The Right Tool for the J.O.B

There is a seemingly endless supply of alternative routes on the path to recruiting qualified, committed new candidates for your firm. And while having options can be a good thing, too many choices can simply be overwhelming.

So what’s a hiring professional to do?

 

You could wait for your fairy godmother to come down and wave her magic wand, making all your hiring dreams come true.  Another option, and likely the more productive one, is to start implementing tools within your recruitment methods that make the entire process easier and more effective. From pre-employment testing and screening to automated reference checking and video interviewing, there are many tools to choose from.

While picking the right tools is critical, there are there are a few important points that carry across the board, regardless of the specific technology one uses.

1. Be sure that the assessments are appropriate to the role being filled.  Do not overwhelm or irritate entry-level candidates with excessive pre-employment testing.  Similarly, do not extend assessments that are successful in one area to all other areas. No singular tool will work for all positions in all departments.
2. Ensure that your assessment tools are legal and protect the company from legal liability.  Any tool used to select a workforce can come under scrutiny for bias if it fails to use job-relevant questioning to predict performance. Always ask vendors how their product monitors for bias in accordance with EEOC compliance.
3. Finally, do not overlook the assessment of your assessments! In other words, remember that filling a vacant position is only half the battle.  How well has the candidate worked out?  Was your pre-employment screening predictive of the candidate’s success?  Use such ROI feedback to continuously improve hiring procedures.

In the end, we all know that recruitment can be a costly endeavor that, when done ineffectively, drains already limited resources. However, if you can strategically evaluate your firm’s assessment process and identify specific assessment tools that can improve candidate screening, you’re guaranteed to see sweeping improvements. Budgets will remain intact, employee turnover will diminish and supervisors will be tickled. As a recruiter, you have the power to generate such synergy. And in fact, maybe you won’t even need that fairy godmother after all!

 

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