The market for talent is competitive. Unemployment is at a low 4%, and as a result, recruiters must make extra effort to stand out to top candidates. Keeping quality candidates engaged throughout the hiring process is one of the biggest challenges that recruiters have. As a result, hiring teams may be apprehensive about integrating skills assessments into their interview process. How will candidates react, and will it disrupt the candidate experience?
When used correctly, skills testing can actually give recruiters a competitive advantage in the job market. Companies that have started using Vervoe’s Talent Trials have seen a 97% candidate completion rate – one of the highest engagement rates in the industry. Here’s how to use skills assessments to keep your pipeline full of happy, engaged candidates.
Understand how your pipeline works.
First, figure out what the candidate journey looks like. Where can you be more efficient in bringing in talent and making sure they get five-star treatment? KPIs like candidate-to-recruiter ratio, time to hire, and inbound vs sourced candidate funnels can give you a clear picture of where your pipeline blocks are. Are your referral candidates going through the same process as your other candidates? Do a quick audit to make sure you know what your recruitment team’s workflow looks like.
Once you see how candidates are interacting with your job site—the time it takes a recruiter to follow up, and what the existing drop-off rate looks like, you can begin to assess when in the process to offer a Talent Trial. Not all positions will benefit from integrating skills testing into the hiring procedure; but for roles that see hundreds, if not thousands of applicants, a skills assessment can make a big difference.
Create custom assessments to level the playing field.
Each Talent Trial can be customized to reflect the skills needed in the job for which you are hiring. Using Vervoe’s library of content, create an experience that allows a candidate to show off their skills – and prove they’re the real deal. These tests give recruiters the chance to move away from resumes, which can be bad predictors of success, and help those with real talent rise to the top.
Assessments also give hiring teams the ability to screen candidates in, not out by removing human bias from the equation. Vervoe’s algorithm scores candidates by ranking them, using a multi-layered approach to assess 10,000 candidates in the time it takes for an individual recruiter to evaluate one resume. Using Talent Trials early in the process helps a more diverse pool of applicants get further in the process.
Improve communication and reduce time to hire.
When candidates drop off the map, often it’s because they’ve found a new position and didn’t hear back from a hiring manager in time. In one survey, “over 40% of developers say unclear hiring processes is one of their biggest employer turnoffs.” When the average time to hire is just over 23 days, it can be frustrating for candidates who don’t know where they stand with a recruiter. Skills assessments give hiring managers the ability to send automatic feedback and communicate throughout the process.
Use a skills assessment at the beginning of your hiring funnel to help your candidate get a feel for whether or not they are a good fit. Research shows that “applicants tend to like the fact that they can go through an online assessment experience autonomously; it gives them a good idea about the company, the job, and their potential future colleagues.” Some will self-select out of the pipeline altogether, and save your team time.
Hire in bulk by letting AI do the work.
Automate your entire process by letting an algorithm rank your candidates. From there, recruiters have the ability to auto-progress or reject lots of candidates with one click. The system integrates quickly with your existing HR tools – Vervoe’s cloud-based platform gives you the power to start hiring the day you register. Over time, the platform gives you talent insights to help recruiters understand which sources perform best on your tests. The candidate status feature shows when candidates open your emails, start taking a test or complete it, giving recruiters the chance to manage communications and expectations every step of the way.
Providing a great candidate experience can help you turn even rejected candidates into allies for your brand. Find out more how Vervoe’s skills assessments can improve your candidate pipeline with a free trial.
