Firing Up the Hire Process with Pre-Employment Assessments
04/07/2009
The recruitment and hiring process can be tough but rewarding - after all a company can't be built without it.
It is not cheap and is often an inefficient process. When one adds up all the time, energy and effort spent by the company and applicants alike the total can be significant - especially if one takes into account the useless interviews with ill-suited applicants as well as the attrition rate of poorly suited hires and "drop offs".
The stress in a hiring process has its roots beyond the direct costs of time and money. Far more potent are the elements of uncertainty and the emotional pressures being felt on both sides of the hiring equation.
Applicants typically enter the hiring process with little certainty on critical facts about the company, its culture and real needs. The bulk of focus is upon what the company needs and scant attention is given to how well that job might align with what the applicants are searching for. In addition the applicant's livelihood often depends upon securing employment and this can heavily skew the picture presented in an interview setting - not to mention the element of "wishful thinking" artfully altering the applicant's perception of the job.
Recruiters are often flying blind themselves, lacking data and under time pressures to get the job done, falling back upon gut feelings and intuition to evaluate whether or not to take on a hire. Skill specific job testing can be helpful as well as referrals and resumes but they don't tell the whole picture. Resumes, often relied upon as a key tool in evaluating an applicant, are normally "templated" or doctored by an outside recruiter and so tend to give a formulistic view. Tests can tell if an applicant has certain skills but not much about their personality, work habits or people skills.
And so none of these really answer the crucial questions of "Can this person complete tasks assigned to them?", "Would this person be a good fit into the team?" and "Is this job a good fit for the applicant and their needs?"
A powerful solution lies with pre-employment assessments. The entire process can be streamlined, simplified and "de-stressed" by incorporating Real Ability early on in the hiring process. Creating a system of pre-employment testing before an applicant is ever scheduled for an interview or for an company visit is key to productive hiring practices, particularly in higher engagement and skill-demanding jobs.
Here is what building and implementing pre-employment assessment questionnaires can do to reduce waste and increase productivity in the hiring process:
Correctly orient the potential hire to the company and its products
Assist the applicant in determining the job's suitability to their own needs, cutting poor fits before the interview process
Allows the applicant to be prepared and attuned to the interview, creating more accurate and on point discussions
Gives the recruiter early insight to the applicants behavioral make-up, work habits and experience
Pre-Interview elimination of unqualified applicants
Cuts tremendous amounts of wasted time and energy from the interview process by prepping both parties beforehand
Creates a very focused atmosphere for the interview itself
Streamlining of the final determination process
A huge sweet spot exists to be mined between the low end of taking job applications or a resume and the other extreme of full blown and expensive personality testing and behavior profiling. Perhaps most important of all is the dramatic increase in quality hires and retention rates that result from offloading waste and streamlining the recruitment and hiring process.
Real Ability Software delivers that capability with simplicity, ease and rapid deployment. In a matter of minutes a manager can build a questionnaire that evaluates skills and allows a look at the applicant's work habits and overall job fit. Multiple questions, essay responses, task assignment, media content and even grading value assignment can all be built into an emailable questionnaire that delivers a powerful pre-employment assessment of the applicant's job fit before a moment is wasted on phone calls and interviews.
