Unconscious prejudice permeates the employment process and influences how decisions are made. Our brains evaluate candidates quickly based on our views. In fact, according to study that appeared in Nature, people frequently “underestimate how prone they are to error in inferring people’s intentions, talents, and mental states during interactions.”
You undoubtedly relied on your intuition when making a decision in business. That’s not to say you shouldn’t trust your gut, but when evaluating job candidates, it’s crucial to balance these instincts with facts and standardized procedures. Here are five methods for screening job candidates and improving hiring choices.
- Use structured interviewing techniques
To compare and assess candidates fairly, structured interviews which involve asking all job candidates for particular position the same set of questions. To further standardize this procedure, an established order may be used. A candidate’s work success can be predicted far more accurately with organized interviews, according to research from McGill University.Standardized tests ought to concentrate on elements like hard and soft skills that have a direct impact on work success. To maintain consistency in your approach, SCORE provides a worksheet for job interviews that can be downloaded. - Create an interview scoring sheet
You can compare job candidates uniformly with the use of evaluation questionnaires and scorecards. They are also helpful for keeping track of results from several interviews and interviewers. These can be simple or complex, but they must all make reference to distinct, measurable standards. In most evaluation systems, the questions are listed, and you can mark the answers with a checkmark or a blank space. Notes can also be added to the forms.If the situation calls for it, you can also include more subjective ratings. Give the “likeability factor” a direct score during the interview process so that it can be evaluated alongside other talents, advises Harvard Business School, if it has an impact on employee success and is important to your firm.Create your own job application using a free template. For Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Microsoft Word, and PDF, Fit Small Business has compiled eight free interview templates. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) also offers a candidate evaluation form that you may copy and paste into another document or download as a Microsoft Word file. - Request a skills test or work sample
HireVue claims that “More than a third (38%) of hiring teams say they still rely mostly on instinct when choosing candidates. A further third (31%) of hires are based on personal ties.” Both of these approaches fall short of achieving complete objectivity and workforce diversity objectives. You can compare job hopefuls’ work objectively side by side using work sample tests. These reflect the duties of the position and forecast performance.A personality test can also be used to evaluate qualities and soft skills including dependability, risk-aversion, and stress tolerance. However, personality tests “are most useful when paired with other measures with stronger predictive validity, such as integrity or cognitive ability,” according to Harvard Business Review. - Take a team approach to interviews and post-meeting evaluationsIt can be beneficial to involve more than one person in the interviewing and evaluation process because employees in the workplace all have unique viewpoints. Group interviews using predetermined questions let team members conduct objective analysis and lessen the impact of prejudice or first impressions.As an alternative, you can evaluate job candidates through two or more interviews and then discuss the results of scorecards or evaluation forms. Use a structured evaluation form so that everyone is in agreement during interviews and when the group receives comments on the candidate.
- Train interviewers to compare job candidates objectively
Being objective can be challenging, and many small firms just don’t have a lot of money to invest in technology and outside help. But education can help you refine your strategy. Training improves recruiting by lowering discrimination and legal threats.Think about online training courses like:Effective Interviewing and Hiring at Cornell University.
Ask Better Questions During Interviews to Hire Better Candidates on Udemy.
LinkedIn: Training for hiring and interviewing.
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