Corvirtus Blog

Enhance the Candidate Experience with the Power of Assessment Tools

Written by Jennifer Yugo, PhD and Tonya Gonzalez | Mar 1, 2024 3:10:00 AM

Discover how data-driven assessment tools can improve your hiring process while delivering an exceptional  candidate experience that earns commitment.

Engaging Talent and Enhancing Your Candidate Experience with Tailored Assessments

Think about the recruiting and hiring process for your most recent job; what do you remember? Most employees have enduring memories of how they were recruited and the hurdles of the hiring process. It was our first steps on the journey to being where we are now. This is one reason hiring assessments are so powerful. Not only are they a means to  to measure candidate skills, abilities, and potential for your culture, but they are an ideal tool to engage and educate candidates and nurture an exceptional candidate experience. By using tailored assessments, one's that reflect your unique operations, brand, and culture, you can ensure that you are selecting candidates who not only have the necessary qualifications but also connect with your company culture and values. This personalized approach creates a memorable candidate experience and increases the odds of new hires who will not only accept your offer, but will go on to perform, live your culture, and stay long-term.

Photo by Arlington Research on Unsplash

Furthermore, tailored assessments allow you to find candidates who may have hidden talents or potential that may not be evident from their resume or initial interview. We all come with our own beliefs about what someone who has the grit, skill, and ability needed to perform the job looks like on paper. Assessments, however, can uncover unique strengths and abilities you could miss; and, by taking the time to build an assessment that demonstrates  By recognizing and nurturing these talents, you can create a more diverse and inclusive workforce that maximizes the unique qualities everyone brings together.

What does a tailored assessment look like?

When we create a tailored assessment for a company we're combining validated tests into an assessment that measures the specific skills, competencies, and behaviors that drive performance. By aligning the assessments with the job requirements, you ensure that candidates are evaluated on qualities that markedly drive success. Importantly, when we build an assessment, we want to understand what powers strong performers as much as we want to examine the reasons for the poor performance of struggling employees, and the qualities behind average performance.

By taking an approach that includes all employees we -

  • Take steps to avoid traits, mindsets, and qualities that are unique to poor performers that would be missed if their data and background were not included.
  • Provide a fair and objective evaluation but also gives candidates the opportunity to showcase their abilities in a meaningful way.
  • Deliver meaningful information about how to support a new hire's strengths and opportunities using the all encompassing data we've gathered on all types of performers.

An assessment with a tailored approach also benefits the candidate experience by delivering realistic scenarios they will encounter on the job. Keeping the outline and skeleton of our validated item, we can resurface it to reflect your brand and operations. We can measure connection to your unique culture and mission by including validated tests that measure those qualities. Here are a few scenarios that we have resurfaced to match the unique operations of different organizations and industries.

  • Recovering a guest-customer or patient. We have situational items that explore how  employees and leaders engage in customer recovery when a mistake was made or the unexpected happens (e.g., a delay in service). We can keep the validated item but resurface it place the candidate in a healthcare setting where there was a long wait, or as a restaurant employee working with a disappointed guest with that same longer than expected wait.  Changing the context allows us to measure traits like personality, resilience, and attention to detail, but in a situation that's perceived as fair, engaging, and job-related by the candidate.
  • For measuring accuracy and the ability to follow directions, we have assessments that rely heavily on imagery. We can tailor these pictures to match the products and services of a company or industry. For example, a retail employee may be asked to answer questions about the inventory and placement of different objects, while a back-of-house chef is given the same item but asked about the placement of different food items that are on-brand for the restaurant group.

In short, using tailored assessments can significantly improve your candidate experience by providing valuable insights, identifying hidden talents, and ensuring a fair evaluation process. By implementing these assessments, you can elevate your hiring success and attract top talent that aligns with your organization's goals and values.

 

Enhancing the Recruitment Process with Assessment Tools

Recruitment is a dynamic process hinging on two-way feedback. While we often think of assessments providing feedback to the hiring organization, there are a multitude of solutions that deliver specific and meaningful feedback to candidates.

One assessment solution, realistic job previews, provide candidates feedback on their preferences and how they would respond in common key scenarios. This candidate feedback is viewed exclusively by the candidate providing an experience for truly focused on supporting them in making the best choice.

What's cover in the realistic job preview varies, but assessments often include - 

  • Questions on hard and fast requirements for the job: work hours, availability, and nature of the work environment (pace, expectations for standing, walking, or even driving)
  •  Scenarios or questions that gauge their ability to thrive within your organization and culture. Take this example - 

Not only do assessment tools like realistic job previews streamline the candidate experience, they also deliver a standardized and consistent method for evaluating candidates, ensuring that each applicant is educated and evaluated on the same criteria. This eliminates bias and subjectivity, resulting in a fair and objective evaluation process.

We've also implemented assessments that provide two-way feedback in a number of ways:

  1. Profile based assessments. These are usually given for experienced individual contributors and leadership roles, and measure how a candidate approaches work challenges. These reports talk about strengths and vulnerabilities and, with proper training and planning, can be shared with candidates and new hires.
  2. Sharing key takeaways with candidates during the interview and steps that follow. Why not establish a dialogue about what you learned from the assessment and how their strengths connect with job requirements, especially those that are perceived as most stressful?

Assessment tools also enable you to efficiently screen a large pool of candidates. By connecting assessments to your online job application process, you can quickly identify top candidates who meet the job requirements, saving time and resources. This allows you to focus your efforts on the most promising candidates and significantly reduces the time-to-hire.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

 

Furthermore, assessment tools can provide valuable data and insights that can inform your decision-making process. By analyzing the results of assessments, you can gain a deeper understanding of a candidate's strengths, weaknesses, and fit for the role. This data-driven approach enables you to make informed hiring decisions and select candidates who have the highest potential for success.

Incorporating assessment tools into your recruitment process can greatly enhance your ability to identify and select the best candidates. By streamlining the evaluation process, eliminating bias, and leveraging data-driven insights, you can make more informed hiring decisions and ultimately improve the quality of your hires.

Streamlining Candidate Selection with Validated Assessments

Selecting the right candidate for a job can be a challenging task. However, assessments validated to your specific organization and culture will help streamline the candidate selection process and improve the accuracy of your hiring decisions. By using assessments that are supported objective data and metrics, you can make more informed judgments about a candidate's potential for the role.

Assessments that were not just built to your unique positions and culture, but that were also tested to further tailor, refine, and demonstrate their success allow you to evaluate candidates based on criteria with a demonstrated link to results. These assessments can measure a wide range of factors, including technical skills, cognitive abilities, personality traits, and cultural fit. By using these assessments, you can ensure that candidates are evaluated on the most important attributes for success in the role.

In addition to providing a more accurate evaluation of candidates, data-driven assessments also enable you to compare candidates objectively. You can start with an assessment that was built using data from comparable positions and then establish benchmarks and make adjustments based on your own metrics. This allows you to identify the top performers and make more informed hiring decisions.

Moreover, validated assessments provide valuable insights that can inform your talent acquisition strategy. By analyzing the results of assessments, you can identify patterns and trends that can help you refine your hiring criteria and attract the right candidates. This data-driven approach enables you to continuously improve your selection process and increase the likelihood of making successful hires.

By streamlining candidate selection with validated assessments, you can make accurate data-driven hiring decisions and improve the overall quality of your hires. These assessments provide objective insights and enable you to compare candidates based on relevant criteria, empowering you to select the best hire for the role.

Uncovering Hidden Talent with Validated Assessments

Have you heard about the retirement skills gap? It's the concern that the marked number of adults reaching retirement will likely cause a dearth of skills across a broad range of industries. It's worth noting, that's on top of already existing skills gaps. Validated assessments are a valuable tool for uncovering hidden talent in candidates. By using assessments with external and internal candidates you can ascertain their potential for new roles. Assessments can measure potential in areas the candidate might not have considered allowing you to provide them with new exciting opportunities for growth.

These assessments are designed to measure psychological attributes, such as personality traits, cognitive abilities, and behavioral tendencies. By using psychometric assessments, you can gain a deeper understanding of a candidate's potential and the talents they will bring to a role.

One of the key benefits of psychometric assessments is their ability to reveal hidden talents and abilities that may not be evident from a candidate's resume or initial interview. These assessments can identify unique strengths and skills that can contribute to the success of your organization. By recognizing and nurturing these talents, you can create a more diverse and high-performing workforce.

Psychometric assessments also provide valuable insights into a candidate's personality and behavioral tendencies. These insights can help you assess how well a candidate will fit into your organizational culture and work environment. By selecting candidates who align with your values and work style, you can improve employee satisfaction and retention.

Furthermore, psychometric assessments can help you identify candidates who possess the right cognitive abilities for the role. These assessments measure critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, which are essential for success in many positions. By selecting candidates with strong cognitive abilities, you can ensure that your organization has the talent necessary to drive innovation and achieve its goals.

Incorporating psychometric assessments into your hiring process can help you uncover hidden talent, assess cultural fit, and identify candidates with the right cognitive abilities. By leveraging these assessments, you can make more informed hiring decisions and build a high-performing team.

Improving Hiring Success and Retention with Behavioral Assessments

Behavioral assessments are a powerful tool for increasing retention and reducing turnover. By taking the tailored approach we shared, you're beginning with the end in mind by defining the required competences. By taking a skills-and-competency based approach the assessments measure the precise candidate behaviors, motivations, and values needed to bring strength to your team.

By using behavioral assessments, you can understand how a candidate is likely to respond in various work situations. The assessment will uncover how the candidate's traits, such as teamwork, leadership, communication, and adaptability, will transcend your particular demands and work environment. By selecting candidates with the right behavioral traits, you can build a team that works well together and achieves results.

Behavioral assessments also enable you to assess a candidate's motivations and values. Consider how you can maximize that information throughout the new hire's first days, months, and even year. With an assessment that captures a candidate's values and how they connect with your company's values and mission, you ensure you're not only hiring candidates with values that celebrate your mission, but also know how to encourage, lead, and build a stronger connection with them during their critical first year.

But it doesn't end there. Tailored, validated, behavioral assessments will identify candidates who have the potential for growth and development. These assessments can uncover traits such as a growth mindset, resilience, and a willingness to learn. By selecting candidates with these traits, you can build a team that is adaptable and open to continuous improvement. What's more, conversations about values and purpose create a meaningful and personalized candidate experience.

Incorporating behavioral assessments into your hiring process can significantly improve your talent pipeline. By selecting candidates with the right behaviors, motivations, and values, you can build a high-performing team that aligns with your organization's mission and purpose.

Creating a Seamless Candidate Experience with Technology-Enabled Assessments

Technology has and continues to transform the the how and why of work and the potential for the candidate experience. For assessments, the application of technology is especially exciting as they make it possible to deliver assessments to diverse candidate pools quickly, equipping the hiring team with valid and meaningful information on each candidate. 

By maximizing  technology, you can automate the assessment process, making it more convenient and accessible for candidates. However, this requires a candidate friendly hiring process and consistent communication. 

Technology-enabled assessments also provide real-time feedback to candidates, helping them understand their strengths and areas for improvement. This feedback can be invaluable for candidates, as it allows them to better understand their fit for the role and make informed decisions about their career path.

Furthermore, technology-enabled assessments enable the collection and analysis of data, providing valuable insights for the hiring team. By analyzing the results of assessments, you can identify patterns and trends that can inform your decision-making process. This data-driven approach can help you make more informed hiring decisions and select candidates with the highest potential for success.

By creating an exceptional candidate experience with seamless technology-enabled assessments, you can attract top talent, streamline the assessment process, and make more informed hiring decisions. These assessments provide convenience, real-time feedback, and data-driven insights, ultimately enhancing the candidate experience and build teams of remarkable people who will perform, live your culture, and remain high-performing contributors to your mission.

How will you maximize assessments to improve the candidate experience? Access our strategic toolkit.