How behaviour-based psychometric assessments are revolutionising recruitment

The employment market is changing. With an average of 19 applicants per medium-skilled vacancy, and an average of 75 applicants per graduate position in the UK in 2017, recruitment is becoming unmanageable.

This results in two major issues:

1. First-time job seekers take longer to find employment, and are often forced to take on part-time work or consider positions outs
   ide of their chosen field.
2. Employers are faced with increasingly larger volumes of applicants from a wide range of degrees, backgrounds and qualifications which are often difficult to differentiate between.

This leaves HR departments overwhelmed and struggling to sort through the slew of applications and identify the most suitable candidates for their organisation. Consequently, many companies have to filter applicants through several application steps – from initial screening to multiple rounds of interviews, aptitude tests and assessment centres – which makes the process labour- and time-intensive as well as costly.

The longer the selection processes, the slower the result for candidates, which can lead to a high drop off rate or employers losing top candidates to competitors. Additionally, a poor candidate experience can lead to a poor brand perception. In a recent TotalJobs study, a whopping 56% of applicants stated that a negative recruitment experience will tarnish their views of the brand, and 10% said that they would share their negative feedback online. Candidates who enjoy the recruitment experience, on the other hand, are 38% more likely to accept a job offer, according to a 2017 study by IBM.

As a result, companies are increasingly looking to innovate in the recruitment process to alleviate these pain points. Cutting-edge, data-driven technologies such as behaviour-based psychometric assessments can do just that! By automating the process and acting as a sift in the early recruitment stages, this technology speeds up and optimises the selection process, thereby reducing the pressure on HR departments and hiring managers, while also providing a better candidate experience.

So what exactly are behaviour-based psychometric assessments? By combining psychometric assessments with predictive analytics and AI technology, this new type of psychometric assessment is a powerful tool to complement human intuition in the hiring process, looking beyond the CV and taking into consideration candidates’ performance potential and cultural fit. These assessments consist of a series of tasks, set in a user-friendly, immersive and graphically rich interface, to capture real behavioural actions. Specifically designed to put users at ease, behaviour-based psychometric assessments let candidates forget that they are being assessed, thereby enabling them to more authentically showcase their natural strengths and preferences. The result is a data-rich, objective measure of a candidate’s personality and cognition.

The algorithmic and data-driven approach of behaviour-based psychometric assessments have shown significant improvements over traditional assessment tools in recruitment. These assessments are also improving diversity and accessible for individuals with disabilities such as dyslexia and colour blindness. Additionally, due to their engaging nature, they are less stressful for candidates to complete and add a fun factor to the application process. As such, they minimise and can even alleviate test anxiety and consequently are a great option for candidates who tend to underperform in traditional assessments and test settings.

Robert Newry, CEO & Co-Founder of Arctic Shores summed it up: “We are excited to be one of the pioneers in behaviour-based psychometric assessments. As a team of psychologists, data scientists and developers we are driven to change not only the way companies make hiring decisions, but also how people make career decisions.”

Robert Newry

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