How Collingwood Helps Companies to Grow: Beyond the Numbers

At Collingwood, our core mission is to help companies grow, not just by filling vacancies, but by providing honest consultancy, challenging outdated processes, and opening doors to talent that others might overlook. We work in partnership with our clients to understand their business, their culture, and their ambitions. And sometimes, helping a company grow means asking tough questions.

A great example of this is a long standing client of ours a highly reputable, traditional organisation we’ve supported over many years. We’ve placed a wide variety of roles with them, some fairly straightforward, and others considerably more complex. The more difficult ones weren’t challenging because of location or salary although those are common hurdles. Instead, the difficulty lay in the mindset of some of the hiring managers.

This client had adopted a rigid approach to psychometric assessments, a “computer says no” mentality. Psychometrics, when used properly, can be an excellent tool for understanding a candidate’s values, behaviours, and learning styles. They can also play a valuable role in onboarding and long term performance management. However, when psychometric assessments become gatekeepers rather than guides when a single score is used to discount someone without considering their full profile they become a barrier to growth.

In our case, talented individuals were being ruled out solely because they didn’t meet a minimum percentage score on the assessment. These weren’t average candidates. They were highly accomplished professionals with proven track records. One had even won multiple awards for being the top performing Branch Manager in their current role. Several had been personally recommended to us by respected industry contacts. Their performance was not hypothetical, it was visible, measurable, and outstanding.

So why was our client still saying no? The answer, we discovered, was fear. A culture had developed within the company, perhaps unintentionally, where hiring managers felt under immense pressure. If they hired someone who hadn’t hit the required psychometric score, and that individual didn’t perform, they were held accountable. The psychometric test had become a safety net, a way to remove perceived risk. But in reality, it was limiting their talent pool and holding the company back.

This is where Collingwood makes a difference. We don’t just fill roles, we consult, and we challenge when necessary. To help companies grow, we sometimes need to push back. In this case, we shared market insights, performance evidence, and candidate endorsements to show our client what they were missing. We helped them understand the potential harm of discarding exceptional talent based on a percentage point.

We proposed a simple but powerful change to their hiring process. Instead of using the psychometric assessment as an initial filter, we advised meeting candidates first, giving them the opportunity to speak to the hiring managers and present their achievements. Only after that would they complete the assessment. That way, the client would view them as people first, accomplished professionals with stories, not just scores.

The result? A significant shift in mindset. While the client still uses psychometric assessments and that’s absolutely fine, they now see them as one part of a much bigger picture, not the deciding factor. Importantly, they’ve learnt to use the results to support and manage the individual once hired, not to screen them out before a conversation has even begun.

This adjustment didn’t just improve the hiring process, it helped the business grow. We successfully placed talented individuals who have since made real impact within the organisation. And it all began with a change in perspective.

Psychometric assessments can be a valuable tool, but they should never replace human judgement. They’re indicators, not conclusions. When used wisely, they can support better decisions, smoother onboarding, and long term development. But when used as a hard stop, they risk closing the door on exactly the kind of talent that drives growth.

So we ask: is your organisation overly reliant on psychometric scores? Could a shift in approach open you up to individuals who could transform their department, their team  even your entire business?

At Collingwood, we believe growth comes from thinking differently, being open to new ways of working, and trusting the value of a human conversation. That’s how we help companies grow  one informed, consultative hire at a time.