One of the riskiest activity in business is the selection of new employees .......

1. THE PRINCESS & THE
PEA
BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1835)
Frances Kazan

2. Once upon a time there was
a prince who wanted to marry
a princess; but she would have
To be a real princess.
He travelled all over the world to find one, but
nowhere could he get what he wanted.

3. There were princesses
enough, but it was difficult
to find out whether they
were real ones.
There was always something about them that was
not as it should be.
So he came home again and was sad, for he would
have liked very much to have a real princess.

4. One evening a terrible storm came on;
there was thunder and lightning, and the rain
poured down in torrents.
Suddenly a knocking was
heard at the city gate,
and the old king went
to open it.

5. A princess standing out there in front of the gate.
But, good gracious! what a sight
the rain and the wind
had made her look.
The water ran down from
her hair and clothes;
it ran down into the toes of her
shoes and out again at the heels.
And yet she said that she was a real princess.

6. “Well, we’ll soon find that out,”
thought the old queen.
But she said nothing, went into
the bed-room, took all the
bedding off the bedstead, & laid a pea
on the bottom; then she took twenty
mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then
twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

7. On this the princess had to lie all night.
In the morning she was asked how she had slept.
“Oh, very badly!” said she.
“I have scarcely closed my eyes all night.
Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was
lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue
all over my body. It’s horrible!”

8. Now they knew that she
was a real princess
because she had felt
the pea right through
the twenty mattresses and
the twenty eider-down beds.
Nobody but a real princess could be as
sensitive as that.

9. So the prince took her for his wife, for now he
knew that he
and the pea was
where it may
if no one
had a real princess;
put in the museum,
still be seen,
has stolen it.

10. On the surface this simple tale is about
"curious and ridiculous" measures taken
by the nobility to establish the value of bloodlines
when a young woman's royal identity is established by
a test of her physical sensitivity.
However, there is are two moral lessons here
reflecting man's follies when assessing strangers:

11. 1. Don not make important judgment calls
regarding strangers based on first impressions
and appearances
 it is very risky and very often not accurate
- the young woman had experienced a lifethreatening situation (a dark and stormy
night,)

12. 2. Do not use unsuitable assessment tools (unreliable
and invalid tests) in an attempt to establish true
identity, strengths and character.
 Is physical sensitivity truly the mark of a
princess? (If so then I must also be a princess which I know I am not since I went through a
stage where I traced my family tree to three
generations and I can assure you we come from
peasant stock!)

13. We at HITW Talent Management have been
recruiting high performing individuals for over
20 years

14. Selecting qualified applicants is a critical step in
building a talented and committed
workforce, supporting an effective organizational
culture, and enhancing the overall performance of the
organisation.
We thus have a have a well established 4-D Selection
Method that uses a 4 dimensional approach to collect
information on individuals for the purpose of reducing
the risk of new hires when making a selection decision

15. Our 4-D Selection Method
 Technique 1
 Technical & Aptitude Assessments - Knowledge,
Application and Problem Solving
 Technique 2 –
 Face-to-Face Targeted Behavioural Interviews to assess
track record, effort exertion & performance
 Technique 3 –
 Supervisor References to establish personality &
attitude
 Technique 4
 Integrity Testing - self assessment versus checks,
verifications and validations - to establish character &
culture fit

16. Call us NOW for a risk free
presentation
Contact Details:
0027 11 467 9496 / 0027 83 395 0292
frances@hitw.co.za / www.hitw.co.za