Job interviews have been the barometer or touchstone of hiring the best job candidates. They are a standard practice for companies to screen prospective employees and assess their applications for specific job posts. While job interviews have been used for years, they do very little in determining the applicant’s versatility, interpersonal abilities, and potential to be an effective employee.
Over the years, tech companies have developed virtual recruitment systems to revolutionize the traditional hiring process. From recruitment management platforms, job portal development tools, to HR applicant tracking systems, all these tools help optimize the recruitment process, reduce repetitive tasks, and centralize applications in one convenient platform.
With the continuous emergence of digital tools, companies should take advantage of modern resources to dynamically change the workplace, including the hiring of potential employees. Millennials and Gen Zs are gradually shaping the workforce, and it only makes sense to innovate the hiring process to recruit top talent. In this article, we’ll discuss the modern alternatives to traditional recruitment methods and hire the most ideal candidate for the company.
Assessment tests
An assessment test is a more effective option than face-to-face interviews when testing the candidates’ leadership abilities, communication skills, critical thinking capacities, and aptitude and attitude when working with a team. It often requires a group of candidates to work and study a specific case, solve an issue related to the job, and showcase initiative. A panel will monitor and assess them based on their performance and decision-making skills during the simulation.
This type of test depends on common problems, tasks, and specific circumstances involved in the job so employers can have an idea of the candidate’s quality of work and performance and their potential to contribute to the success of the company. Since assessment tests are designed to see which applicant stands out and takes charge, effective communication is that one trait to get them hired. In this case, applicants who can differentiate themselves in a team or participate in competitive conversations are those that perform a good job in assessment tests.
When using assessment tests, HR teams should prepare scenarios and cases related to the job position or circumstances employees typically deal with.
Structured, standardized interviews
Unfortunately, many HR teams today are still relying on unstructured interviews, where they use a disjointed approach to interview questions. This technique can be very risky, especially for inexperienced interviewers who easily lose control and focus during the interview.
Although unstructured interviews keep the applicant and interview at ease, HR teams should not rely on this heavily. Don’t just ask hypothetical questions (e.g. what would you do in this situation). The questions should evaluate the previous behavior of the applicant as it affects future performance.
Structured interviews are still the most effective technique to highlight the skills and behavior of candidates. They contain a permanent set of questions related to the job, allowing the interviewer to evaluate the applicant based on the relevance of their response to the answers you need.
Other alternatives include competency-based, targeted selection-based, and behavioral-based interviews. All these techniques evaluate the applicant’s previous performance and highlight results. They also determine the behavioral and personality tendency of candidates in certain situations. Many companies are gradually integrating these tests into job interviews to rely on scientifically backed information to hire the most suitable candidate.
Video interviews
In this age of remote work and digital collaboration, HR teams should redesign the hiring process for work-from-home positions. Traditionally, video interviews are only for companies who recruit candidates from other countries or the distance/schedule prevents the candidate to show up on the actual interview. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, more companies are relying on video interviews to resume the hiring process despite physical distancing restrictions.
There are plenty of benefits from a video interview — not only does it save time and money but also allows HR teams to structure interview questions, review the interview several times, and share it with recruitment facilitators.
Many employers have shunned the idea of a video interview because it doesn’t compare to face-to-face interactions. In reality, video interviews help expand the applicant pool by connecting with other talented candidates from abroad. The internet offers pre-employment assessments that use video technology to predict the applicants’ job potential.
As companies become digitally enabled, it is important to integrate and scale digital initiatives. While job interviews have proven their ability to meet quality candidates, it never hurts to look for modern alternatives to revolutionize the hiring process and find top talent. In turn, this reduces the burden form HR teams and lessens costs involved in hiring potential employees.
