idea generation. Depending on the team’s goals and objectives, a diverse group may do better than one with very similar traits and motivational preferences.

Understanding where diversity or fit is more important is an essential part of hiring, especially at an executive level. Behavioural insights and tools that visualise individual variability within a team can help hiring managers navigate the complexities of human preferences to make effective people decisions.

Define contexts with competency assessments

In 1993, Spencer and Spencer³ defined competencies as behaviours or thought processes that lead to superior job performance. Based on their groundbreaking research, Wisnio's Competency Survey asks users to rank 20 competencies. The insights are used to evaluate role suitability and team strengths.

Use competencies for hiring and team development

Competencies are the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform a job successfully. Usually, there are a few core competencies that differentiate top performers in a given industry and job function.

Systematically defining a job's critical competencies and evaluating candidates' competencies is the most objective way to shortlist candidates. Doing so brings clarity to the early stages of the hiring process, where the potential for ambiguity and bias is highest.

The science of personality and its role in hiring

As the most robust and widely used personality frameworks in academic studies, the Big 5 Personality model was developed by Costa and McCrae in the 1970s⁴. Since then, their model has been used on millions of subjects and consistently demonstrates high construct validity and test-retest reliability across cultures, age, and gender.

Wisnio uses the updated IPIP NEO framework, measuring four facets or dimensions for each factor. Each facet is measured by a total of four questions using a 7-point Likert scale.

The end result is a percentile value for each personality factor on a scale of 0 to 100, as well as detailed insights into individual strengths and personal preferences in an organizational setting.

As the name suggests, the Big 5 Personality model measures five personality factors:

The role of values in forming individual motivations

Unlike personality traits, described as enduring dispositions, values relate to goals and ideals that transcend specific actions and situations. Despite being universal, the degree to which individuals care about each value varies, forming a unique hierarchical value system.

To help you identify individual value systems, Wisnio uses the refined values theory devised by Schwartz⁵. Schwartz defines values as the standards for judging behaviour both in ourselves and others and in a professional setting, they relate to the enduring goals and motivations of an individual. These value constructs have been supported across 80 countries since their publication in 1987.

Adapted from Schwartz's universal values model, Wisnio's values survey identifies core motivators and attitude-drivers, as well as the type of work environments individuals would thrive in.

Self vs. personal focus

Every value has a social or a person focus. Person-focused goals are concerned with individual outcomes, while social-focused goals are concerned with consequences for others.

Protecting vs. expanding the self

Values can also be related to protecting the self or expanding the self. Self-transcendence and openness to change values express self-expansive, growth orientations. They oppose conservation and power values, which involve self-protective, anxiety-control orientations.

Mitigating the risk of bias in the assessment process

Our strategies for mitigating the risk of bias in the assessment process follow to the best practices of modern assessment science.

First, we rely on well-known academic surveys such as the IPIP NEO and Schwartz Values Survey, which have been thoroughly validated globally. These tools are specifically chosen for their robust psychometric properties, including high reliability and construct validity. Academic validation studies consistently confirm that they accurately measure intended traits (e.g., personality and values) and are not significantly impacted by control variables such as age, gender, or demographic or socioeconomic background.

Second, we have deliberately chosen to avoid reliance on quantitative measures such as cognitive ability tests, which historically exhibit differential performance across demographic groups. Instead, we employ trait-based assessments that provide qualitative insights. This approach allows us to capture the depth and nuances of an individual’s profile without the bias often introduced by numerical scores. By presenting information qualitatively, we facilitate a more holistic view of candidates, which is crucial for understanding the unique contributions they can make to the client’s organisation.

Third, we recognise that individual differences in response styles—such as the tendency of more assertive individuals to self-evaluate consistently higher—can skew assessment results. To counteract this, surveys that are prone to response style bias, specifically the competency self-assessment, are normalised to unify results regardless of response style. This method adjusts scores to account for variances in response styles, ensuring that the assessments reflect true differences in the traits measured, rather than differences in how individuals tend to respond to survey items.

Finally, the insights are directly built into a structured interview process. To further mitigate bias and enhance the fairness of the process, the platform integrates these insights into a structured interview process and generates individual structured interview guides. This helps reduce interviewer biases and ensures that all candidates are evaluated equally based on the same criteria.

These methods ensure that not only are the assessment instruments fair and objective, but also that the process of how the insights are presented and used in the assessment and selection process facilitates a fair and equitable selection process.

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¹ van Vianen, A. E. (2018). Person–environment fit: A review of its basic tenets. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 75-101.

² Kristof‐Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals' fit at work: A meta analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel psychology, 58(2), 281-342.

³ Spencer, L.M., & Spencer, S.M. (1993). “Competence at Work: Model for superior Performance”, Human Resource Development Quarterly Vol. 5, Issue 4, pp 391-395.

⁴ McCrae, R. R., & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the five‐factor model and its applications. Journal of personality, 60(2), 175-215.

⁵ Schwartz, S. H., et al. (2012). Refining the Theory of Basic Individual Values. Journal of personality and social psychology.