The candidate experience can be majorly disrupted by a lengthy hiring process. After applicants get through the application process, they typically go through a preliminary screening process which may lead to taking some sort of talent assessment. We’ve been discussing assessments a lot lately because we think the Talent Acquisition community should make them top of mind.
Now that assessments are a proven model and the costs are coming down due to market penetration, there’s little excuse not to use them, even by companies that are smaller. Bad hires can impact companies no matter where they are on the size scale, but small businesses and startups can be crushed by the weight of even one unskilled or poor-fit employee.
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But there’s another kind of assessment that is not quite so proven, nor as well known. In our continuing coverage during the Year of Assessments, we want to talk about hidden assessments and how they’re changing the candidate experience.
Where We Started
A few years ago, it was still fairly difficult to find candidates’ information and to reach them. You could get phone numbers, and social networks were starting to allow you to find people that you couldn’t find before. The technology that was being built was all about helping recruiters source candidates.
Today, you can find most people online in some way. We no longer think sourcing is the problem, the problem is engagement. Engaging candidates in the hiring process is important when considering the following:
- Employer competition
- Candidate-driven marketplace
- Typical applicant drop off rate is 74%, according to Smashfly
While shortening your time-to-hire lifespan is possible with innovative technology, making it more engaging for the candidate is a must. But how can you even begin to engage candidates in the hiring process if they were never even meant to be engaged?
How can you engage candidates in the #hiring process who were never meant to be engaged? Read this: Click To TweetEnter: Hidden Assessments.
Application Assessments
Nearly 40% of employers rely on technology that pre-screens candidates based on data they’ve submitted in their application. This is a variation of assessments that determines if an applicant even gets to become a candidate, so how does this affect candidate experience?
Well, if the pre-screening technology is faulty, it can invite candidates into a process they’re not suited for and would not have selected for themselves. Companies like Avrio fight this using Artificial Intelligence to assess a candidate’s work history, preferences, skills, certifications and educational background using a comprehensive, multi-dimensional FitScore algorithm to better understand how the candidate matches the job description.
Chatbot Assessments
Avrio deploys its Chatbot, Rio, to ask job-specific questions to learn more about the candidate in the pre-assessment stages all while storing this data in a larger vault to get holistic insight into the entire talent pool. Rio can identify patterns in candidate behavior to let recruiters know trending questions candidates ask, for example.
60% of candidates say better communication throughout and after the application process would make the most positive impact. Using chatbots to assess and communicate to candidates their status in the process is quickly morphing from a hypothetical to crucial (in the space of a few short months!).
What 60% of candidates are saying about the application process that can be fixed by #AI Click To TweetOn top of that, 52% of recruiters say the hardest part of their job is identifying the right candidates from a large applicant pool, make “pre-pre-assessments” an even more viable method of honing in on the right talent. In laymen’s terms, chatbots allow a better candidate experience for the job seeker and more useful insight for hiring to the recruiter.
When Candidates Realize They’re Being Assessed
Once candidates make it through the preliminary rounds of assessments they may not even know they had, they can be invited to take up-front assessments. These range from behavioral and skills-based assessments to simulations.
See How Companies Are Using These 3 Types of Assessments to Hire Better
