When it’s not Brexit it’s skills shortages, and now with the talent pool shrinking in the wake of Brexit, the skills gap is going to get worse. Unfortunately many recruiters are going to be looking in the same pools in order to hire. However, by incorporating online tests into the recruitment process during candidate screening, you can hope to increase success even in a limited market.
So how does it work?
Well, first of all we need to understand how biases can hold back our ability to pick the right recruit. The most prevalent one out there is confirmation bias. This is the tendency to search for, interpret and favour information in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs. When it comes to recruiting this can manifest in a few ways; preferring candidates that resemble you, disliking candidates due to personal prejudices, or hiring talent from the same source.
Hiring someone on the back of these biases might not always be the wrong thing to do, but can often mean that you are overlooking highly qualified applicants because they don’t fit your mould. By using anonymous, online screening, you can remove as much bias as possible from the process, allowing the best talent to rise to the top unabated.
In fact, a recent report from the Aberdeen Group found that top companies were 36% more likely to make use of pre-hire assessments, dramatically improving recruit retention. So let’s take a look at the options you have available to you:
Anonymised CVs
Anonymised CVs remove information which would otherwise identify the candidate, such as their social background, ethnicity, sex, age. In fact, you can set these to remove any fields that you think may cloud your judgment. Just FYI, Google has stated that grades and degrees are not a good performance predictor.
Personality Assessments & Psychometric Tests
These can be conducted online and seamlessly integrated into your recruitment process. Psychometric tests typically consist of a range of reasoning tests to uncover the candidate’s cognitive abilities. Personality tests, on the other hand, can help determine whether the candidate is the right fit for your company’s culture.
Situational Judgement Tests
Situational judgement tests are increasing in popularity and are used as an initial screening method for the biggest graduate scheme employers. They will often involve getting the candidate to explain how they would solve a specific job related challenge, helping HRs understand if the candidate can cope with the job.
Asynchronous Video Interviews
These should be used to focus on core competencies and candidate potential. Whilst they won’t completely remove biases, video gives the hiring manager the opportunity to more holistically evaluate the candidate without interruptions.
In a world where candidate retention is low, and the talent pool is short on skills, companies need to be looking into a more data-driven talent sourcing strategy. And pre-hire assessments are one of the best ways of doing this.
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