As it transpires, there is no universal “startupper profile” that founders would need to live up to or otherwise be doomed to failure. Each project and each team is different, therefore so are the competencies/ personalities required by them.

So how can investors and project owners decide who they need on the team?

First, you need to define the challenges the members of the team are likely to face. You can start off this exercise by looking at the various roles the members of the team will take and define the requirements against each of these profiles. You then need to match these requirements against a competency framework (like Talentsift’s) and pinpoint the personality traits you deem most relevant.

These competency scales are likely to differ for each position. For example, when assessing a member of the software design team, one would probably place emphasis on their logical/abstract and numerical reasoning skills, while verbal reasoning abilities are probably less important. On the personality side; analytical thinking, quality focus and resilience are all personality traits desirable for someone in such a role. Following the same logic, the company’s CEO will need very different competencies; including skills in directing others, negotiation & influencing, setting vision & strategy, etc. Being an intensive early stage venture, probably all members of a startup team need to bear competencies like drive & determination, adaptability, or developing skills & knowledge.

Once you have defined the individual profiles you would like to see on your team, you need to double-check whether these cover all competencies you would expect from the team as a whole. If not, you may wish to consider filling those competency gaps by adding new roles to the team.

The final step is running an individual level appraisal for each of the team members, matching the individual against the “ideal” personality profile. Based on the results you can then consider each candidate’s distance from the “ideal profile” and assess where development or support is needed. You can also consider how the group matches against your ideal mix by plotting on a grid where the team is on the scales that have been deemed relevant. This will help you identify the scales where none of the group members are strong and pinpoint where the biggest clashes are likely to be between individuals who are very different.

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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.

Check out our free demo!

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