Are You Using Best Practices in
Hiring?
Resume
searches are one of the
most inefficient and ineffective ways to screen job
applicants!
Best
practices in hiring requires
the use
of online screening systems
to minimize unqualified
candidates,
saving you time and money. Now
you can prioritize
your most promising
candidates
based on
job fit specifications
and
predict their success
before you hire!
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Why resumes are rapidly becoming obsolete!
Even though resumes contain useful information, they don't do a good job of getting below
the surface facade of a job applicant.
Resumes often display distorted or exaggerated information. Just as a
polished apple looks very attractive on the outside, it is difficult to know
what it is like on the inside until you get below the surface. The
Society of Human Resource Managers estimates that 53% of all job applications
contain false information. Based on a survey of 2.6 million job applicants, 44%
lied about their work experience, 23% fabricated credentials or licenses, and
41% lied about their education. According to the FBI, approximately half a
million people in the United States falsely claim to have college degrees.
Resumes are unstructured, difficult to search & compare, expensive to handle and
frustrating to store and retrieve.
It is very
difficult to rank candidates on resume information alone because the information
provided is not standardized across candidates. Best practices in
recruiting consistently move the most qualified candidates forward in the hiring process by using reliable, objective and valid assessment information collected
on all candidates. Best practices will include assessments of the
candidate's skills, cognitive abilities, competencies and personality job fit. Resumes don't provide objective or validated information about
a candidate. Resumes don't allow for comparisons of information across
candidates.
Many job postings today receive too many resumes to sort through.
There are about 50 million active online resumes in circulation from Americans
alone.
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Why
online applicant screening systems work better?
Online screening asks applicants to provide only the essential information
relevant to their ability to perform a job. Instead of sorting through
volumes of unrelated or irrelevant information available on the candidate, online screening presents only the
essential information. Best practices involves
setting minimum job requirements and screening out persons who do not meet these
requirements. The next level of online screening uses standardized assessments
of the skills, competencies, cognitive ability, and personality characteristics
that are required for success in the job. An efficient and effective hiring system will organize the
essential applicant information in a table or dashboard so it is easy for a hiring manager
to sort and prioritize candidates for the next step in the hiring process.
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What are
non-scientific
screening
systems?
Applicant
Tracking Systems often provide some screening capability in the form of
customized qualifying questions. These screening questions typically focus on minimum
experience required, degrees or certificates required, work hours availability,
willingness to relocate etc. Screening questions help establish basic
eligibility for the position but they do not tell us much about the applicant's
cognitive ability, learning speed, willingness to do the work or their passion
about the job, or their personality fit with the position.
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What are
scientific
screening
systems?
Scientific online screening systems require the use of standardized assessment
tools that help us see below the surface information presented in a resume.
The metrics produced show how well each of our candidates fit various
benchmarks for the job. The position's benchmarks are developed using simple and
convenient job analysis methods. Scientific
screening systems assess the skills, competencies, abilities and personality or
behavioral traits a candidate brings to the
job. The candidate's passions, work preferences, cognitive abilities and values that are below the
facade can be assessed. The metrics from scientific screening systems can be
used to compare candidates.
Online
screening systems will organize all the collected candidate information into a
prioritized
table or dashboard.
The table shows the applicants' probability of success for a
given job based on a composite of the obtained metrics. Instead of reliance on hopeful speculations or
guesswork about hiring decisions, scientific systems have technical manuals showing their
compliance with EEOC. ADA and civil rights guidelines. Scientific data
provides the foundation for accurate and predictive decisions. Contrast the
relative efficiency and effectiveness of these two candidate screening systems:
Traditional
Non-Scientific System:
Visually Sort Resumes based on the candidate's presentation of their
skills and
talent into piles A, B and
C. Track your staff time, operations costs and placement decision outcomes.
Scientific
System: Measure the skills,
abilities, personality characteristics and competencies
required for the job and organize the
results into a Prioritized Table that has sorted candidates based
on their overall job fit or probability for success in the position. Track your
staff time, operations costs and placement decision outcomes.
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How do you develop job fit benchmarks?
There are several
ways to build appropriate hiring benchmarks for your job. A variety of Job Analysis Questionnaires
are available. You can also use
a Panel of Experts to identify and document the knowledge, skills,
abilities, personality and competency benchmarks. You can also access valid competency
information from Internet databases like the O'Net.
There are also
several commercial products available like
the
Online Janus System that was designed to facilitate competency job analysis. The Janus System makes it easy to identify from 3 to
10 core competencies per position. It allows users to build competency-based job descriptions,
develop job-specific interview questions and administer performance evaluations.
The Performance Improvement Characteristics from Hogan Assessment Systems
is a job analysis method for assessing personality-based job requirements. It
measures the requirements of a job as it is, and as it should be, by identifying
characteristics necessary for effective performance.
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What types of information can be collected
using scientific systems?
Personality - Uses questions that
reveal aspects of the personality as they relate to success
on the job.
Screening systems that measure work related personality traits have an
established body of research showing that they help predict job success.
Biodata - Uses questions that reveal
aspects about a candidate's life experiences. Screening systems gather information about the
candidate's past in order to predict future behavior. Biodata is a proven
method for predicting job success.
Situational Judgment - Uses questions
that present applicants with a work-related situation and ask them to indicate how
they would react. Screening systems often present these
work-related situations in text or video streaming formats. This is a well
established method for predicting job success and broadband internet access is
making this form of pre-employment assessment more viable.
Cognitive Ability - Uses questions
that measure the problem-solving abilities and learning speed of candidates.
Online screening systems often gather information about verbal reasoning
ability, numerical reasoning ability and visual-spatial relations. The
research clearly shows that General Cognitive Ability accounts for about 50% of
what you need to know to make an accurate hiring decision.
Work Values and Preferences - Uses questions
that reveal important aspects of fit with the job and fit with the organization's values
or culture. Occupational fit based on work values and preferences is one
of the most widely used methods for helping guide people into careers where they
will be satisfied and successful.
Simulations and Games - Uses questions
that incorporate all of the above types of questions. Online simulations
and games are presented in more entertaining formats, than mere questionnaires.
This method is very effective when the organization needs to attract tech savvy
applicants. Broadband internet access is making this form of pre-employment
assessment more viable.
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