AGL's Pre-Hire Selection process adds data-driven, validated behavioral intelligence to executive and key role hiring decisions, surfacing what conversations alone cannot reveal: behavioral fit, culture alignment, motivational drivers, and the risk areas interviewers rarely know what to ask or how to probe.
At the executive and key leadership level, the cost of a wrong hire is not just a salary. It is momentum, team stability, and the time you will never get back.
A mis-hire at the senior leadership level costs far more than the expense of a search and a salary replacement. The real cost is in lost organizational momentum, disrupted team dynamics, and the months it takes to recover. Most organizations underestimate this until they live it.
A strong interview tells you how someone performs in structured, high-stakes conversations. It does not predict how they make decisions under pressure, build trust with a team, manage ambiguity, or absorb feedback when it is difficult. Those patterns are invisible in an interview. They are not invisible in behavioral data.
The majority of behavioral assessments in common use in U.S. hiring are not legally defensible for employment decisions. Organizations using them are taking on legal exposure they may not be aware of. The assessment AGL uses is built and validated specifically for employment decisions and is legally defensible in the United States. That is not a footnote. It is a requirement. And beyond legality, the value is not in a score. It is in what a skilled interpreter surfaces from the data: the behavioral patterns and risk areas that no standard interview process will reach on its own.
Pre-Hire Selection is AGL's structured candidate assessment process for executive, senior leadership, and key organizational roles where a bad hire carries significant cost and consequence. It layers validated behavioral science onto the traditional hiring process, giving the hiring team a second layer of objective, role-specific intelligence before making a final decision.
The assessment AGL uses measures 175 behavioral traits and leadership competencies across 41 languages. It has been validated through 25-plus years of research, used by more than 2.5 million professionals in 61 countries. It is not a personality test. It does not produce a pass or fail score. It measures behavioral preferences and motivational drivers, the factors that predict how someone will actually perform in a role rather than how they perform in a 60-minute panel interview.
What sets this process apart is the job-specific benchmark. Every candidate is scored not only against the other finalists but against a globally validated set of traits and behavioral competencies that define what success looks like in that specific role. That benchmark is built into the process from the start, which means the comparison is always anchored to what the role actually demands, not just to whoever else applied. No other standard interview or reference process provides this.
The assessment itself is non-threatening by design. Questions are framed around preferences, not right-or-wrong answers, which reduces candidate anxiety and produces more honest data. And because it measures preferences rather than knowledge, the results are difficult to manipulate. Candidates cannot easily "game" what they have not been asked to perform. The assessment is also legally defensible for employment decisions in the United States, built from the ground up for hiring use, not repurposed from a coaching or development tool. Most behavioral assessments in common use in U.S. hiring cannot make that claim. Using one that cannot exposes the organization to legal risk. Using one that can does not.
AGL's role is not to deliver a score. AGL conducts a structured 90-minute debrief with each candidate, produces a written comparative analysis, and meets with the hiring team to walk through the findings. The output is both data-driven and decision-ready. The behavioral data creates a structured foundation for a conversation that considers both the impressions formed during the interview process and what the data reveals. That conversation either confirms what the hiring team already observed or opens new areas worth exploring at a deeper level. Those newly opened areas are most commonly what the standard interview missed. They become the customized interview questions for the next round, giving the hiring team exactly what to ask and why it matters.
Non-threatening by design. Based on preferences, not right-or-wrong answers, so candidates engage honestly and results are reliable. Resistant to manipulation for the same reason.
Every engagement follows the same six steps. Each one is designed to build toward a clear, decision-ready output for the hiring team.
AGL meets with the hiring team to define the role, the organization's success profile, and what "the right person" needs to be true at 12 months. Alignment here is what makes the rest of the process meaningful.
Each finalist completes a 25-minute online behavioral assessment at their own pace. No time pressure. No right-or-wrong answers. The assessment measures behavioral preferences across 175 traits and leadership competencies in the language of the candidate's choosing. Each candidate is automatically scored against a job-specific benchmark that defines the most important traits for success in the role, providing an objective baseline that exists independent of who else is in the candidate pool.
AGL conducts a structured 90-minute 1:1 debrief with each candidate. This is not a second interview. It is an exploration of behavioral patterns, motivational drivers, culture fit signals, and how the candidate's profile aligns to the demands of the specific role and the organization's environment. Observations from this session add critical context to the quantitative data and inform the written report.
AGL maps every candidate against the job-specific benchmark first, then against each other. Anchoring to the benchmark before comparing candidates means the analysis reflects role requirements, not just the relative strength of whoever applied. The output identifies behavioral strengths, alignment gaps, culture fit signals, motivational risk areas, and the conditions under which each candidate will thrive or struggle.
AGL delivers a written candidate comparison report. It includes individual behavioral findings per candidate, a side-by-side comparative analysis, and a set of customized interview questions for each finalist, drawn directly from identified behavioral risk areas.
AGL meets with the hiring team or search committee to present findings and discuss implications. The data belongs to the hiring team. The decision belongs to the hiring team. AGL's role is to make that decision better informed.
The output is rich with behavioral data and structured for immediate use by the hiring team. No decoding required.
A full behavioral profile for each finalist, including trait scores, motivational drivers, leadership competency ratings, and greatest strengths, mapped to the specific role requirements.
A structured side-by-side comparison of all finalists across behavioral competencies, paradoxical strengths, emotional intelligence, and key risk areas, anchored to the specific demands of the role.
Interview questions written specifically for each candidate, drawn directly from behavioral gaps and risk areas identified in the assessment and debrief. Designed to surface what the panel interview did not.
A complete written report delivered to the hiring team, synthesizing individual findings, comparative analysis, and recommended interview follow-up questions for each finalist in an organized, readable format.
AGL meets with the hiring team or search committee to present findings, answer questions, and discuss the behavioral implications of each finalist. The purpose is to make the final decision better informed, not to make it for you.
When the hiring manager or supervisor also completes the behavioral assessment, AGL produces a compatibility analysis for each finalist, mapping behavioral complementarity, potential friction points, and the conditions needed for the relationship to work well.
AGL does not recommend who to hire. The data belongs to your team. The decision belongs to your team. AGL's role is to make sure you arrive at that decision with better information than you had before.
This process works best when the stakes of getting the decision wrong are high and the margin for error is small.
Building a repeatable, evidence-based selection process for executive roles. Looking for a structured methodology that adds behavioral rigor without adding weeks to the timeline.
Making a high-stakes hire and wanting more than gut instinct before committing. Three strong finalists with no clear differentiator in the interview process is exactly when this matters most.
Conducting a CEO or C-suite search and needing an objective, validated data layer that can be shared across committee members and documented as part of the selection process.
Presenting a final slate of candidates to a client and wanting validated behavioral science behind the recommendation. AGL works directly with search partners to add structured assessment to the final stage of the process.
What changes is how confident you feel making it.
We had three strong finalists and no clear differentiator between them on paper or in the room. The AGL process gave us a side-by-side picture of how each of them would actually perform in the role. We walked into the final decision meeting knowing exactly what we were deciding.
The interview process told us who presented well. The AGL assessment told us who would perform well. Those were not the same person. That insight alone justified the entire engagement.
We have used the AGL candidate assessment process for three consecutive executive searches. The customized interview questions they provide for each finalist have surfaced conversations we would have never had on our own. That is the part we did not expect to value as much as we do.
Pre-hire selection is a structured assessment process that evaluates executive and senior leadership candidates using behavioral science tools before a hiring decision is made. AGL's process uses Harrison Assessments to measure candidate fit across behavioral, motivational, and competency dimensions aligned to the role.
AGL's Pre-Hire Selection is built for executive and senior leadership roles where the cost of a wrong hire is high, C-suite, VP, Director, and key individual contributor roles with significant organizational impact.
Most assessments are completed within five to seven business days from the time candidates complete their Harrison Assessment. The process is designed not to slow down your hiring timeline.
The report compares multiple candidates across the same behavioral and competency dimensions. It covers role alignment, paradox mastery, engagement factors, and includes a structured interview guide with tailored questions for each finalist.
Yes. AGL's process is designed to complement your existing talent acquisition workflow. It adds a validated behavioral layer at the finalist stage without replacing your internal steps.
The first conversation is straightforward. Share the role, the timeline, and the decision you are trying to make better. AGL will tell you whether this process fits. AGL serves hiring teams in Houston, across North America, and in 25+ countries worldwide.