Geplaatst: 19 Jan, 2023

Brain-Based Talent Identification Enters Primera Division

Real Sociedad & BrainsFirst Sign a 3-Year Agreement

The Spanish club, currently in the top ranks, and the Amsterdam-based Sports-tech company BrainsFirst start their collaboration this month with a focus on the identification and selection of the most promising football talents.

The common goal is to make the process of talent identification & evaluation more fact-based, data-driven, and scalable. Especially in times of Corona, remote testing is of great value. BrainsFirst offers an online validated assessment games platform, by combining gamification and its neuroscience-based technology.

BrainsFirst enables Real Sociedad to assess the football brain potential – or game intelligence – of a player. This kind of data is seen as a crucial piece of the overall talent puzzle. According to previous experience i.e. The Netherlands, applying BrainsFirst as an early-funnel recruitment step leads to more justified admissions & rejections and consequently a higher efficiency in the overall process. Roberto Olabe Aranzabal, Director of Football for Real Sociedad explains: “We constantly look for relevant innovation and see cognitive data in respect to a very specific profile of a future professional football player as an added value for us. We want to have a holistic view and understand as early as possible the probability of the talents to meet those high requirements of elite football. BrainsFirst has proven to be an experienced and reliable partner for this aspect.”

BrainsFirst has had its initial experiences in Spain with Celta de Vigo and Numancia. “Real Sociedad decides to choose this approach of talent identification & evaluation for the long term. They prove to have a clear vision and want to use the tools of today to succeed in the future. We are very pleased to work with this club,” says Jens Urlbauer, Director Business Development of BrainsFirst.

About BrainsFirst

BrainsFirst BV was founded in 2012 to define the context-specific required cognitive functions of elite football players. Since 2014, the data collection, analysis & interpretation leads to a considerably higher number of justified admissions & rejections in talent academies. Dutch clubs like PSV Eindhoven, AZ Alkmaar, Feyenoord, and association KNVB are long-term partners. Clubs in Germany, Belgium, England and now Spain are kicking off.

Interested in implementing brain-based talent identification into your academy process? Contact us today or read more about our sports solutions here!

Eric Castien – Founder eric@brainsfirst.com

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Bias-Free Selection by a Computer Algorithm?

Artificial intelligence is called a great solution for good and efficient pre-screening within large numbers of resumes and candidates for years now. There is a bit of confusion around what AI can and cannot do since it is such a broad concept. But when it comes down to the war for talent AI plays a very specific role: to give more accurate and more efficient predictions of a candidate’s work-related behaviors and performance potential. In this way, it can also help to remove bias from the first steps of the selection process. It is important to use a clear definition of AI in selection. AI is, “Finding patterns that people often don’t see by analyzing large amounts of data.” These patterns are converted into algorithms that are then used to make decisions that make the selection process more objective (read with less bias) and faster.

The Benefits of AI in Selection Processes

Unlike traditional recruitment methods, AI is able to find patterns unseen by the human eye without being distracted by irrelevant background information. The use of tools based on AI brings many advantages in recruitment:

Better hiring quality
Time-saving
Better candidate assessment
Reducing bias

But watch out, it now seems that there are only benefits while there is still something to be said about the last 2 points. AI and algorithms can take the human (un)conscious assessment out of the selection process, which is positive. But you have to be alert here that AI models are usually a result of the data you put in (the training data set). We often see that these are data models of high performers or of other uniform groups of employees in the organization who share certain characteristics.
Based on this, a ‘model candidate’ is made with which the job applicants are compared. This gives a probabilistic estimate of the match between the candidate and the job. Theoretically, this sounds very promising. But if there is bias in your data or your training data set and the algorithms are not corrected for this, AI will only exacerbate the problem of bias in selection.

Subtle and Unintended Bias from AI

If you are going to predict football performance among 15-year-olds, you will see that the oldest boys in the selection – born in January, February, or March – are often the best football players. This is because boys of 15 years are still growing and the slightly older boys are physically superior and therefore seem to be better players. A beautiful book has been written about this phenomenon by Malcolm Gladwell; “Outliers, the Story of Success”. Bias suddenly takes the form of a birth month effect. It is therefore important that you try to avoid that your dataset used for the algorithm is too pure. It is not always transparent how an algorithm has been developed with which social acceptance is discussed. Candidates (rightly) wonder whether the criteria against which they have been set are correct. Who can reassure them that the algorithm does not select by age, for example?

What can you do to use AI in your selection process as well and objectively as possible?

Actively request personal data: Ask candidates for permission to analyze their personal data in order to normalize the data in order to prevent bias.
Map unconscious biases: Only when you know there is bias you can actively counteract this bias.
Keep tracking inclusion and diversity: Keep track of whether the measures you take actually promote inclusivity and diversity. Do regular research and discuss the results with your (HR) team.
Research the tool you use: What are the claims of the suppliers and how can they prove them? Has the tool been scientifically developed and substantiated or is it more of a flashy modern tool where more attention has been paid to the experience and less to the research?

Conclusion: AI is No Panacea

Avoiding bias in the selection process is difficult, even if you leave it to a computer, you have to stay alert. By mapping as many unconscious biases as possible in advance and continuing to correct them, you reduce the chance of excluding a candidate based on (un)conscious bias. It remains important to continuously refresh your knowledge of new technology and AI in order to make the best choices for the recruitment policy.

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BrainsFirst & SoccerLAB : Partners in Talent Identification

SoccerLAB and BrainsFirst join forces to offer a unique combination of platforms to the sports world. Unprecedented possibilities in identifying and developing talents become available for both platforms’ customers.

Professional sports neither start nor stop when the athlete leaves the game arena. The search for marginal gains to improve performance is a key element for the whole industry. Whether it is a new hardware sensor or a new data stream, better data is key to making better well-founded decisions.

For years SoccerLAB has been working with its customers to provide a software platform to centralize, analyze, and visualize all relevant data for football clubs worldwide. Ranging from data from young talents to scout reports of the next superstar of the first team and everything in between.

With the BrainsFirst partnership, SoccerLAB adds an extra factor for customers to make better player profiles. With data coming from the cognitive assessment software of BrainsFirst, the 360° view of talent in SoccerLAB is extended with unique objective data. BrainsFirst is backed by 6 years of cutting-edge neuroscientific research to reveal human performance’s biological building blocks.

Crucial Part of the Puzzle

“In football, the assessment games of BrainsFirst have a proven track record“, says Eric Castien, founder of BrainsFirst. “The cognitive profile information of a player gives extra aid to decide on a player’s future. Combining this with the other objective & subjective data already available in SoccerLAB is giving customers more foundation to make decisions.“

Unique Match of Products

“We are always looking for new integrations and are very happy with this new partnership. BrainsFirst has a unique offering to our customers and is introducing the increasingly important part of the cognitive profile into SoccerLAB.”, says Steven Belen, CEO van SoccerLAB. “With this partnership, we allow our customers to add an extra objective data layer regarding their biggest asset. The player.” Contact us or read more about BrainsFirst Sports solutions here.

Eric Castien – Founder eric@brainsfirst.com

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Less Selection Bias due to Games?

Bias; lately, much has been said about selection bias and the prevention of discrimination during the selection process. Yet the discussion and attempts to reduce bias during the selection process are of all times. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, for example, introduced blind auditions in the 1950s where musicians performed behind a screen and were not visible to the selectors. The goal was to eliminate gender bias and bring more diversity to the largely male orchestra. By selecting on talent and not on gender, the chance for a woman to be admitted rose from 25% to 46%.

This success story was also picked up outside the music world. Large companies – such as Deloitte and EY – apply parts of these “blind hiring” processes, for example by anonymizing CVs. AI-based technologies are also increasingly used to remove human bias from the selection processes. In design similar to the screen in the audition with the symphony orchestra, but with a modern technological twist with the aim to give everyone an equal chance.

Games as a Way to Create Equal Opportunities in the Selection Process

There are numerous ways to try to take bias out of the selection process and give everyone, regardless of race, gender, or other characteristics, a fair chance. One of these ways is the use of game-based assessments. HR specialist Bas van de Haterd (owner of Digitaal werven) describes game-based assessments as the way to give everyone an equal chance in selection procedures (see article in de Volkskrant). “Because people have a perception of what you can do based on prejudices, and a computer looks at what you can actually do and who you really are,” – Bas van de Haterd.

More and more often, games are added to the recruitment process to gain insight into the applicants. First, it is good to know that there is a distinction between game-based assessments and gamified assessments. The latter is referred to as gamification, which means that game elements are applied in an assessment. Think of a bar that indicates how far you are in the process.

Game-based assessments are really about games that measure behavior and generate insight into the candidate’s potential. A great example of this is Achmea’s case in which candidates are asked to hack a fictitious system.

There are different forms of game-based assessments:

Cognitive assessments
Psychometric assessments
Situational judgement games

The top category maps brain qualities. A specific form of this is brain-based serious gaming. In this way you can make a pure match between potential – what you can and who you are – and job.

The brain largely determines whether we are good at certain tasks or not and each person has a unique brain profile. This personal brainprofile makes that one person matches a position or role better than another.

All people have natural strengths and weaknesses in their cognitive profile. Having a job that matches your strengths will make you happier and more productive – regardless of your previous education or previous work experience. Some organizations use so-called IQ tests or capacities tests to measure, for example, work and thinking levels. This is based on the idea that work experience and IQ predict the best success. These tests have the disadvantage that they often require a good understanding of language or knowledge of certain school skills. In addition, some people have a language problem such as dyslexia, which would give them a disadvantage. You therefore run the risk of excluding certain target groups or putting them at a disadvantage. Games can be made by anyone, no knowledge of a language is required.

Making a match between qualities and tasks through games democratizes the recruiting process and allows everyone to stand out solely based on their ability to excel at the job.

Brain-Based Gaming Can Reduce Bias

Recently, gamification has been widely used in selection processes, where we see a positive impact on reducing bias, especially in brain-based gaming. Brain-based games are easy to play for everyone and require no other skills such as language proficiency or training. If a brain-based game is used, the greatest gains, in terms of bias reduction, will be made when the results are assessed before the CV is viewed.

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Increase the ROI of your Recruitment Processes Today

Human resources is sometimes considered a tricky industry when it comes to return on investment (ROI). It is often difficult to obtain quantifiable data in relation to the work being carried out given that typically the HR department does not generate any direct income (mostly indirect). Investments in recruitment processes often make the executives quite nervous, as projects and programs often do not produce tangible short-term results. While the idea of a “more diverse workplace” or “greater employee satisfaction” seems like a good thing, the question remains whether this translates directly into a significant increase in revenue or improved productivity. Nevertheless, calculating return on investment offers HR professionals an excellent way to demonstrate the value of the profession and the work. In this blog we will provide some examples on how you can increase the ROI of your recruitment processes today.

Return on Recruitment Investment, what Factors Do You Take into Account?

Three quantifiable factors that are essential to get insights into the ROI of your recruitment process are the number of quality hires, time to hire, and cost savings. Percentages and also financial amounts can be added for all these factors. Insight into the above will be of enormous added value in mapping out the total return of investments on your recruitment processes and will contribute to lowering the existing doubts about HR investments.

Quantifying Quality Hires

How do you, as HR responsible, express the number of quality hires in numbers? First, it’s essential to determine what a quality hire is and how it compares to a miss-hire. If you have determined this you can make a proper comparison with your previous hires that did not meet the standard that you have determined beforehand. You can take the costs of the recruitment process per candidate and the costs of a mishire into account to come to a financially quantifiable measure.

Quantifying Time to Hire

The time and resources it takes to get to quality hires is another useful recruitment metric. The shorter this process is and the fewer candidates you have to talk to get to a quality hire, the higher the ROI.

Cost Savings on the Recruitment Process

By focusing on the above you can make a big profit on your investment in the recruitment process. These cost savings can be quantified per hire for your current recruitment process, but also after changing certain steps. If you make several changes to your recruitment process it is best to do this step by step so you can determine the ROI of each change you implement.

How Does BrainsFirst Contribute to an Increase in the ROI on the Recruitment Process of their Clients?

BrainsFirst has helped multiple organizations to improve the ROI of their recruitment processes. By combining cutting-edge neuroscience, gamification, and tailored selection parameters we:

Increased the number of ‘quality hires by up to 44% across more than 15 different clients and different vacancies. In addition, an increase of up to 12% in atypical* hires who perform well in the role.
Reduced the time to hire by 20%.
Achieved cost savings of around 20% on the recruitment process for many of our clients by increasing both the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire process.
Achieved a 91% reduction in unconscious bias.

All this is possible because of the 100% remote pre-selection tool: the NeurOlympics.

*We managed to increase the acceptance rate from 2 to 12 percent. The unique application of gamified neuroscience allowed the client to assess thousands of applicants online. The selected candidates were increasingly found to have atypical backgrounds but consistently add tremendous value.

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The Foundation of Structured Interviews

There is no doubt that structured interviews are more reliable than the non-structured variants. By structuring interviews you reduce bias, such as the effect of the first impression. As soon as you, as a recruiter, see an applicant, you have (unconsciously) already made an initial judgment about someone, and there is a fair chance that this judgment will influence the nature of the questions and ultimately the final conclusion. For example, candidates with a migration background are more likely to be asked questions about the level of their integration and therefore fewer questions regarding the job. Research shows that these candidates receive a less positive review than native candidates. However, this difference is significantly less or even absent if a structured interview has taken place.

Benefits of Structured Interviews

A structured interview is more effective in determining a person’s competencies. This means that you are more likely to hire the best candidates. Most of the time because there is more focus on the facets that can provide real insight into someone’s performance on the job, such as skills and experience, and factors such as the first impression and glibness make a less important contribution to the decision-making process. Structuring job interviews:

Increases the validity of the interview
Reduces influences from bias
Increases the effectiveness/chance of a good hire
Ensures that you can better compare interviews and candidates

The Difficulty of Structuring Interviews

Structuring interviews occasionally provokes resistance from selection professionals. With years of experience in selecting candidates, this structure can feel redundant and can also be difficult to implement. Using structure does not mean that you can’t have a personal conversation or that you can’t dig deeper. As long as you go back to the predetermined set-up so that you ask all candidates the same questions. By doing so you can compare them in a fair way.

But how do you get to such a structured interview? Asking the same questions to all candidates is just one of the conditions for an objective and effective interview process. For example, do you base the questions on the CV? Then there is a lot of bias in the answers, they are difficult to compare and the output is mainly based on someone’s past. Applying structure is not the same as an objective approach. However, it is an important step in this.

How to Structure Your Interviews

To structure an interview effectively, you need to have a clear picture in mind of what kind of person you are looking for. Formulate a number of characteristics and competencies that are important for the position in question. Some traits are more important than others. Give each competency its own weight, so that you know how heavily you should count it in the review. Then translate these characteristics and competencies into very concrete questions that you ask each candidate.

A good method to formulate these questions is the STARR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result, Reflection. With this method, you ask for practical examples. Do you think the competence “problem-solving ability” is important? You then can ask the following STARR questions: “Can you tell me about a difficult situation that you encountered in your work (or during studies for starters)? What was your role in that situation? What was your approach and what was the result? ” Rate the substantive answers of each candidate with a grade, look at the candidates with the highest score and you have the most suitable candidate for the position!

Nowadays, a digital assessment is often used to find out in an objective way – preferably as early as possible in the process – which candidates you should invite for the first interview. If you have already obtained value-free information about the candidates in this way, you can also use it to conduct a more objectively structured interview by basing the questions on the measured hard output.

A Breakthrough in Interview Techniques

A good assessment can provide insight into the candidate’s characteristics and competencies without being influenced by socially desirable answers. This information gives you insight into the candidate’s match and also clarifies which questions are relevant for the interview for the position in question. The crux here is self-knowledge versus compensation, or, for example, a certain coping style. Are you looking for someone who works in a structured way, but does the candidate score low on this? Then it is important to know whether the person is aware of this and has learned to deal with it. If this naturally less structured candidate, for example, has successfully completed a time management course and applies these lessons, the conditions for a structured approach have been created. This is called coping. In order to find out whether a low score on a predetermined key performance indicator will also cause a problem in practice, a structured questioning of self-knowledge and compensation technique is crucial. And therefore extremely valuable.

Hard Interview Building Blocks for Successful Interviewing

BrainsFirst helps companies to measure what they are looking for in candidates for a specific position. Together with experts, we determine which skills and which behaviors are really important for the position that is being recruited for. With this input, a profile is made for the desired natural behavior, a model based on cognitive skills. By playing the NeurOlympics, validated assessment games, a brain profile is created for each candidate. The degree to which the previously drawn-up target profile and the brain profile match provides a reliable estimate of a match for that specific function. In this way, it is objectively measured to what extent the candidates naturally possess the desired skills and you can ask questions about this in the interview. This is how you kill two birds with an interview: you base the questions on hard (biological) output measures and you can find out in a structured manner whether someone knows themselves well, knows how to use their own cognitive pluses in a smart way and how to compensate for the qualities they might lack.

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Nature or Nurture: Is Messi a Born or Made Talent?

Lionel Messi is one of the greatest footballers the world has ever seen. In the hunt for “the next Messi,” scouts, agents and trainers from all over the world are searching for the success formula. One of the crucial themes here: is an exceptionally good footballer born this way or created over the years on the pitch?

To be able to answer this question, we first have to go back in time to the Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Hippocrates. In the year 400 BC, a discussion began about the origin of an individual’s traits. This discussion later became known as the nature & nurture debate. In this debate, one question remains central: Is a person shaped by genes (nature), or by upbringing and environment (nurture)? Was Messi pre-programmed to become a six-time Golden Ball winner, or did he become so good through coaching, extremely long and varied training hours, and pushing himself tremendously hard?

In this discussion, Plato and Aristotle were diametrically opposed. Plato believed that each person is formed by an individual soul that controls the body, while Aristotle described that man is formed by the world around him. A third philosopher and also a physician, Hippocrates, had a different view.

The Personal Development Potential

Hippocrates emphasized education and environment. It is important to eat well, exercise enough, and listen to what your body needs. In addition, Hippocrates wrote that there are other factors that must be taken into account. Every human being is born with a maximum potential to which he/she can grow, a personal development potential. This potential may or may not be reached based on all kinds of environmental factors. This view still stands after decades of philosophizing and discussion and is even today the subject of much scientific research.

We are Bad at Assessing Talent

In general, scientists are convinced that the mix between nature (predisposition) and nurture (upbringing & environment) within top sports is necessary to belong to the elite talents. Yet in practice, you often see that the focus of youth training is still largely on nurture. Experts in the world of football are quick to say whether someone is a talent or not, but once we start looking for future talents, people often turn out to be less good at predicting than they thought. Take, for example, the efficiency of the youth academy of an average top football club. It should be overflowing with future talent, but in practice only 2 to 3 percent of all that “talent” makes it to the first team, let alone the absolute top. How is it possible that we think we can assess whether someone is talented, but in practice, we are often disappointed?

What is Talent?

For this, we must go back to the definition of talent. Van Dale describes talent as “the innate ability to do something well”. A fairly general definition that doesn’t actually say very much. Yet a large proportion of people only focus on half of the definition namely the subjective “to be able to do something well”. After all, it’s pretty easy to give your opinion on whether someone is good at something. On the other hand, only a small group of people actually pay attention to the first, more objective, half of the definition of “the innate ability.” Why, you might ask? Because most people simply know (or want to know) much less about this. Yet, in practice, this should be a big part of the evaluation of whether someone belongs to a talent.

ta·lent (it; o; plural: talents)

innate ability to do something well; = aptitude, giftedness
a person with a lot of talent
(Bible) certain weight of gold or silver

Talent Profiles of Top Clubs

Nowadays every club has its own talent profile, with which they try to identify potential talents. After all, today’s top talent is not guaranteed to be tomorrow’s top talent. A good example is biological early bloomers. At the time, these footballers appear to be great talents. They win more duels, are faster, and have better stamina. These talents are then chosen in the selection over other boys who are physically behind. However, you often see that these late bloomers have much more potential to become professionals, but due to the early selection, only a small part can reach the top.

Looking Objectively at Football Intelligence

Every year, many factors are added to the list of objective characteristics of a talented footballer. Take, for example, physicality, speed, tactical ability, strength, and experience. Most of the traits on this list are easily measurable without any subjective bias. However, we are now at a point where we have pretty much reached the ceiling with all these factors. Still, there is room for improvement in the objective part of the definition of talent: “the innate ability”. For example, in the area of football intelligence (cognition). This is currently only taken into account as a subjective measure in both scouting and the academy and is often referred to as football cleverness.

BrainsFirst Comes to the Rescue

BrainsFirst belongs to the group that recognizes the importance of innate ability and with that cognition in top sport. Eric Castien, former sports journalist and co-founder of BrainsFirst came up with this idea during the time he was working on his book “The Royal” along the fields of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. While in Spain, Eric heard many conflicting stories regarding talent. Some described a footballer as stupid, others as brilliant. Intelligence was generally considered a must for a professional footballer, but often people had difficulty articulating this concept clearly. There was an urgent need for a shared understanding of what football intelligence entailed and how to make football intelligence measurable. One thing was certain: everything starts in the brain.

Research into Cognition & Football

Following these insights, two researchers from the UvA, Ilja Sligte and Andries van der Leij, started researching how the existing talent recognition toolkit could be expanded with the cognition of a footballer. At the highest level, a player must be able to act with lightning speed, excel in problem-solving skills, and be constantly aware of everything that happens around him. All these skills originate in the brain and this brain potential appears to be established as early as 14- to 15-years-old. So the ideas of Hippocrates were not so crazy after all. Both nature and nurture are important for the performance of an individual.

NeurOlympics – Measuring what You Want to Know

The NeurOlympics – the assessment games developed by BrainsFirst – is the tool for talent identification, helping you determine if players have the brain potential to become a top football player. Cognition is a new piece of the puzzle that has been talked about for some time in football player assessments. Until now, it was only included as a subjective judgment: “Kevin de Bruyne is a very intelligent footballer who always keeps the overview”. But is that really the case? And was that already visible at the age of 14? Now we can measure it objectively! In addition to all the already mentioned factors that make a footballer a talent, we can also include football intelligence in future talent decisions. This way BrainsFirst helps clubs to invest primarily in the (potentially) best players. Think of it as adding a small but increasingly important piece to the Talent puzzle.

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Essential Skills for a Successful Elite Trader

Everyone wants the best candidate for every open position. Especially when your company is growing rapidly, the right employee will accelerate your success. Therefore, there is a lot to gain in terms of growth and finances, but also a lot to lose if you don’t make the right assessment when filling the relevant vacancy. Now, imagine you are searching for new recruits in the trading business, you might think: what are the essential skills for a successful elite trader, and how do I recognize them? With this blog, we will address these questions.

Trading

A good example of the type of candidate, where you choose for certainty, is that of a ‘trader’. Whether a trader trades in currencies, forex, or commodities, with long or short cycles, as a market maker and/or as a Quant trader, there is always a lot at stake. The question arises: in the selection process, do you take an old-fashioned gamble or do you prefer to make a data-driven decision, a scientifically substantiated choice?

The Brightest Minds in Class

Now, as a trading organization, there are many ways to find and add the right traders to your workforce. From campus recruitment to large social media campaigns, the common denominator is that they target the brightest minds in the class. After all, the smarter the trader, the easier it is to create an edge in his or her portfolio. With this, you can achieve even higher returns than an ‘average’ trader. But is the smartest boy or girl in the class always the best trader? Or are there other factors that determine future success?

The Trader of the Past

Most traders have a background in econometrics, mathematics, and technical physics, or beta studies in which success seems to be correlated with IQ. And that seems to be correct, one of the components of an IQ test is the testing of numerical skills, precisely the skills that appear to be available within the studies mentioned. But having exceptional numerical skills alone is not the key to success. Much more is needed to achieve an exceptional result.

IQ – An Outdated Concept?

By means of the famous IQ test and the testing of numerical skills under time pressure, the selection process seems to imitate the real skills of a trader in his daily work field. Please note: most applicants take several such tests in their search for a job as a flash trader. There is therefore a learning effect, something that is difficult to take into account in your considerations.

In addition, it is good to ask yourself whether numerical skills and the ability to perform under time pressure are the decisive factors that can predict the success of a trader. Especially in today’s labour market, with shortages looming in many sectors, it is time to look at new, innovative ways to improve your selection process.

The Distinctive Cognitions of a Trader

When you monitor the actual behavior of a trader, independent of the market in which he or she operates, you will never see him or her complete an entire day of tasks from an IQ or Aptitude test. You will see them observing, taking in details, making a complex analysis, making important decisions, and at the same time considering the smallest change, the smallest detail. All this at lightning speed. When your mental capacity can put a lot of information in context at once and you can combine the hyper-focus, which is sometimes necessary, with lightning-fast decisions, then you have the skill set of the trader of the future. Research at 4 large trading houses has shown that selection does not need to be more stringent than an average procedure. However, identifying the right skills and assessing them is extremely important in view of the shortage in the current labor market. Where possible, you want to broaden your talent pool and not let any talent get lost during the selection procedure.

As J. Bernlef once said: ‘To see something, you first have to be able to recognise it‘.

Are you curious how trading organizations are already selecting differently on the basis of specific cognitions? Read the case of IMC – The BrainsFirst Challenge – Are you wired like a trader? Contact us and we will take you through our brain approach.

Geplaatst: 12 May, 2022

A Working Memory Hero on Duty

Have you ever walked from one room to another to realize that you have forgotten what you were up to? Yet when you retrace your steps, your previous intention magically pops up in mind again? Or have you ever forgotten your keys, your car, or even your kids on a busy day? All of this relates to working memory and, more specifically, to what we can and cannot do with it. BrainsFirst game based assessments give insights into working memory and more!

The Four Components of Working Memory

Working memory is part of our conscious awareness at any given time of day and has four components. In the first place, it allows us to store our immediate experiences and a little bit of knowledge. Secondly, working memory plays a key role in processing different types of information, such as visual and auditory information. Moreover, it allows us to reach back to our long-term memory and retrieve previously stored information. Finally, working memory processes this previously stored information from the perspective of our current goal. For instance, you are using your working memory abilities right now, while reading and thinking about this text!

Working Memory on the Job

Working memory capacity is our ability to take what we know and what we can hang on to and leverage it in a way that allows us to satisfy our current goal. The current goal isn’t something like “I want that job” or “I want to be the best soccer player of all time”. It’s rather mundane, like “I like that job opening” or “ I want to get that ball”. We tend to maintain 4 up to 10 things in working memory, which we are subsequently able to use for about 10-20 seconds. Working memory is associated with a lot of positive effects on overall performance. People with a high working memory capacity tend to be better storytellers, recognize patterns more easily, and usually perform well on standardized tests (e.g., IQ, SAT).

Working Memory: On the Cutting Edge

It is important to take working memory performance into account when assessing someone’s cognitive abilities. For instance, at some jobs, it’s important to have a large working memory capacity. Think about, for example, a stockbroker who needs to connect many streams of information to come up with new strategies in order to make as much profit as possible. Or think about someone who is in the sales department and has to convince clients to buy their product. This grand finale, the orchestration of all the working memory activities together, determines if the sale will be a success or not. By assessing working memory (and other cognitive abilities), it is possible to assess someone’s true abilities, which can be a valuable aid when trying to find the right employee for the job.

Spiderman: A Working Memory Superhero

A character that we expect to possess extraordinary working memory skills is the Marvel cartoon hero “Spiderman”. Spiderman is able to keep an extreme amount of information in his working memory with a microscopic level of detail. This enables him to experience the world around him when needed in slow motion. These abilities would make Spiderman a perfect candidate for the job as a stockbroker. This is of course just fiction and far from reality but it is a nice example of how good working memory abilities can help you in everyday life.

Contact Us

Are you interested in the possibilities of measuring the brain skills like working memory of your employees, or do you want to recruit the perfect candidate for the job based on their true natural abilities? Read more about attention, anticipation, and control and the Spiderman for your position! Contact us and discover the BrainsFirst Assessment Games today!

Geplaatst: 13 Jan, 2021

Brain-Based Talent Identification Enters J-League

Kyodo News Digital & BrainsFirst Join Forces

The Japanese firm, well-connected in Japanese sports, and the Amsterdam-based Sports-tech company BrainsFirst start their collaboration this month with a focus on offering talent identification services to Japanese professional football organizations. “We decided to partner with the Amsterdam-based HR tech company to support the mission of helping clubs make better talent decisions, namely by offering them objective performance data.

KD very much believes in technology like NeurOlympics cognitive testing to further improve talent recognition in professional football,” says Yuki Maeda, KD’s Manager of Team Solution Project.

The common goal is to enable a more fact-based, data-driven, and scalable process of talent identification & evaluation. Especially in times of Corona, remote testing is of great value. BrainsFirst offers an online validated assessment games platform by combining gamification and its neuroscience-based technology. BrainsFirst enables clubs to assess the football brain potential – or game intelligence – of a player. This kind of data is seen as a crucial piece of the overall talent puzzle. According to previous experience i.e., The Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain, applying BrainsFirst as an early-funnel recruitment step leads to more justified admissions & rejections and consequently a higher efficiency in the overall process. “We are extremely excited to enter the Japanese market together with Kyodo News Digital as an experienced partner in Tokyo. Together we can support Japanese professional football to focus on the best talents. We really can make an impact by adding another piece of the puzzle in the performance matrix of a future pro player. Japan is definitively ready for such supportive data analytics.” says Jens Urlbauer, Director of Business Development of BrainsFirst.

About BrainsFirst

BrainsFirst BV was founded in 2012 to define the context-specific required cognitive functions of elite football players. Since 2014, the data collection, analysis & interpretation leads to a considerably higher number of justified admissions & rejections in talent academies. Long-term partners include Dutch clubs like PSV Eindhoven, AZ Alkmaar, Feyenoord, and the national association KNVB. Clubs in Germany, Belgium, England, and Spain kicked off, too.

Like to Know More about this Deal or the Services of BrainsFirst in General?

Please contact Jens Urlbauer. Director Business Development Tel.: + 49 173 513 04 89