Going Beyond the Resume to Find the Right Candidate
Along with the interview, looking at resumes is the primary way companies evaluate candidates to decide which ones to hire. Resumes can be problematic for a number of reasons, however, and can often obscure rather than reveal the right candidates for an open position. It’s important to go beyond the resume to find more information that can shed light on a candidate’s fitness for your organization.
The Role of Assessments in Hiring
A talent assessment can provide a more objective viewpoint of a candidate’s approach and manner than a resume crafted to make them look as good as possible. While assessments are still subject to answers that could be designed to make a candidate look better, well-designed assessments are also meant to cut through these attempts to self-aggrandize and reveal who a candidate really is.
Assessments vary in their purpose and what they aim to discover about a candidate, but in general, they are intended to show whether the candidate is a good fit for the organization and has the necessary skills — both technical and soft — to do the job. Assessments can do this in fairer and more standardized ways than other types of evaluations.
For one thing, an assessment can be administered in the same way each time, which can not only give more accurate results, but it can also prevent legal liability because of its fairness. These benefits help assessments pay for themselves as a kind of insurance policy against lawsuits and complaints of unfairness.
In addition, effective assessments are made to be predictive — to predict which candidates will perform better on the job after being hired. The predictive nature of the assessment can improve retention and have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line by improving the quality of candidates hired.
Companies can even save money using talent assessments.
How Assessments Improve Hiring
Initial assessments can speed up hiring by determining which candidates meet the qualifications for each job, eliminating some that may sound good but ultimately don’t have the skills and abilities needed. They can also be used to determine cultural fit, which can be even more important to retention than skill levels.
Assessments can help match candidates’ personality traits to positions in which they are likely to do well because of those traits, which can improve job satisfaction and retention, ultimately reducing employee turnover.
While there is a cost associated with using assessments in hiring, they can save companies a significant amount of money in the long run by improving the speed and efficiency of the hiring process. There are significant costs associated with a search that fails to produce a successful hire, as well as with lost productivity while the search takes place. Both of these costs can be reduced or even eliminated with the use of assessment tools.
Build higher performing teams by contacting Narish International to find out how we can improve your hiring process with our proven assessments.
