Create a Successful Assessment Process
15th December 2021
There are the 3 main stages to a successful assessment process which create continuity and ensure candidate engagement as well as value. Each stage is different to the other, but they all come together to form a 360 degree view of the candidate’s suitability for the role, whilst also giving them the best impression of your organisation.
Competency
As well as relying upon CV and competency based interview questions, set the candidate a job related task. Then ask them to present their work during a follow up interview, in front of the relevant stakeholders.
Soft Skills
Hiring criteria does not stop at technical ability. Soft skills as a term covers a variety of areas such as social skills, critical thinking, problem solving ability, emotional intelligence, leadership qualities, creativity, adaptability, amongst many others. Assessing these attributes at interview can be difficult as they are often intangible and difficult to quantify, the STAR (Situation, Task, Action and Result) method allows candidates to give examples and demonstrate multiple soft skills.
Culture Fit
The best way to ensure a team fit, is to arrange meetings with the team, whether online or in person as well as suitable questions to ascertain their work ethos:
- In what type of work environment are you most productive?
- How would past colleagues describe you?
- What management style motivates you to do your best work?
- When working as part of a team, what role are you most likely to play?
There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to assessing suitability recruiting for your team, but you should create and work to a framework which allows the process to flow efficiently, ultimately enabling you to not only find the right candidate, but also to promote your company positively and grow your business successfully in the year ahead.
MDs comment: Planning your candidate assessment and sticking to pre-determined questions and exercises will provide you with a consistent platform to score and compare candidates. Using a scorecard takes away post interview guesswork, as does agreeing who will ask questions and take notes. To supercharge your assessment process role play asking questions, listening to answers, observing and asking follow up questions – you’ll find your process much slicker and engaging for candidates. Being more familiar with your questioning will allow you to focus more on the subtle nuances of body language and reactions to questions.
