Your people are your most precious resource. How you find those people can be the difference between success and failure.
Get the recruitment right and the rest falls into place.
As a recruitment agency, you’d expect us to have plenty of strategies in place to ensure that we do a good job of finding the right candidates for those businesses that trust us with their recruitment. And you’d be right.
There is one very effective strategy that we use both for our own internal hires, and as part of our candidate selection process. It is something which works so well that we offer it to businesses who aren’t using our recruitment service, as it does such a great job of weeding out potential time wasters, reduces unconscious bias and gives an indication of the candidate’s skill set.
What do we recommend?
We recommend using a skills test early in the recruitment process.
Tests, which can take many different forms, evaluate a candidate’s ability to perform tasks relevant to the role they are applying for.
There are three key benefits to using well considered skills tests in your recruitment process. All will save you time and money:
Weeding out potential time wasters.
This doesn’t just refer to those people who apply for almost any job regardless of suitability. A good test, especially when used early in the process, will help reduce the number of people you have to consider for a role. It will ensure only those with a certain skill set get past the gate. A test will filter out candidates who might not have properly understood the role requirements, or who are mass-applying for jobs. Asking potential candidates to complete a test upfront, you will be able to identify those who are both capable and committed to properly exploring the role. This saves you time at the start of the process.
Confirming skill set.
A test gives you a much clearer indication of a candidate’s baseline skill-set than a CV which is open to exaggeration, misrepresentation or complete fabrication. A test in which a candidate’s capabilities are assessed offers a much clearer picture of their abilities. For example, setting a bookkeeping test for an accounting role means you can accurately confirm their basic skills – skills which are the foundation of any higher-level role. By ensuring they do indeed have those basic skills, you can then dig deeper into their experience based on the knowledge that they do have the grounding required. Not only does this help standardise your recruitment process, it makes it easier to compare candidates based on their skills rather than their ability to talk about their skills.
Reducing Unconscious Bias
We all know that it is hard to avoid bias when recruiting. Everybody has biases that can affect how fairly they can approach the recruitment process. Professional recruiters have a variety of methods at their disposal to help reduce bias. One such tool is this idea of testing as the first stage as it removes subjective judgements and replaces them with objective criteria. In other words, candidates get through the first round based on whether they have the relevant skills rather than being reliant on the unconscious biases of the recruiter. This alone can make for a much more equitable hiring process.
Of course, testing isn’t the only way to make recruiting both fairer and more efficient and it does have limitations. The test itself needs to be well designed and well administered. It also requires human input to account for the huge variety of people that might take the test. There may well be mitigating circumstances that should be discussed with a candidate. For example, a candidate might have had technical issues with the test or they may be dyslexic. The test should itself be sure to assess the skills required and not inadvertently test for something else. For example: avoid setting a time limit to complete a test if speed isn’t a factor in the actual role.
Surprising benefits of testing candidates
Testing candidates at the first stage of the recruitment process can have a few surprising benefits.
Such tests are a helpful introduction to the character of the candidate, particularly if they don’t perform well in the test. For example, do they respond with questions about how they could have done better? Do they ask to re-sit the test? Are they interested in your interpretation of their test? Do they want to explore the reasons for performing poorly?
All these can reveal a lot about their creativity, self-awareness, tenacity or enthusiasm for the role and company. Or do they respond with anger? Do they blame you, or the test, or some other external factor? Perhaps they believe the test was beneath them? Do they show a side to their character that wouldn’t be a good fit within your existing team? A skills test is only one part of the overall picture, but it can be a very useful part.
When you combine a skills test with the more personal aspect of an interview, you’ll save yourself time, money, stress and the potential negatives of your own unconscious bias. A test weeds out those who are not a good fit. It will confirm a standard skill level from which you can build more understanding of your candidates. Not least, it will help you to see more about their likely cultural fit than simply asking questions in the unnatural setting of an interview.
Carefully balancing skills tests with interviews, will boost your recruitment processes. This in turn helps you find candidates who are technically skilled and also aligned with your company values. When you recruit in this way, you’ll benefit from a well-qualified and balanced team which supports your business plans.
Can we help?
Artemis Clarke specialise in Financial Recruitment, and we are pleased to be able to support you with our recruitment service to find the right CFO for your business. Alternatively, if you are confident in your recruitment process, but would like to add a testing element, do get in touch as our proprietary attention to detail and accounting tests are an easy addition to your recruitment process.
