Details that an invite for interviews or assessment days should include:

Date and time of the interview

Name and position of the interviewee

Contact number of a person who may be contacted on the day

Location, ideally attach a map

Approximate length of the interview and/or AC

The type of questions and exercises candidates should expect

Ask whether the candidates need any special assistance on the day

Confirm the candidates’ contact details through which you may inform them about any unforeseen changes to the schedule

#1 – Be specific of your requirements.

Avoid statements like ’sufficient experience in a relevant role is required’.  Instead, give examples of what constitutes as ’sufficient experience’ (e.g. minimum of two years in the field of IT project management) and provide a concise but detailed description of the tasks. When candidates are fully aware of the recruitment criteria, their self-selection is more likely to be accurate and the ratio of suitable applications increases.

#2 -Be honest with your candidates.

Be honest with candidates and give them a realistic preview of the scope of activities and tasks the role would entail. For instance, if it is a highly repetitive role, be very upfront about it, otherwise you might face high rates of staff turnover not talking about the associated costs. If the job is not a typical full-time permanent position, make sure that your candidates are well aware of it (e.g. highlight information on the lengths of the contract, any evening or weekend shifts and the amount of travelling that may be involved).

#3 – Be clear and transparent on the recruitment process.

In terms of online applications, sending an email to confirm that an application has been received and is being reviewed can make your candidates feel welcome and valued. Advising your candidates that they would be shortly contacted regarding the status of their application and/or enabling them to track the progress of their application online can decrease the volume of enquiries and make a positive impression of your company.

There is quite a competition for talents where time is a crucial factor in retaining the best candidates. If you face difficulties with processing the applications in time, let your candidates know that their applications are still being considered, apologise for the delay and thank them for their patience and interest in the position. First, this gives the impression that your company does value its potential future employees; second, this may reduce the amount of inquiring correspondence you are likely to receive upon delay. Do not forget that the best candidates are fairly unlikely to be sitting at home all day long waiting for you to come back to them, but are rather involved in multiple recruitment campaigns and can get an offer in any minute.

While in the very early stages of recruitment it is acceptable (although not desirable) contacting only the successful candidates, once an applicant has been interviewed or attended an AC, they deserve and will expect to be informed about their results. Giving timely and sufficiently detailed feedback is of primary importance to contribute to a positive candidate experience.

Talentsift tools provide candidates with instant feedback on their performance. Contact us to learn how we can help your recruitment process.

#4 – Positive recruitment experience is the best marketing for you as an employer.

Small things like providing detailed and timely responses to candidates will make them feel valued and respected, and provide a positive recruitment experience with your company.

Many of your candidates may be employed full-time, thus it is important to give information on the provisional dates for the different stages of the recruitment process (e.g. telephone interview, psychometric testing, assessment centre day, panel interview), enabling the applicants to plan well in advance. Outlining the next steps of the process and the associated deadlines may help the candidates reduce the amount of stress due to the uncertainty involved in their job hunting and it also helps reduce the volume of enquiry regarding the different stages of your campaign.

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These tests allow accurate measurement of the applicants’ abilities in areas such as verbal, numerical and conceptual thinking and thus help to match people’s skills to role requirements. Assessing whether a candidate fits the organisation is not only beneficial for the business in terms of higher productivity, long term retention and reduced rates of employee turnover, but is also important in relation to job satisfaction and well-being of the employees.

Key features of psychometric tests

Standardised: everyone completes equivalent (but not the same) tests under the same conditions

Objective: reduced degree of bias and subjectivity

Reliable: results are consistent over time and are fairly resistant to outside factors

Valid: psychometric tests measure job relevant factors that can predict future job performance

Ability tests are standardised meaning that every applicant is required to complete items of the same difficulty under the same conditions ensuring a fair assessment. This is a distinct advantage over interviews, which are subject to bias. Psychometric tests are reliable, which means that a person’s scores are unlikely to vary over time. Thus, we can be sufficiently certain that differences in candidates’ scores reflect real differences and are not artefacts of the testing situation.

Candidates’ scores can be easily compared to one another by using comparison group data (which detail how well people have done who have taken the test previously). Furthermore, online tests allow candidates to complete the tests at any location and at a convenient time. If they are invited to the next face-to-face stage, a second testing session can occur to ensure they were the ones who filled out the original test.

Online testing is also beneficial to the organisation, as there are no associated costs with administration such as supervision, hiring a venue or compensation for the applicants’ travel expenses. Having a comprehensive selection process that relies on information drawn from multiple sources (e.g. interview, references, tests) demonstrates an organisation’s commitment to fair and professional testing processes and will pay dividends in terms of the quality of people they hire.

The post How can Psychometric Tests improve your recruitment process? appeared first on Talentsift.

The key benefits of the Talentsift software

Improved logistics as the software offers the built-in feature of a personalised schedule for each candidate to allow independent work.

Reduced costs associated with printing, administration and scoring.

Assessors can instantly and flexibly access the data.

The collected information can be organised easily, stored securely and confidentially.

Option of customisation to reflect your corporate vision and brand.

Beautifully designed and user-friendly interface where aesthetic and functional qualities are in perfect balance to enhance candidate experience.

Embedment of multimedia files to utilise technology.

Realistic simulation and increased face validity.

The Talentsift software provides a beautifully designed, easy-to-use and personalised online platform for assessment centre exercises. Tailor-made AC tasks (either designed by you or our team) can be easily uploaded in our online system where they are ready to be used to identify the highest calibre candidates for your business.

What is in it for your business?

The Talentsift AC Platform will help your business increase the efficiency of your AC’s and reduce the administrative burden. The amount of waste (in terms of both material and time) can be minimised. Losing data, inputting the answers, receiving sheets with no signs of identification or papers with illegible handwriting will no longer be a problem. If amendments need to be made to AC content, this can be easily done online without the hassle of re-printing all the material. The information collected electronically can be easily organised and stored securely and confidentially. Assessors can instantly and flexibly access the data online, significantly speeding up the review process. The comments and scores made by the different assessors can be quickly integrated and compared.

Beyond providing a platform for the AC exercises, the Talentsift software also serves as a timetable for each candidate with a personalised schedule and calendar for the assessment day. This feature allows candidates to work independently without being interrupted or monitored by the administrator, since all the relevant information regarding their different activities is displayed on screen (e.g. the time and venue [room] for the interview or the position and name of the interviewer). This includes situations where different candidates need to work to slightly different briefs or timetables. This improves the logistics of such events tremendously.

Enhanced candidate experience

The online platform also has implications in terms of enhanced selection experience for the candidates. Based on our experience in online psychometric testing, we know that the attractiveness and user friendliness of the interface can significantly influence candidates’ perception of the process. Therefore, the layout of the platform has been carefully designed to ensure that both the functional and aesthetic quality is high. Moreover, the software gives you the option to customise the login screen or embed multimedia files (e.g. audio or video files) in the exercises to take the AC experience to a completely new level.

Not only can the content of the tasks be easily personalised, but the language and the display features of the exercises may be adjusted as well. The size of the font can be increased in a second, text to speech software may be used to read aloud the material and the time limit for each task can be easily changed to meet the unique needs of each candidate.

A realistic simulation

Beyond the reduced costs associated with the assessment day and the enhanced candidate experience, the online AC solution has the additional advantage of providing more realistic settings for assessment than the traditional paper-pencil based exercises, since most of the roles businesses recruit for would require the employees to carry out a large portion of their work on the computer. Thus, online exercises can have increased face validity as candidates can easily see the rationale behind the different tasks and understand how their scores can predict their future performance in the job. If your assessment is perceived as fair and valid, you are likely to win the competition for the most talented candidates.

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