The traditional hiring metrics are obsolete.

Would you hire a chef without first tasting his or her food? Of course you wouldn’t. Hiring shouldn’t be any different. For years businesses have relied on the same old job interview and the same old metrics.

But things are starting to change.

Google’s VP for People Operations, Laszlo Block, told the New York Times that GPAs and test scores are essentially “worthless” to Google in its hiring process.

“For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”

So how do you measure that?

Any applicant can tell you in an interview that they're a team player. They can tell you that they’re adaptable, that they work well under pressure and that they’re a natural born leader with as much creativity as they have work ethic.

And you can either believe them or not.

The traditional hiring process also takes a considerable amount of time, between collecting applications, scheduling and conducting first round interviews, scheduling and conducting final  round interviews and then hiring someone whose cultural fit is still based on guesswork.

My business partner Peter Waters and I started Groundwork because we know there’s a better way.

One service we offer is to facilitate hiring workshops across Colorado in which the client invites all of its viable candidates to a single accelerated session. We tailor games and exercises based on the skills and competencies desired by the client. Our programs typically involve group-based problem solving to get candidates out of that pre-programmed interview-mode we all know so well.

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With these workshops we’re able to get candidates to show – rather than tell – what they bring to the table.

Our clients are able to observe how a candidate thinks, how they work in a group, when they take charge and when they take a step back. And, since the client is replacing two rounds of interviews with a single session, we also save them a significant amount of time.

Many startups have adopted games and exercises in their recruiting processes and some are introducing group workshops. But these “alternative” hiring practices are only beginning to gain traction in more traditional businesses.

We think shunning these new strategies is a mistake – and not just because we’re in the business of designing and hosting these kinds of workshops.

We’ve seen first-hand how much you can learn about a candidate’s cultural fit and actual ability to perform on Day 1. And we’ve seen how quickly these strategies can help employers fill vacancies with not just any candidate but the right candidate.

What new and innovative recruiting practices does your company use? Leave me a comment below, I’d love to hear about them!