Modern working life is changing, and hiring methods must keep up. Rapid technological change is driving work life to be increasingly soft skills intensive, and having the necessary hard skills to do the job no longer suffices. As the world of work changes, more and more companies are turning to new ways of assessing their candidates to identify their next top talent. In this article, I will discuss talent assessments, what they are and how they can benefit your hiring process.
What is a talent assessment?
Firstly, talent assessments are not a new thing per se. They have been around for quite some time; however, many companies still rely on more traditional methods in hiring, such as CVs, educational background and hard skills. While they still have a place in the recruitment process, progressive companies emphasise soft skills, potential and cultural fit as hiring criteria and have implemented talent assessment tools to measure these elements during the hiring process.
A talent assessment can come in many forms, but in a nutshell, it is a practice of assessing your future workforce, i.e. your candidates or your current employees, for a promotion. Work samples, job simulations and psychometric tests are all examples of different talent assessments
Why use talent assessments?
Talent assessments capture information about candidates that is hard to assess with CVs or interviews alone. Psychometric tests are an objective and reliable way to measure candidates’ soft skills, i.e. personality, behavioural styles and mental capabilities during the hiring process, helping employers make better hiring decisions and reduce employee turnover.
Let’s look at some benefits of using talent assessments in your recruitment process.
Identify the right fit
Using assessments that mirror the demands and competencies needed to be succesful in a role helps you identify the right candidate for the job and your company culture. For example, our extensive research at Clevry has shown that the best salespeople share traits such as grit, empathy, appetite and focus. They have strong stress management skills, can deal with rejection and build rapport and trust. Measuring these elements with personality assessments will steer you in the right direction when deciding which candidate to hire.
View the output from our assessments by downloading sample reports below.
Predict job performance
Psychometric assessments are your next best thing to a crystal ball. While future job performance can never be perfectly predicted, having high-quality insights into your candidate’s strengths, motivations, abilities and values and matching those to a job profile forms the core of a good prediction.
Reduces hiring bias
Cognitive bias occurs when people make decisions based on stereotypes, attitudes and beliefs. Cognitive bias or unconscious bias creeping into the recruitment process can cloud your judgement and cause you to evaluate candidates based on things irrelevant to job performance. This can lead to costly bad hires and a negative candidate experience.
While unconscious bias cannot be removed entirely from the hiring process, psychometric assessments are a big step towards more objective hiring. Standardised assessments are designed to objectively measure the candidates’ different attributes, providing a level playing field for all applicants.
Improve candidate experience
In today’s competitive talent market, having an excellent candidate experience is a must. You want to keep all your candidates engaged, and good communication throughout the recruitment process is the cornerstone of a great candidate experience. But in the end, you’ll only hire that one top candidate for the position. Providing valuable feedback to all candidates will leave them feeling good about the process and positively perceiving your brand.
Clevry’s candidate feedback report is a helpful tool for considering personal development areas and future career choices, adding value to all candidates.
Types of talent assessment tests
Personality assessments
Personality assessments or personality questionnaires help understand candidates’ preferences, behaviours and motivations at work. Tapping into these attributes gives you valuable insights into each candidate and provides support for the interview, selection and onboarding phases.
It is crucial to distinguish between well-researched trait-based personality assessments and type-based assessments like Myers-Briggs. Assessments that measure individual personality traits rather than personality types have the highest predictive validity, allowing you to compare candidates accurately in the hiring process.
Cognitive ability tests
Cognitive ability tests measure various attributes related to candidates’ cognitive skills and abilities. These include numerical and verbal aptitude, abstract reasoning and problem-solving. Research has found cognitive ability tests to be the single best indicator of future job performance. Using ability tests in conjunction with personality assessments and structured interviews offers you a well-rounded view of candidates’ strengths and suitability for the role.
Situational judgement tests
Situational judgement tests (or SJTs) are psychometric tests that explore how candidates respond to typical work-related situations in a given role. Candidates are presented with workplace scenarios related to the challenges they will likely encounter in that role if hired. Situational judgement tests provide employers with valuable insights into candidates’ decision-making styles and responses to challenging situations whilst offering the candidates a realistic job preview.
If you want to improve your hiring with talent assessment, get in touch to see how Clevry can help you.
