Psychometric assessments continue to be popular across many sectors and types of roles. And it’s no surprise: assessments can be powerful tools for hiring best-fit employees. But, as with any tool, it’s important to know when and how to use assessments. What adverse impacts can the tool have, if any? And how can those potential impacts be mitigated?
In hourly recruitment, one area of concern is the effect lengthy assessments can have on candidate drop-off rates. With hourly employees preferring a shorter and less complex process, enterprises risk losing access to top talent if their assessments are too long.
In a recent Talent Board survey, more than a quarter of candidates who reported voluntarily withdrawing from the application process said it was “because the process took too long.” The overwhelming trend in hiring is to keep candidates engaged with a quicker and more straightforward application experience.
As part of your recruiting strategy, carefully plan the length and timing of assessments for hourly employees. At Mindfield, we’re always optimizing our process on behalf of clients. We know assessments help companies select engaged, best-fit candidates for their roles. However, we started noticing that lengthy assessments caused between 45-63% of hourly candidates to drop out of the application process. Studying data and drop-off points has helped us fine-tune our recruitment practices, pass down our learnings to clients, and not lose out on potential qualified candidates.
When the recruitment process starts, it’s important for companies to identify their non-negotiables. What are the core competencies attached to each role? Maybe availability is key, or perhaps it’s all about their passion for the business. Refining this candidate profile is critical to finding the right people.
Mindfield works from these candidate profiles to screen for matches. We start with the resume, and as we move through the screening process, we continue to ask qualifying questions to identify the best candidates for our clients’ needs.
The interview is another opportunity to further fine-tune candidate selection and increase candidate attraction. Both parties can talk about the expectations and day-to-day realities of a role. Top candidates want to hear about opportunities for growth, company culture, and what makes you different. Part of the interview strategy should be selling the organization as a great workplace–and the best candidates will want to take part.
An assessment can be a great resource in your hiring toolkit, but if the data shows a correlation with high candidate drop-off at that point in the process, it may be time to rethink your strategy. As experts in hourly hiring, Mindfield can help your business fine-tune your recruitment process. Click here to learn more about what we do.
About Mindfield
Mindfield is a Recruitment Outsourcing solutions provider that partners with companies to create powerful hourly workforces. Our solutions combine a recruitment team, simple to use technology and a data-driven hiring strategy that promises to improve the quality of your hourly workforce. This approach focuses on tying business outcomes such as sales performance, tenure, and engagement to the selection, hiring and measurement of quality candidates.