Interviewing is the most used form of selecting new hires in the workplace, and one that most of us are familiar with, either as the interviewer or interviewee. However, there are many other forms of selection methods that can be used for HR Professionals and Hiring Managers. With a changing workforce, selection methods and their effectiveness vary from job to job, and market to market. Knowing what works best for your company and how to bring on the right talent is essential to gaining your competitive edge and staying ahead of the curve.
Below we will explore some other selection methods that you can include in your selection process to improve hiring decisions, the benefits and disadvantages of each method, and a top tip for how to maximise success.
Situational judgement test (SJT)
An SJT is a selection method that assesses a person’s situational judgement capability. They are presented with several scenarios relevant to the role, and they must select the best and worst way to handle the situation.
The benefits of SJTs are they can assess how well applicants follow instructions, handle difficult situations and manage conflicting priorities in the workplace. Although largely beneficial, they can be expensive to develop, and can be difficult to create and implement. These types of tests usually require input from an Industrial-Organisational psychologist, web designer, and others.
You can buy off-the-shelf SJTs, but it is best to customise your test to understand the candidate’s suitability for the role and specific situations that would arise in your organisation.
Top tip: Before deciding the criteria for your ideal candidate, you should perform a job analysis to fully grasp the responsibilities of the job and the qualities needed to find the best candidate. Designing realistic scenarios that the candidate will come across regularly will give invaluable insight into their suitability for the role.
Gamification
Gamification is increasing in the workplace. Employers conduct face-to-face interviews less frequently due to Covid-19 and the increase of remote working. It integrates elements of gaming to keep employees engaged in a task or learning scenario.
The benefits of gamification are tracking KPIs, improving your application process, and ensuring a smooth onboarding process, as well as increased employee engagement. So, how can you integrate this into your recruitment process, and why should you? Gamification allows you to assess an applicant’s decision-making and problem skills. Also, it differentiates your hiring process from your competitors. Applicants who want to apply are more engaged in the process. You can also add gamification to the onboarding process and integrate training. A study by Glassdoor found that a smooth onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82%, so why not mix it up?
Top tip: Gamification may be challenging for applicants with information processing difficulties due to the game’s many colours, moving patterns, and things popping up on the screen. Ensure hearing and visual impairments are catered for and not discriminated against during the process.
Personality Questionnaire
Personality Questionnaires allow you to see what sort of personality, potential, and internal qualities they have. And if that’s the right fit for the job and your company. Retention is such an important issue for organisations and is a costly one if not managed correctly. Additions like this to the recruitment process can decrease the risk of hiring the wrong person.
By gauging specific behaviour indicators and desirable characteristics in your potential hire, personality questionnaires determine an individual’s approach to work. It is not to assess their personal or career development.
Employees hired with pre-employment testing stay 15% longer than those hired without testing, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The benefits of using a personality questionnaire include providing a more complete picture of the candidate and their thought process. This allows managers to hire based on a data-driven approach, rather than rely on gut feelings and unconscious bias. They can get a better idea of a candidate’s culture fit within the organisation.
Conversely, questionnaires can seem daunting to candidates, and they may not see the relevance to them in the recruitment process. It is essential to explain the reasoning behind adding this step to the hiring process. It can also be time-consuming, so it may discourage applicants from applying. Additionally, it can lead to the risk of candidates providing answers to what they think the organisation is looking for, so it may give a false impression of the candidate.
Top tip: Some of the most popular personality tests include Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, DiSC, and Caliper Profile. You can also use pre-employment testing software to integrate personality testing into the recruitment process.
Roleplay
Roleplay allows you to determine an individual’s skills first-hand. It gives an impression of how they manage stressful situations, common scenarios in the role, and whether they can think on their feet. Depending on the role and scenario, roleplay is most done over the phone or face-to-face. It can be intimidating in roleplay situations for the candidate, but calming them down beforehand usually eases those nerves. Roleplay can reveal various behavioural characteristics of the person being assessed:
- Analytical skills,
- The ability to summarise,
- Judgment,
- Vision,
- Managerial style.
Top tip: Make sure you give the candidate a few minutes to prep before the roleplay scenario, as it would be uncommon for an individual to go into a client meeting or important call without any preparation done prior. Give them any essential information needed, and a pen and paper to take any notes for the roleplay.
These are a selection of methods that most companies could adopt in the recruitment process. There are others, including group assessments, presentations, speed interviews, and more. What is significant however is to provide a positive experience. No matter what you choose, onboarding starts from the first interaction, not the first day. You want the candidates to enjoy the process too. Not every method will be right for the position you are hiring for or for your company culture. We can see from the above examples, however, that there are far more methods we can integrate into our process to find the right talent.