Amplify Your Applicant Screening Process By Catherine Miklaus, GreenJobInterview
We’re living in the age of information. Today, recruiters have more information at their fingertips than ever previously. So screening an applicant for an open position should be easy, right? Not necessarily. The truth is, that there is a lot of information out there about candidates that has nothing to do with whether they’ll be able to perform on the job. Recruiters have an opportunity to find out more than they ever wanted to know about a candidate. However, they also run the risk of using this irrelevant information to make hiring decisions. What’s a recruiter to do? It’s time to amplify the applicant screening process and cut through the noise. Let’s examine some of the latest and greatest applicant screening tools that you could be using in your hiring process.
Applicant Screening Is High Tech
Gone are the days when recruiters solely rely upon resumes to evaluate a candidate. In today’s high tech world, recruiters have a variety of additional applicant screening tools at their disposal. Consider the following technologies to enhance your applicant screening process: •
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Pre-hire Assessments. Ever wanted to find out if a candidate truly was the expert at Excel spreadsheets that their resume claims? Pre-hire assessments can give you that answer. When used in the applicant screening process, pre-hire assessments can offer a more nuanced view of a candidate’s skill set. These tests offer objective information that can help a hiring manager make a decision between a group of excellent candidates and offer insight into areas where future employees may need additional training. Psychometric Testing. Psychometric testing is still a new applicant screening tool but it is increasingly being used during the applicant screening process. These tests are designed to discover who an applicant really is by asking questions about their work ethic, values, and behavioral style. At the end of the test, a candidate is placed into a predetermined profile. These profiles may uncover a synergistic team builder or a dominant leader that can help hiring managers to envision how a candidate will fit into the team. Video Interviews. Video interviews are becoming one of the most widely used applicant screening tools in today’s recruiting efforts. Recruiters love them because they offer a visually stimulating way to evaluate candidates’ answers to predetermined questions. Because they’re recorded, they also are highly sharable among team members and hiring managers. In comparison to the old phone screen, they take up less of a hiring manager’s time and offer more insight into intangibles such as attitude, confidence, and technological prowess. Online Employee Recommendations. Remember the days when you used to have to call a candidate’s references to determine if they were in fact easy to work with? Remember asking references if they had leadership or project management skills? Today’s reference checks have gone digital. Recruiters are increasingly turning to LinkedIn to read employee recommendations and endorsements. Visible on the candidate’s public profile, clients, vendors, and coworkers are able to write about their experience working with the applicant and to endorse a candidate for certain skills. Wondering whether the candidate has project management skills? Check out their LinkedIn profile and see if anyone has endorsed the applicant for that skill.
Screen Applicants Better When it comes down to the applicant screening process, recruiters all have tricks that they swear by. What works for one recruiter may not be the best tool for another. Different industries require different kinds of information. When testing out new applicant screening tools, it’s important to consider the information obtained in the hiring process. Recruiters need to start thinking like the sales team and seek feedback on the process. As they gain more
feedback, they can continue to enhance the applicant screening process and the hiring process overall.