We’ve got big expectations for Talent Acquisition in 2017. If you missed it, we laid out our predictions for Talent Acquisition technology at the beginning of January, calling this the year of the assessments. The last few years have been focused on finding and engaging top talent, especially those who are highly-skilled. The next step is determining cultural fit and if the candidate possesses the ability to support organizations with the talents they claim. For a comprehensive look at this prediction, check out the post.
Though we like to think about these tools from a technical standpoint, Talent Acquisition professionals benefit most from the explanations of functionality. What real problems will this technology solve? What do they stand to gain and what, if any, are the risks? Below are use cases for the 3 different candidates assessments and how they can make the hiring process more successful.
Which problems do candidate assessments solve in the hiring process? Find out: Click To TweetBehavioral Assessments
The Problem
A small business located in the northwestern US had its sights on expansion. Shortly after exiting their startup status, the organization had experienced amazing feats, doubling their client base in a little over a year. Their project-based work habits called for experienced project managers, and the size of their small team demanded people who could pull their weight and more. The company, with its less than 50 employees, is housed in an open office environment that encourages collaboration and innovation.
When the company hires a new employee, that new hire often starts in one role and accumulates 2 or 3 additional responsibilities or job duties. While some of the hired candidates had the talent to be amazing project managers, they lacked the ability to keep up with the fast pace. Other candidates were meant for the job and had results to prove it, but left for a more corporate atmosphere.
Solution with Behavioral Assessments
The small company knew that behavioral assessments were used by organizations who wanted to understand their candidates before they were hired, but didn’t want to focus on personality traits. Instead, they found a psychometric tool that unveiled information about their organization and established team. With a deeper understanding of their own approach to work, they were able to compare incoming applicants to their culture, instead of a perception of the candidate they needed.
Even more, the behavioral assessment tool featured games and puzzles so it was an enticing candidate experience that allowed leadership to match new hires to mentors and coaches who could help them most. They were even able to devise better workplace appreciation programs which increased employee satisfaction throughout the organization.
Behavioral Assessment Technologies: Good.co, Pymetrics, The Chemistry Group
Skill-Based Assessments
The Problem
After receiving funding, a midsize marketing company on the east coast set their sights on building up their service offerings to include more dynamic web and app development. The company had always had a small team of web developers and designers to support a few websites every few months, but the goal was to break more ground with bigger accounts and more projects. They hired a few people who were referred by current employees and even brought in a few candidates from a local job board, but the competition for talent in the area was fierce.
Leadership was open to remote workers, but every new hire couldn’t seem to keep up with work. Even worse, some of the new in-house staff struggled to keep up with demands, too. The recruiting and hiring teams scoured each hire’s resume and even followed up on recommendations and references, but it seemed the new employees simply didn’t have the skills and experience they hoped for.
Solution with Skill-Based Assessments
The company decided to branch outside of the traditional job board and referral process. They found a sourcing technology that not only specialized in connecting with programmers and developers, but also provided those professionals practice exercises and challenges to sharpen their skills. Job seekers have fun taking the assessments and companies can learn a bit more about their abilities.
The platform introduced the marketing company to pre-screened candidates with the specific skills they were looking to hire. It even allowed leadership to video interview and test talent’s skills in real-time, which made remote hiring more efficient. Because one feature allowed leadership to ask candidates to work together as a team to solve a problem, the company was able to hire all the developers and programmers they needed quickly.
Skill-Based Assessment Technologies: HackerRank, Codility, CodeEval
Simulation-Based Assessments
The Problem
A small, high-end restaurant and hotel chain in the midwest has 5 sites over 3 states and the potential to see amazing growth. The structure of the organization has corporate at the center of business workings, but leaves hiring and day to day management duties to general managers and shift supervisors. The structure has proven successful with a majority of the locations receiving 5-star ratings. The company was even featured in a travel magazine. However, 2 locations are receiving less than stellar reviews.
Executives were quick to investigate the managerial staff, believing it to be a leadership problem, but these sites were historically well-managed and the leaders hadn’t changed. After meeting with the general managers and supervisors, it was clear that the problem was with new staff. In fact, many reviews mentioned names. Those cases were handled, but branding was too important to this up-and-coming company to allow anything like that again. The interviewing and screening process is standard across the company, but executives decided it was time to ensure their hires could uphold their high-quality standards. They needed a way to test the customer service abilities of their applicants.
Solution Simulation-Based Assessments
Executives for the organization decided it was time to bring a little bit more sophistication to their hiring process. They wanted to know the people they hired were capable of providing the experience their customers expected. The company found a technology that took pre-hire assessments to a whole new level: it actually placed interviewees into real work scenarios.
The tool, powered by AI, simulated customer interactions the candidate would face while working for the company. It responds to interviewee actions and conversation allowing the candidate to work through common challenges of the job. And because the hands-on hiring assessment was realistic, the candidates were able to understand life on the job and could decide if the position was right for them.
Simulation-Based Assessment Technologies: Interviewed, TrueAbility
Learn more about candidate experience with these stats!
