The talent shortage is a growing challenge worldwide, with employers experiencing trouble identifying best-fit candidates. The ongoing war for talent has galvanised HR into scrutinising their entire recruitment and applicant screening process, to ensure there are no impediments to unearthing top talent.
Recruitment managers cite finding the best talent as one of their biggest pain points. This can partially be attributed to the manual screening of CVs and job applications, which can be time-consuming and tedious, and partially to the lack of access to the right data to make informed decisions. If the HR manager ends up hiring the wrong candidate, it can hinder company productivity and stifle growth.
Finding the right candidate using the traditional approach is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Traditional recruitment focuses on CVs and interviews to make placement decisions, with assessments coming far later in the process.
However, technology has revolutionised recruitment, changing how recruiters screen prospective candidates on their journey to Zero Talent Waste.
Zero Talent Waste means using technology to take a science- and data-led approach to recruitment. To do this, we need to turn the talent acquisition pipeline upside down: putting data to work in the initial, subjective and manual parts of the recruitment process, by assessing all applicants right at the beginning – at a fixed cost. Volume candidate screening software can take the uncertainty out of the hiring process by providing data-based evaluations. Zero Talent Waste relies on scientific, objective measures of potential that research shows best predict job performance.
This data can be gathered as the first step of the recruitment process to shortlist candidates. In other words, rather than relying on the candidate to assess their abilities in an interview, applicant screening tests can assess these traits for you, and the interview can be used to confirm the outcomes.
Hiring the right people takes time – a lot of time. But it’s time well spent if it results in an effective hire: recruiters who follow a Zero Talent Waste data-first approach report that screening saves between 40–80% of their selection time.
While an effective hiring process can be time-intensive, volume candidate screening can automate the initial evaluation process and significantly reduce time spent on interviewing and assessing unqualified candidates. But it’s not just about time savings; candidate screening can improve hiring outcomes as well.
That’s probably a reason that pre-screening assessments are a fast-growing trend. In addition to reducing the time and effort required at the early stages of the hiring process, online screening can help your organisation improve three key elements of the hiring process:
By removing the effects of human bias and focusing on the essential skills required for the job, online screening can help your organisation filter candidates more fairly and defensibly. Valid and reliable screening tests also give all candidates equal opportunity to demonstrate their potential for the job role. By comparison, filtering candidates by CV can be a minefield of bias-triggering information.
Personality and cognitive measures directly correlate with job performance. By defining the competency requirements of the job and developing a pre-screening process to test candidates’ ‘fit’, your organisation can significantly improve its ability to identify those candidates who are likely to perform well.
A well-conceived screening test can improve the application experience for the candidate and protect your organisation’s brand. When screening tests are clearly relevant to the job the candidate has applied for, it gives them an opportunity to see what the job entails and what’s expected of them.
At the end of the day, choosing the perfect candidate will never be 100% predictable; but we do know that using the correct candidate screening software can go a long way towards ensuring you’re as close to perfect as possible.
Zero Talent Waste aims to do just that. If you’d like to find out more about our Zero Talent Waste platform and online screening assessments, download our product summary and request a no-strings-attached demo.