Let’s be honest, it’s probably already happened that you were sitting in an interview and thought, “Hmm, the candidate isn’t really suitable. Why didn’t we realise this earlier?” Or you were in the assessment centre, recruiting sales trainees, and were disappointed not to find more suitable applicants there…
Both situations could have been avoided by higher quality preselection. The aim of preselection, as you know, is to select as many suitable candidates as possible for subsequent, more expensive process steps- thus increasing the so-called base rate.
How can you do that cleverly?
Science and practice say that if you want to play it safe, use online assessments in the preselection!
What may sound complicated and expensive at first glance, is actually efficient and useful. Unlike telephone interviews- which leaves room for all kinds of bias- e-assessments are highly standardised and structured, and provide a complete picture of the qualities and characteristics you want your candidate to possess.
One of the goals of e-assessments: suitable candidates are not overlooked
E-assessments are used to screen candidates early in the process, on as many aspects of the job profile as possible. The proportion of eligible candidates should be as high as possible in later steps, the proportion of unsuitable applicants (‘negative surprises’) as low as possible.
In offline processes, only expensive in-depth (and on site!) assessments of requirements can evaluate what can be done at a very early stage in e-assessments. Sounds good? It is!
The aim of the preselection using e-assessment is often two fold:
- Identify suitable candidates
- Not to overlook suitable candidates(!)
The result: the quality of candidates increases for subsequent process steps.
Not only online tests (cognitive tests) are used, but also asynchronous video interviews (ZVI). The reason: both methods check different areas of expertise. (Cognitive and analytical capacity and motivation / communication / customer orientation).
They are complementary to each other and predict the later performance of candidates in assessment centres in advance!
To learn more about how recorded video interviewing can help your preselection, check out our website.
