Navigating the talent acquisition process is like navigating your morning commute.
Knowing the quickest and easiest way to reach your destination is essential, and if the area you’re traveling through is new or unfamiliar, it oftentimes requires the assistance of a GPS program – predictive data – to avoid obstructions that could cause a delay.
In order to arrive on time, you have to know which avenues present the quickest route, and which avenues will land you in the thick of a traffic jam.
A similar type of logic can be applied to your talent selection tools. The route you choose in the talent acquisition process will influence the speed and convenience of your recruiting efforts and oftentimes – especially in crowded and chaotic situations – the quickest route to the same destination will vary depending on traffic, road closures, and construction.
Navigating the Steps in the Selection Process with Pre-Hire Assessments
Anyone who has used the popular Waze navigation app knows it presents drivers with real-time data, collected from thousands of data points (drivers), sending updates to the app informing other users of obstructions that may impede their commutes.
Pre-hire assessments allow businesses to take a similar approach to hiring top talent. Drawing on data from thousands of different studies, hiring profiles, and testing efforts, your business can use predictive information collected from a number of sources to find the quickest and most convenient route to your hiring goals, so you can reach your destination on time.
1. React Immediately to Changes in the Environment
Waze keeps pace with the constant change of driving conditions by enacting real-time updates. A map that was accurate six months ago will not provide most convenient route today, and the same is true for pre-hire assessments.
While a last-generation GPS requires a full-on map update before, say, a new road or shopping mall appears in its database, Waze gives you information on what’s happening today, right now. One is real-time and up-to-date while the other is guiding you based on potentially out-of-date information.
In the same way, leading assessments companies build their scoring profiles on local, company-specific performance inputs; not off-the-shelf averages. Since small changes in the hiring landscape can have big impacts on your talent selection process process, it’s important to act as soon as possible to adjust the settings of your pre-hire assessment program. For instance, a drop in the unemployment rate will affect the number of candidates in the candidate pool, creating the need for a new route to your hiring goals. A profile you use when the unemployment rate is at 7 percent will not be as effective if the unemployment rate drops to 5.8 percent.
Furthermore, using pre-hire assessments in consultation with workforce scientists gives your business the ability to react to shifts in the landscape so you can adjust your assessments to keep pace with the market and remain highly effective in identifying high-potential candidates.
2. Use Intelligent Algorithms that Guarantee Reliable Data
Waze’s algorithms are designed to ensure users can’t provide false information that causes massive, unnecessary traffic reroutes. Waze only updates its maps and advises drivers to use alternate routes when there is evidence to substantiate the claims. Map editors who have been a part of the community for longer have more clout, while newer users must be confirmed against reports from other users that corroborate their data.
In the assessment world, reputable predictive assessment companies can demonstrate the quality of their pre-hire assessments with technical manuals and research briefs to demonstrate the tool’s design, psychometric analysis, and validation. Leading-edge assessment firms will build hiring algorithms tied to real-time performance data (as opposed to potentially outdated information) via analytics platforms.
Put another way, well-vetted vendors will be able to provide reliable assessments that correctly gauge the data in the hiring process time and time again.
3. Get Help from People Driving the Same Roads as You
If the information Waze collected were only coming from a handful of users, or from users who were looking at a Google Earth snapshot of your road as opposed to actually driving on it, the app wouldn’t be very effective. What keeps Waze running smoothly is an active community of editors who are driving the same roads as you, and who work to constantly stay in communication to improve and update Waze’s maps.
Similarly, an exceptional assessment company’s library of software tools provides businesses with information on hundreds, and even thousands of roles similar to the one they are trying to fill, all with evidence to illustrate what works well, what doesn’t, and which competencies predict the highest level of on-the-job success.
Vendors use that information to build a qualitative database that can:
- Give businesses insights into where hiring processes can be altered for better results
- Be used for talents analytics efforts down the road
To add some perspective, the Aberdeen Group points out that assessments that are customized in such a way are likely to provide the most value. In fact, best-in-class organizations are 77% more likely to use externally developed competency libraries – as opposed to trying to figure thigs out on their own – when developing their competency models for certain jobs.
By taking this route, HR departments are able to get support and buy-in from their executives, implement formal performance management processes for all employees, and create and define success profiles for top performers.
Changing the course of your hiring process is simpler than you think. Download your free copy of 15 Must-Ask Questions Before Implementing a Pre-Hire Assessment Process, or speak with one of our talent selection specilalists to discover how data-driven methods can help you achieve your hiring goals more quickly.
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