Multi-national hires Toowoomba psychologist to find next top Executive

A multi-national manufacturing company has chosen a Toowoomba psychologist to find a senior executive for its southeast Asian branch.

Jamie Smith, who is Managing Director of Toowoomba recruitment and human resources firm JP Smith, was engaged by the German company for his expertise in industrial related psychology.

They flew Mr Smith to their headquarters in Kuala Lumpur to conduct one week of intensive profiling with 10 potential candidates from Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

“The client was seeking advice on succession planning and its business interests in the southeast Asia region,” Mr Smith said.

“My role is to help them understand their current organisational capabilities and if the suitable candidate is someone already within their large organisation,” he said.

“I conducted structured interviews, psychological profiling and evaluations with 10 of their brightest up-and-coming talents from across various sections of their organisation.

“Being an international company, the candidates had diverse cultural and language backgrounds so I had to adjust my testing instruments and approaches to accommodate that,” he said.

It was Mr Smith’s first visit to the country and he was impressed with the energy and friendliness of the people he met.

“The company’s office is in the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s industrial estate. It is a very busy, industrious and interesting place,” he said.

“Everyone has big personalities and were friendly, welcoming and enthusiastic. We ate lunch together every day and they really made me feel like part of the organisation.”

Mr Smith said psychological profiling was of immense benefit to businesses because it studied a person’s behaviour and not just the raw data from psychometric tests.

It is helpful for recruitment and training but is also used for team and personal development, workforce strategic planning and succession planning.

“Data is great but personal interaction with data is even better,” Mr Smith said.

“An experienced psychologist can better understand a person’s attributes, strengths and weaknesses by asking the right questions and observing their responses,” he said.

“This is extremely important when recruiting someone to a senior role because those appointments can have momentous implications for business.”

Mr Smith will present his final report and recommendations to the client next month.