Rediscover the Valuable Lost Art of Recruitment Selection Design

So here we are. You are at it again.

It never stops.

It is a need that is never satisfied.

It continues to suck time and energy.

It is continuous – relentless.

You’ve had some success, but that success is inconsistent. Frustrated!

You have had some stellar results but the results didn’t convert or stick around. Annoyed!

Heck! This quest is NOT noble; it’s stressful and quixotic.  Let’s be frank, this SUCKS!

The Quest to Find Talent is relentless

Do you feel trapped on the recruitment hamster wheel?

Are you stuck in a non-productive repetitive hiring cycle?

Are you trying to crack the talent code?

Are you being out-foxed by this hiring conundrum? How to select individuals with the right skills S.E.T? (Smart, Enthusiastic, Talented).

If that’s not enough to cope with; do you know that your trusty candidate interview process might be part of the problem?

Your blind faith in the good old interview might be undeserved. Let me explain why.

The Often-Ignored Problems with Interviews

These are three main interview formats traditionally used by recruiters.

• Unstructured, free-flow interviews.
• Situational interviews in which candidates are asked what they ‘would’ do in a given situation.
• Structured interviews in which candidates are asked carefully crafted questions against a predetermined criteria.

I listed them in descending order from weak to strong predictive validity – the effectiveness of the approach to predict on-the-job performance of the candidate.

Stephen Taylor, in his book ‘Employee Resourcing’ now revised and updated to ‘People Resourcing’ gives 13 unlucky reasons to explain why interviews have been criticised for poor predictive validity.

Here are 5 that jumped out at me.  They have the power to derail the smooth flow of your recruitment process and stress you out.

1. The Self-fulfilling prophesy effect: Interviewers ask questions designed to confirm initial impressions of candidates

2. The Halo and Horns effect: Interviewers rate candidates as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ across the board as a result of a first impression despite evidence to the contrary.

3. The Personal liking effect: Interviewers make decisions on the basis of whether or not they personally like or dislike the candidate.

4. The Similar-to-me effect: Interviewers give preference to candidates they perceive as having a similar background, career history, personality or attitudes to themselves.

5. The information overload effect: Interviewers form judgments based on only a fraction of the data available to them about each individual candidate.

Interviews are a nasty bubbling brew of subjectivity, bias and questionable results!

Shall we throw in the towel now?

YES and NO!

The interview – specifically a well-designed structured competency-based interview – continues to be a useful, practical selection technique.

However there is a pesky fly in the ointment – the skill and mind-set of the interviewer. The success and the validity of the interview relies heavily – perhaps too much – on the prowess of the interviewer.

Training and skills coaching can address the ability gap – but only to a point.

Take heart Recruiter, you can take action to reduce the risk of a rogue recruitment process.

Here’s what you can do.  Ready to get started?

Steal-worthy Techniques from the Assessment Centre

One of the best places to observe and experience the benefits of top notch selection design is in a well-crafted Assessment Centre.

I discovered this in my days as a Graduate Recruiter.

Let me tell you what I learnt.

Assessment Centres involve a combination of individual and group exercises. When you combine multiple selection techniques, each technique serves as one important piece of the jigsaw to build a complete picture of the candidate.

Some exercises are designed to mirror the role to be filled, while others zero in on the organisation’s desired competencies or values.

And now comes the best part.

Assessment Centres allow recruiters to observe and test skills and the candidates’ social interactions that are tricky  and difficult to experience in a traditional interview setting.

According to the University of Kent, Careers and Employability Service, Assessment Centres add Vitamin B – BOOST – to your recruitment process!

• They are one of the most reliable methods of assessing candidates. Interviews or any other method, taken alone, may be as low as 15% accurate. However, when scores from a number of different selection exercises are combined, their accuracy can rise to over 60%.

• They are generally accepted as a fair method of selection, providing equal opportunities for all candidates and selecting on merit.

• They are designed to provide selectors with as much information as possible about candidates.

• They assess what candidates will actually do if selected: not just how good they are at interview!

• They offer a thorough, in-depth assessment: most candidates, even if rejected after a selection centre, feel that they have had a fair chance to show what they can do

With all these benefits, an Assessment Centre offers a clear path to improved recruitment results.

Wait! To get your hands on all this value, you will need to put in some extra effort.

Assessment Centres:

1. Take a massive time investment to design and coordinate the format.

2. Need bespoke-designed exercises to get maximum results.

3. Are typically held over 1 – 3 days.

4. Require access to resources. E.g. suitable venue, materials, people for the selection to run without glitches and hitches.

Click here to learn even more about how to structure an Assessment Centre.

Now this begs the question; should you make time to do an Assessment Centre-style selection process?

Yes! The Assessment Centre approach can help you to:-

• Jump-start your chances of selecting candidates that stick.
• Even the odds of recruiting individuals that uplift your organisation’s culture and click with the purpose.

Check out Google’s Secret to Hiring the Best People and learn how you too can cherry-pick and mix some of the best features of the Assessment Centre to get stellar hiring results.

3 More Reasons to Swipe Ideas from an Assessment Centre

1. Bespoke Design Benefits: Designing exercises for an Assessment Centre is all about customising or creating material that is specific to the context of your organisation.

Like a beautiful handwritten note, a well-designed and executed Assessment Centre demonstrates care and the importance an organisation places on selecting the best candidates to join the company.

I am designing a mini Assessment Centre for a client.

My first task is to identify the key criteria on which the assessment will be based. Here is a peek at my work in progress.

Next I will move on to creating the scripts and evaluation criteria for the different exercises.

Work in progress at Aquarius HR

2. Cross-functional collaboration: Recruitment is everyone’s business. The Assessment Centre approach breaks down internal walls. It allows managers, peer-employees and HR to collaborate and share ownership in recruiting new employees and building the organisation’s culture.

3. Tell your brand story: It provides the opportunity for your candidates to experience your brand first hand through their interaction with assessors / employees of the company.

When candidates have a meaningful and rewarding experience in your selection process, they will share their positive experience, even if they are not hired.

This is authentic Marketing-karma and PR-mojo flowing back to your target talent community. Priceless!

The Art of HR

HR is Art.

It may feel like a martial art discipline sometimes – but art it is nonetheless.

Selection Design is an opportunity for HR to make meaning, create a bespoke experience for the candidate/employee.

So savvy HR/Recruiter, don’t stress. 

You don’t need to create a full-on Assessment Centre.

Instead, add one ingredient to your recruitment process to design your path to improved sticky recruitment results.

Mix one exercise (e.g. a role play, or case study, or presentation) in to your standard interview process and increase the validity of your candidate selection process.

What other ideas and techniques can you steal from the Assessment Centre approach to Design Your Path to Improved Sticky Recruitment Results?

How have you (re)discovered the lost art of recruitment selection design?

Share thoughts on art of HR.  Drop a comment in the box below.

This post was originally posted in the blog The HR Rabbit Hole on 15th November 2015. Now it is served up fresh for the Recruiting Blogs community.

Nicole is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Aquarius Human Resources Consulting Ltd. Passionate about HR as Art, she is an advocate of Creative HR. Connect via Twitter @AquariusHRLtd.