Companies hire fresh graduates to infuse a young and fresh perspective in the organisation. Engaging the best and the brightest requires employers to stand out from the crowd. The millenials and Gen Z-ers have a revised set of expectations from organisations. Company culture, communication, employer branding, career growth and the right fitment have become imperatives for attracting the right talent.

Let’s take a look at what fresh graduates expect from organisations.

What college grads are looking for

To attract top talent, companies need to align with their expectations, and consequently may need to rethink recruitment strategies at many levels. Well-established brands have challenges too, as brand awareness is just one of the criteria that college grads look at while applying for jobs or making the decision to get on board. While young graduates expect good compensation, it’s not at the top of the list. Work culture is high on the list of criteria for employer evaluation. Young job seekers also want to be sure that they will be a good “fit” in the organisation.

Gen Z are a more aware generation — cultural fitment, a demonstrated commitment of the company towards sustainability and climate change, diversity and inclusion are important to them. Companies need proactive strategies to fulfil these expectations.

Getting fresh talent on board

Attracting the crème de la crème requires focused effort. Besides, campus recruitment cannot be done overnight. Add to these the fact that the pandemic has brought about significant disruption to the workplace. The work environment has changed; so have expectations from both employers and employees. While virtual hiring has facilitated a wider candidate pool, it has also forced companies to relook at their recruitment processes and strategies. Here are some tips to get the best college talent:

• Send a compelling message:

Attracting college talent requires companies to align with the thoughts and needs of the youth. Develop a strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and make sure that it meets the expectations of young people.
Update websites, brand pages and career pages; highlight EVP, career development, company culture and continuous learning opportunities.

• Get involved early:

Understand the college ecosystem and set up a holistic university recruitment program that will help with focused campus recruitment. Building relationships with colleges by sponsoring contests, field visits and college fests helps build employer brand on campus. Internships, rotation days and apprenticeship programs may hook potential employees. Organisations can showcase recent college hires and alumni, highlight their achievements and bring them on as recruitment evangelists to further their cause.

• Simplify the recruitment process:

With remote and hybrid work, virtual hiring and remote recruitment are now here to stay. Particularly, large volume hiring stands to benefit with online campus recruitment platforms. Companies can cast a wider net and reach out to candidates across geographical regions. Deploying a virtual campus hiring solution offers an improved candidate experience and can help get top talent on board. Automated campus hiring workflows can save crucial time and effort, and result in fewer drop-offs.

• Identify skills and conduct meaningful assessments:

With a huge pool of diverse talent available, employers should not get lost in the process of identifying the right talent. Skills, cultural fitment, aptitude, capability and learning agility need to be evaluated objectively, based on a set of criteria. Soft skills, attitude and behavioural aspects need to be assessed. Many of these assessments can be automated and conducted online asynchronously using AI-based campus hiring tools.

• Actively engage online:

Social media is a powerful way of connecting to college graduates, and companies should leverage platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to promote their employer brand. Hosting live sessions to interact with their best employees and recruitment professionals are ways to engage with potential candidates. Fireside chats, live webinars and virtual career fairs are other ways to grab eyeballs.

Attracting the best talent from colleges may be a labyrinthian affair, but it can be navigated with the help of a structured strategy that starts much before the actual recruitment begins. To a large extent, many of the processes can be simplified by using remote university hiring platforms. Hirepro’s campus hiring workflow is an end-to-end virtual recruitment platform that enables frictionless virtual hiring and offers a superior candidate experience.

Aligning with millennials and Gen Z expectations, reworking processes and using cutting-edge technology will help companies get top graduates and ultimately lead to business growth.

Campus recruitment is one of the ideal ways for companies to discover and onboard new talent. It is a lengthy and multi-step process of identifying colleges, building a strong and receptive recruitment team to visit them, organising engaging programmes, screening suitable candidates and conducting interviews. Developing a successful and scalable campus hiring strategy to identify top talent presents many challenges. Carrying out the drive involves several campus visits, investing in the right resources and aligning with multiple stakeholders like recruiters, hiring managers, career development centres, and of course, students. The entire exercise requires the support of a wide array of functions encompassing strategy, technology, marketing and relationship building.
In the present scenario, where most recruitment is done remotely, organisations are investing extensively to augment digital processes while HR leaders are tasked with constructing an effective campus hiring strategy.

Here are some best practices to help you get optimal results from your campus recruiting drives:

Establish a strong brand

Employer branding can set an organisation on a sound path to finding top talent; companies that get their employer branding right attract the cream of available talent.. Establishing a strong brand helps students recognise your company on campus and generates enthusiasm for the roles open at your organisation. The various approaches to growing your brand on campus include hosting sessions to increase brand awareness, working with the career centre to advertise open positions, and promoting company culture. You can also bring a current employee who is an alumnus of the institute to share a new-hire perspective. Use social media to boost your presence and create engagement, and invite potential candidates to your talent pipeline.

Create an engaging career page

A well-designed, interactive careers page on your official website dedicated to digital campus hiring can help attract candidates. Through it, you can build your brand image and highlight its propositions and the high points of working in your organisation. You can showcase the benefits, rewards, unique company values, organisational culture and more in a way that strikes a chord with potential young recruits. A crisply worded job description can appeal to candidates and is very likely to influence their decisions.

Build a campus relationship

Develop and maintain a strong relationship with chosen institutes and their students. Being present at the campus a few times each year and engaging with students during their time at university will help create a lasting, positive image of the company. There are many ways to do this: mentoring students, conducting workshops and fun events like quizzes and hackathons, events, and offering a sponsorship for the college annual fest, if your budget allows for it. By building warm relationships with students, organisations can integrate their presence and brand voice with the college in an organic manner.

Start a Campus Ambassador Programme

Another strategy that companies can adopt is the Campus Ambassador Programme. This is an effective way for a company to maintain its brand presence on a college campus, even without actually being there. The programme allows organisations to enhance awareness about their products or services through a group of enthusiastic university students. In an Ambassador Programme, companies hire and appoint college students to represent and promote their brand and products or services on campus through a variety of promotional activities, including social media posts, video testimonials, partnering with student organisations, etc. These student ambassadors are coached by mentors and teachers to get a good grasp of the company’s offerings and processes. In turn, they assist other students in making career decisions by conducting workshops and seminars on behalf of the company.

Adopt a student referral program

A student referral program is an excellent way to create a talent pipeline through recent hires as word-of-mouth is still one of the most credible marketing initiatives. Recruiters can identify talent through a referral program that uses your current employees’ student networks. Students who are hired in turn refer their juniors from student clubs and other organisations to help the company select suitable candidates in a shorter time span and reduced costs.

Automate the recruitment process

Automation helps simplify the campus recruitment process. Recruiters therefore are increasingly relying on automation to streamline hiring processes and select the best suited candidates. The technology reduces administrative tasks in identifying candidates, eliminates hiring biases and even retains relevant data for future recruitment. Moreover, automation ensures precision and supports high volumes unlike lateral hiring. Automated assessments are a smart and effective recruitment approach to use minimal resources and achieve optimal success. HirePro campus hiring workflows are efficient remote college hiring platforms designed for high-volume college recruitment.

Select a hiring partner

Identifying a top-notch recruitment partner can reduce the workload substantially and also give you an edge over other organisations. A hiring partner can get you easy access to resources, innovative ideas, improved marketing and technical skills, besides frontloading the entire gamut of the hiring cycle. Using various hiring methods, a good hiring partner will help you pick out the best talent to match the available job positions.

Thanks to technological advances, campus recruitment methods are evolving at a rapid pace. Keep up with the times by staying innovative and optimising approaches that help you attract ideal candidates. Make sure to utilise the best technology available like AI-Based campus hiring tools to source and engage the best talent with a physical and virtual presence on campuses.

Finding the best talent for a team is always a long process. The traditional assessment and recruitment techniques can be ramped up to become more efficient with the use of technology. Tech tools can make the process faster and, more often than not, better.

Here’s a list of assessment techniques that could be implemented by most organisations. Many of these techniques are very handy when assessing the finalised candidates.

• Audio-based assessment
  Such tests are designed to assess a candidate’s listening skills, ability to understand and follow oral instructions and discussions, and depth of domain knowledge. Candidates could be asked to listen to audio clips and complete tasks based on the clips.
• Video-based assessment
  Designed around video case studies, video-based assessment is useful to check a candidate’s listening and viewing skills. Asynchronous interviews, where a candidate video records answers, are becoming very popular as an online assessment tool. Such interviews are often AI-powered, which makes it useful as a screening round. Sometimes built with face-scanning algorithms, such applications can analyse facial expressions, tone of voice, vocabulary and body language. The technology is not always perfect; nevertheless, it can be a handy tool. However, it can be a little biased, depending on who has built the algorithm.
• Psychometric assessment
  Psychometric tests or aptitude tests are quite insightful and can pick out personality traits otherwise not easily discernible in a face-to-face interview. Such tests are being increasingly used for corporate recruitment as well as in institutes of higher learning. Test scores are used to analyse personality details such as strengths, weaknesses, decision-making abilities, areas of interest and other traits.
  Popularly used tests are verbal and numerical reasoning tests, personality tests and situational judgement tests. Skills and problem-solving tests can analyse how a candidate will perform under stress, his/her logic skills and creative thinking style. There are options to take the psychometric tests online too.
• Career profiling-based assessment
  Organisations are increasingly using career profiling tests to identify candidates’ areas of interest to understand whether they are suitable for a role. Such tests are also used in educational institutes to filter candidates.
• Games and exercises
  Gamification is one of the newest tools being used to assess talent. It improves the candidate’s application experience too. Like psychometric tests, gaming tasks and activities can assess various skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and logic. Games make the process more engaging and are surprisingly insightful when it comes to understanding candidate skills.
  Older established methods include group tasks, role play and presentations. All these effectively show how people behave or perform in different life-situations. It is important to understand people’s working style and group behaviour before a candidate becomes part of an organisation.
• Soft skills assessment
  About 25 per cent of any job requires soft skills, which are, perhaps, among the most difficult to assess. Trying to assess such skills during an interview is challenging since most candidates will come prepared with the most favourable responses.
  Relationship building, communications, leadership skills, adaptability, strategic thinking, learning and interpersonal skills are critical skills at all levels of the corporate ladder. True, personality tests are not sufficient to base a recruitment decision on, but they are very useful in conjunction with other tests and tools.
  Candidates could be asked to list the soft skills necessary to succeed in the role they’re interviewing for, and how they stand against these skills. Candidates could be asked to solve a problem that requires soft skills, or take an online soft skills test.
  HirePro assessment offers very handy tools to test the ‘Big 5’ personality traits, also known as OCEAN. The traits are:
  1. Openness to experiences
  2. Conscientiousness
  3. Extraversion
  4. Agreeableness
  5. Neuroticism

• Work simulation
  Probably one of the most used techniques of assessment — work simulation — requires candidates to demonstrate a skill that will be required on the job. It could involve role-playing, delivering a sales pitch or completing a task such as writing code. Candidates can be assessed on many skills during such a round. This way, the candidates also get a taste of what it will be like to work in the organisation.
• Structured interviews
  While casual interviewing techniques are gaining ground, structured interviews are still considered very effective. A set of predetermined questions makes the interviews impartial since every candidate gets an equal opportunity to answer the same questions. This reduces the chances of recruitment bias too

Choose the most appropriate assessment technique

Finally, the question boils down to which assessment technique is the best. The answer will depend on what role or roles an organisation is trying to fill. That will decide the job skills as well as the soft skills required. HirePro assessment offers a customisable bouquet of tools that can be effectively used for any domain, role or industry vertical. The tools include assessment of aptitude, technical skills, function-specific skills and behavioural traits.

Using many assessment tests is not always the best process to follow. In fact, too many stages of selection can drive away some of the best candidates. It will help to keep in mind that unless there’s a direct science linking an assessment technique to job performance, or a pertinent skill, it is best not to use the technique. There are plenty of others to choose from.

Sources:

• www.picked.ai
• www.epravesh.com
• www.linkedin.com/business/talent
• www.mckinsey.com

“You are not alone, you are being watched.” ~ Ram Writings
In April 2020, the Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT) was proctored remotely, powered by AI technology. It was one of the first instances of remote proctoring to happen at a global level.
In India, institutions like Shiv Nadar University, OP Jindal Global University and Symbiosis International opted for AI-proctored online entrance exams during the pandemic.
Why? Travel restrictions during the pandemic made it impossible to either appear for exams or take interviews offline. So, there were only two options: not conduct exams and interviews at all or carry them out virtually.
Examinations that decided the future could not be done without. Companies looking to hire had to assess and interview job applicants. An unquestionable need for virtualising assessments and interviews arose.
As these went digital, maintaining their sanctity became a challenge. This saw the birth of online proctoring.

Online proctoring: Is it enough?

Online proctoring involves invigilating an exam remotely to prevent malpractices. In education, it is nothing new. It had been in use even before the onset of the pandemic. Competitive exams like GRE, GMAT, CAT are purely online proctor-based. But these have been proctored by certified human proctors.
But, is it sufficient to rely only on human eyes? What about unscrupulous candidates intent on hoodwinking?
Consider this piece of statistics — a 2019 survey conducted by Yale Daily News brought to light that 196 out of 1400 students who participated in the survey confessed to having cheated.
This survey result validates ethical lapses just as much as it creates anxiety concerning the probity of online exams.
This raises a pertinent question — how difficult is it to detect online cheating? The honest answer is, not more difficult than it is for the offline version, especially if one has the right tools.

AI: The new invigilator in the room

Till about two years ago, online proctoring technologies used static algorithms which did not meet the new demands created by the pandemic.
An evolution in remote proctoring — with the magic of AI — transformed the face of proctoring from online to cutting-edge automated.
AI’s ability to learn, adapt and get smarter turned out to be a phenomenal advantage.
Leveraging AI in proctoring now enables conducting exams seamlessly. They make for friendly tools too.

Friendliness quotient

AI proctoring scores over human-invigilation in many areas.

• AI-proctored exams can handle up to 100,000 candidates at once.
• Role-based access as admins, proctors or candidates ensures overall security.
• AI-proctored exams enable customisable assessment patterns (both MCQ and descriptive types included).

How do AI-proctoring services work?

AI-proctored software platforms provide services starting from before the exam-start all the way until after the exam. What do these services include?

Before exam-start — Candidate authentication:

This entails first verifying the candidate’s name and registration. Then, webcam clicked photos are verified against a scanned admissible ID proof. Then, it asks for a full scan of the room to ensure that necessary security standards are met.

At the start of the exam — Browser control and monitoring:

Once the candidate is verified, anti-fraud measures are put in place. These include blocking of search engines, web browsers and websites; disabling sharing for desktops and any other virtual environment; and, blocking connection to external devices or any mode of transfer.

During the exam — Live proctoring:

The candidate is allowed to commence the assessment only after successfully completing the previous two steps. At this stage, face and voice recognition algorithms look out for any signs of unusual behaviour and send out a warning in case they sense anything offbeat.

Post-exam — Audit:

Compliance is a big part of online exam integrity. To facilitate this, the session is recorded. Apart from compliance, this has proven to be useful for audit also.

Minimum infrastructure, maximum returns

All these conveniences come with the least possible infrastructure investment — a laptop with a webcam (in-built or attached) and a steady Internet connection are all that the platforms ask.

Conclusion

The rapid revolution in the way exams are now conducted created a demand for new ways of keeping a pair of watchful eyes and AI-proctoring paved the way forward.
Whether as a standalone solution or an augmentation to human invigilation, AI-proctoring is the need of the hour. As new innovations become more accessible, this technology too will evolve and undoubtedly surpass humans’ physical-processing abilities.
HirePro brings to you an AI-powered proctoring solution that has been implemented by over two million assessments and video interviews, in just one quarter, all of them proctored by the software alone, and, with an impressive 99 per cent success rate.
The future of assessments is here.

All enterprises wish to hire the best talent available. But more often, the best candidates do not join a particular organisation.. Considering that interviews are the first impressions about an organisation, brainstorm over the following questions: Are the interviewers giving out the right vibe and setting the correct tone for candidates? Is the entire hiring process effective enough to attract the right talent? The organisation should also set policies and procedures to make the entire hiring process seamless.

What not to do

It is customary to deem candidates unfit if they reject a rolled-out offer. But it could have been a case of the organisation failing to convince and attract the best talent in the market. While some reasons for this can be totally out of your control, there are certainly things that you, as an enterprise, can do differently to ensure that you don’t lose out on the right talent for your organisation.

1. Vague/Incorrect job descriptions

   The candidates that end up in your interview rooms are the ones that caught your bait, your job description. If you think the candidates are unfit, you may need to revisit the job description that you have put out. Who are you targeting? What are your expectations? What are the skill sets that you are looking for? The skills that actually make a difference—the ability to prioritise work, negotiation skills and effective communication—are often missed in the job description.
   Avoid vague job descriptions; they may not actually help in attracting the right talent. Give a detailed description of the skills that you expect.

2. Unrealistic expectations

   Are you searching for the non-existent “purple squirrel”? Often, unrealistic expectations from candidates can lead to many good profiles being filtered out from the system. Perfection pushes away candidates for the simple reason that it may be too stressful for them to live up to something that could well be fictional. Put aside expectations of perfection and test candidates for skills that matter.

3. Not reviewing applications regularly

   You’ve put up a well-written, detailed job description and are waiting for that perfect candidate to show up. Your job, as an enterprise, does not end at putting up job requirements on portals. If your hiring team does not go through applications often enough, be assured that you may have missed your diamond. For, if a candidate does not hear from you in good time, his or her interest in the company and the job will diminish.

4. Lack of preparation

   Your candidates put in a lot of effort and prepare well. They put their strengths on the table. Have you ever imagined how they’d feel if the interviewers appeared unprepared for the interview and asked boring questions that may not be challenging? Prepare questions that challenge candidates and assure them of growth.

5. Focus on you rather than the candidate

   Hiring for a job role is a two-way street. It is not only the candidate that is being evaluated; the organisation is being tested too. If the interviewers harped about the organisation, paying no heed to what the candidate is saying, it won’t take long for them to turn away to find a place more challenging.

   Ensure that your interviewers talk about the job and the challenges involved, as also about the candidate’s skills that impressed the panel.

6. Rough candidate experience during the interview

   If the interview panellists communicate in an unclear and rude manner, a good candidate is sure to turn down your offer. An organisation should take efforts to ensure a seamless candidate experience throughout the recruitment process.

7. Taking time to get back

   While it is extremely important to ensure a seamless experience for the candidate, it is equally critical to get back to the candidate with an offer or a rejection. If you take time getting back, even with a lucrative offer, there is no guarantee that the candidate will still be interested.

8. Hiring for past prowess rather than for skills

   A candidate loses interest in a job if there are no challenges that will push him or her towards upskilling. The interviewer should identify what a candidate can do to positively impact the growth of the organisation.

Considering the options that are there in the market, hiring a good candidate is a challenge. Set a clear, transparent process that is communicated to every stakeholder in the hiring process. An empathetic, simple process will ensure that the best talent in the market is attracted to your organisation.

In today’s highly competitive and volatile environment, hiring is a complicated and expensive process. Imagine hiring a candidate after a multi-pronged, multi-level process only to find that the candidate does not fit well with your team structure and culture. A bad cultural fit will result in disorientation and dissatisfaction. This in turn will result in high attrition and low productivity.That would be money and time thrown down the drain. This is what often happens when you concentrate on hiring the best talent for the job, based only on a candidate’s functional skills.

Personality tests come into the picture when you seek a multi-level match. In other words, you should look for a candidate who not only fits the skill requirements for a job but also aligns with your company’s values, policies and work culture. Today, this is easier said than done. Most candidate’s are already equipped with canned responses for any general queries that are aimed at getting to know them better. Personality assessments are the answer to such canned responses. These specialty assessments are scientifically designed to help you build a personality profile for every individual.

Many of these assessments focus on evaluating five factors, namely, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. While there are varying opinions about the effectiveness of these assessments, they are very helpful when trying to make a choice between candidates with similar academic and professional backgrounds. It will also help you filter out candidates with outstanding resumes but no real-world skills.

DISC, The Big Five, Kolbe, StrengthsFinder (CliftonStrengths 2.0) and Myers Briggs (MBTI) are some of the popular personality tests used in hiring. The success of your hiring strategy will depend on the personality assessment you decide to use and how you incorporate the results into your hiring process. Here are a few tips that will help you use personality assessments to your advantage.

• People are not a mixed bag of fruits

  While it’s easy to separate a mixed bag of fruits into apples and oranges, that is not the case with people. People are much more complex and cannot be defined by labels like extroverts, committed etc. Avoid boxing people into predefined labels using personality tests.

• It’s not a simple pass or fail

  Personality tests should not be approached like any other assessment. In fact, you cannot pass or fail a personality assessment. Evaluate the candidate holistically, with a combination of personality tests and other tests. The overall performance of the candidate should enable you to make a decision.

• Is the candidate a good fit for the team?

  A test that is customised for a role or a team would be the most effective. Use a combination of historical data and personality tests to thoughtfully consider team dynamics. Design your personality tests to help identify the best fit for your team.

• It’s the interpretation that matters

  The test results by themselves mean nothing to your hiring team. It’s the interpretation of the results that will make the difference. You will need experts in the team, who can evaluate the tests and interpret the test findings accurately.

• Play to your weakness

  Assess the gaps in the team you are hiring for and focus the assessment to hire for your specific team’s needs and gaps.

Personality assessments are invaluable tools that enable you to hire effectively and efficiently. To know more about HirePro’s custom built personality assessments write to us at sales@hirepro.in

sources

• www.4cornerresources.com
• www.inc.com
• www.indeed.com
• www.mytractiontools.com
• www.innovationtraining.org
• www.shrm.org
• www.ddiworld.com
• www.learn.g2.com

Video interviews have gained immense popularity over the past few years. Due to the impetus provided by the advancements in technology and the exigencies of remote work, they are increasingly becoming a staple of talent acquisition across sectors. Organisations are using video interviews at the screening stage and to conduct in-depth interviews to identify the right candidates without the hassle of conducting resource-intensive traditional in-person interviews.

During the hiring process, video interviews enable organisations to assess a candidate’s qualifications, work experience, technical prowess, soft skills and more. Video interviews can be conducted in live/synchronous mode or recorded/asynchronous mode. Today, organisations conduct video interviews in either of these modes by deploying specialised and integrated video interview software to schedule, conduct and analyse the interviews. Video interviews are cost-effective, provide access to a larger talent pool by eliminating geographical constraints and facilitate storage and analysis of high quality and consolidated data on candidates.

Here are some keys to ensuring success during video interviews.

• General best practices

  Before participating in a video interview, hiring managers and candidates must agree on a suitable date and time for the interview. The hiring managers and the candidates must ensure that the interview environment is quiet and well-lit. Choose private places without interruptions by people, pets or external noises. Devices must be silenced and notifications must be turned off to avoid distractions during the interview. The participants must dress as professionally as they would for a traditional in-person interview. The camera must be positioned such that the participants appear at the centre of the screen, looking up slightly. The tech set-up must be tested and video interviews must be practised by making video calls to friends and family and eliciting their candid feedback.

  During the interview, the body language must be good; distracting non-verbal gestures should be avoided. Eye contact must be maintained by looking directly at the webcam while speaking and the speaker’s face on the computer screen while listening. The participants must maintain good posture and ensure that they smile and actively engage with each other while discussing various topics. The pace, tone and volume of speaking must be managed. Appropriate pauses should be made while speaking and adequate time must be given to the other person to respond. A video interview must be treated on par with in-person interviews in terms of seriousness so that both participants can have a constructive conversation.

• Tips for talent acquisition leaders

  

  Talent acquisition (TA) leaders must plan ahead to implement video interviews as part of the recruitment process. It is recommended to set the expectations from video interviews and garner a buy-in from the hiring managers to avoid mismatches in outcomes. Hiring managers must also be equipped with video interview guides and behaviour-based questions to assist them in choosing the right candidates. TA leaders should ensure that the hiring managers and candidates are given the necessary information and support for a positive and seamless video interview experience. The virtual interview schedule must be shared with the hiring managers and emailed to the candidates in advance. Any rescheduling requests from candidates must be addressed promptly.

  At least 24 hours before the interview, TA leaders must send out an email to both hiring managers and candidates, explaining why the video interview format has been chosen. A list of best practices and tips for a frictionless interview experience and easy-to-follow instructions, including screenshots, on how to participate in a video interview must also be shared. Besides, the email should contain guidelines on the hardware, software and internet bandwidth requirements, the ideal interview location and troubleshooting links, besides clear instructions on how to set up and test before the video interview begins.

  While planning the video interview approach, TA leaders must examine various video interview platforms based on requisite features and capabilities. Choosing the right video interview platform to match an organisation’s unique requirements is an important step towards ensuring a smooth and seamless video experience for both hiring managers and candidates. Apart from popular video conferencing platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, Zoom and Skype, there are several dedicated and feature-rich video interview technology solutions that can be considered. Opting for and integrating a customised and mobile-friendly video interview platform with an organisation’s ATS will allow the hiring team to manage candidate information and communication in one place. It will also help them handle video interview scheduling and implementation with ease.

  HirePro’s all-in-one video interview platform helps conduct live interactive, coding or asynchronous video interviews. It can be easily integrated with an organisation’s existing ATS and calendars for instant plug-and-play. With advanced features such as automated scheduling and feedback collection, AI-powered ID verification and impersonation detection, frictionless video interviews can be implemented for a superior interview experience. HirePro’s video interview platform ensures uninterrupted videos even where the Internet connectivity is patchy and bandwidths are as low as 128kbps. In addition, robust security and compliance measures such as strong password policies for data access, encryption for personal information and data transfers, audit trails and logs for all activities provide a secure and safe video interview experience for all stakeholders.

  Tips for hiring managers

  Hiring managers must prepare meticulously to make a smooth transition from in-person interviews to video interviews. They should thoroughly understand the job description to choose candidates based on non-negotiable and sought-after skills and traits that make candidates the right fit for the job. They must evaluate the culture and internal dynamics of the current team to ensure that the chosen candidates add substantial value to the team. Further, they should prepare a set of well-thought-out and structured interview questions to assess candidates meticulously. They must also get comfortable with using the video interview platform so that they can assist candidates during the interview and solve any technical difficulties that may arise.

  During the interview, hiring managers must dress in an attire that reflects their organisation’s standard dress code. Throughout the interview, they must be alert, responsive and considerate towards the candidates. Their body language and gestures must be respectful and they should give the candidate sufficient time to answer every interview question. Since taking elaborate notes is likely to break eye contact, hiring managers should consider using interview scorecards instead. Interview scorecards help standardise the evaluation of candidates to facilitate an objective assessment of their skills and traits. After every video interview, hiring managers must ensure post-interview follow-ups, elicit feedback and maintain regular communication with the candidates.

  Tips for candidates

  Candidates must prepare for video interviews as diligently as they would for in-person interviews. Before a video interview, they must diligently read and understand the job description. They must make sure that they have the interview schedule and instructions on how to access and use the video interview technology. A technology test run must be conducted and any technical issues should be brought to the notice of the hiring managers for corrective action. Further, a professional username must be used to log in to the video interview platform. Since video interviews provide a unique opportunity for candidates to showcase their creativity, they can set themselves apart from the competition by presenting a deck comprising of their educational background, work experience, skillset and ideas on how they intend to perform their role.

  Candidates must dress in the same manner as they would for an in-person interview. This will enhance the confidence factor. Bright coloured clothing must be avoided and the attire must be neatly pressed. Logging in to join the interview five to ten minutes early is advised. Candidates must keep their resume, job description and speaking points handy for easy reference. However, candidates should make it a point not to read directly from their notes. During the interview, candidates must answer all the questions with confidence and maintain eye contact. A post-interview thank-you note can be sent to the interviewer to express gratitude for the opportunity and reinforce why they are the right match for the company and role.

  Conclusion

  While it is essential for TA leaders to ensure hiring managers are prepared for video interviews, it is also equally important to communicate the schedule, format and other crucial aspects of the interview to candidates. Sharing tips on video interviews and doing a test run helps both hiring managers and candidates have a positive video interview experience. Since video interviews are here to stay, approaching them with the same seriousness as in-person interviews, streamlining the process and arranging proper systems and backstops make the video interview process frictionless, efficient and effective.

  HirePro’s industry-leading video interview platform provides an unparalleled video interview experience. Our end-to-end technology solutions and support help conduct hassle-free video interviews. Explore HirePro to speed up time-to-hire and onboard top-notch talent from across the world today!

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a digital explosion across industries and functions, and HR is no exception. In a post-pandemic workplace, HR is undergoing a profound transformation — moving from personnel management to people management, adopting data-driven decision making, continuous performance management and flexi-working, amongst others. Many of these changes will be supported by modern systems that will drive processes. A recent Sage study found that a third of HR leaders are already changing the way they hire by using technology to enable seamless hiring, virtual onboarding and improving candidate experience. 24 per cent of the respondents were already using automation and AI-driven systems for talent acquisition, while 56 per cent of the companies said they would adopt it in the next year.

While virtual hiring platforms were very much in vogue pre-pandemic, they are on a steep growth trajectory in a post-pandemic environment. With remote and hybrid models of work becoming the new normal, virtual hiring is here to stay. Virtual hiring solutions offer several advantages to both companies and candidates. A comprehensive set of interconnected applications with pre-hiring assessments, screening, online assessments, video interviews, pre-boarding and onboarding ensures better hiring practices and a seamless candidate experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies to rethink the skills required for employees, and also how to find the best-fit. Leveraging technology in hiring processes drives efficiency for both recruiters and candidates. The use of AI-powered tools for skills and talent assessments lets companies adopt a data-driven approach toward recruitment while still maintaining a human connect.

Step up with online assessment tools

Using online assessment software lets recruiters focus on planning, connecting with candidates, scheduling and selection processes while leaving repetitive, process-driven tasks such as administering tests and gathering performance evaluations to software applications. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using online assessment tools.

1. Get a quick turnaround: Online assessments can deliver results almost immediately, and also present immediate feedback. Automatic scoring ensures very few delays and accelerates the hiring process.
2. Save on costs and time: Conducting traditional paper-based assessments presents many overheads — logistics for conducting the test and resources to conduct and monitor the test, not to mention the costs on administrative tasks such as printing test papers and collecting answer scripts. This is especially true for large-volume recruitment and when assessments need to be conducted across several physical locations. On the other hand, online assessments are location-agnostic and can be conducted with very few physical infrastructural needs. If need be, companies can partner with test centres that conduct assessments. This could result in huge reduction in cost and time, as well as administration overheads.
3. Enjoy flexibility and scalability: Online assessments can be conducted for candidates across the globe. They are available round-the-clock, and candidates can choose to take them at any convenient time. If the tests are remote-proctored, candidates can sit in their homes and take the test. Online assessment software can easily scale up to testing thousands of candidates at any given time, thus giving companies access to a global talent pool. When integrated with the company’s applicant tracking systems (ATS) and recruitment workflows, manual overheads such as scheduling and evaluation of test results are eliminated. Candidates can get automatic notifications based on the workflow.

1. Preserve exam integrity with high security: AI-powered assessments provide features such as secure logins with established credentials, remote proctoring and automatic fraud detection, thereby reducing instances of unfair practices. This ensures that a uniform assessment environment exists for every candidate and lets companies conduct tests across multiple test centres without having to worry about candidate location or proctor availability. This is especially useful for large-volume recruitments.
2. Reduce unconscious hiring bias: Companies can lose on precious talent due to bias. One of the main benefits of technology in recruitment is that it helps bring down any implicit bias regarding race, ethnicity, appearance, religion, accent or any other factor. In fact, the elimination of hiring bias is one of the reasons why HR leaders are striving to adopt online assessments. Done right, these tests can play an important role in providing equal opportunity and diversity in the workforce.
3. Receive detailed reports instantly: Detailed individual reporting lets companies gain valuable insights into candidate skills and fitment in the organisation. Since the assessments are automated, most of the reports are available instantly, allowing for quick, data-driven decisions in the hiring process.
4. Gain valuable insights: A completely integrated and automated recruiting process gives valuable hiring insights to recruiters and business leaders alike. Using analytics, recruiters can analyse patterns, and improve tests. Hiring managers and business leaders have a ready view into hiring metrics and KPIs.

1. Increase flexibility and accessibility: Whether it is partnering with test centres or letting candidates take the tests from the comfort of their homes, ultimately it results in better accessibility and convenience from the perspective of the company and the candidate. Candidates are more at ease, irrespective of where they are based. Online assessments also allow for interactive testing, with the possibility of various question types apart from the standard MCQs, such as voice-over questions, narrations, illustrations, graphs and charts. The possibilities are immense. By doing so, companies can provide equal opportunity to people with differences and hire a diverse workforce.
2. Offer personalised candidate experience: Companies can personalise candidate experience and also promote their employer brand. An improved experience leads candidates to recommend the employer to other friends and colleagues, resulting in a better talent pool and improved candidate sourcing.
3. Satisfy compliance and legal requirements: The availability of data and audit trails leads to evidence-based hiring and encourages fair hiring practices. Compliance and legal requirements can be easily met. Online assessment tools are usually built to industry standards, thereby providing for evidence-based recruitment.
4. Make better hiring decisions: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced recruiters to rethink employee skills and fitment. Apart from job-related skills, employees need to have good communication skills and be approachable, flexible and comfortable with technology.

Resumes are now just one of the pointers to candidate capability. Besides job skills, cultural fit is equally important. Companies can administer online assessments to assess skills, integrity, personality, emotional intelligence and cognitive ability, all of which can lead to data-driven decision making. Based on test outcomes and behaviour patterns, candidate shortlisting becomes evidence-based and accurate. Recruiters can determine candidate performance in specific job roles and easily disqualify those who do not meet the criteria, or recommend them for other roles.

1. Improve productivity: Online assessment tools free up recruiter bandwidth for planning and other abstract and important tasks, leaving the repetitive grunt work to the bots, thereby leading to increased efficiency. Recruiters can plan, schedule interviews and establish connections with candidates, while the assessment software can pull up lists of filtered candidates, provide insights and enable data-driven decisions.

Considerations for choosing the right online assessment tool

With a plethora of online assessment tools available, companies are often spoilt for choice. However, to truly automate the recruitment process, improve hiring practices and reduce the load on recruiters, several considerations come into play.

Automation and AI give a huge boost to recruiter productivity and improve all stages of recruitment. AI-enabled online assessment tools are a necessary part of the virtual hiring stack. Remote proctoring, automatic fraud detection and integration with upstream and downstream systems should be some of the major factors to be considered. Bias-free, objective and automatic performance evaluation will help shortlist candidates. The ability to include different types of questions and simulations and multiple types of tests provide accessibility to all.

Companies that need large-volume recruitments should look for online assessment tools that offer different types of assessments such as technical and soft-skills, based on their needs. Personalisation and customisation are important features that let employers use their own brand during the recruitment process. The online assessment tool should be able to integrate with other systems on the hiring stack to provide a seamless candidate experience and ease the burden on recruiters.

HirePro’s secure virtual hiring platform offers a comprehensive AI-powered remote recruitment platform with live or automated video proctoring and automatic fraud detection to control cheating for both coding and functional assessments. Exhaustive customisable coding assessments with pre-built questions, capability assessments, screenings or hackathons, and a feature-rich coding editor make HirePro Coding Assessments a good choice for IT hiring. HirePro’s functional assessments offer customisable personality, aptitude, technical and domain skills tests in a variety of question formats. Both assessments are ISO 27001-certified and GDPR-compliant.

Online assessments and video interviews on AI-driven virtual hiring platforms present significant benefits to companies. They now have a global talent pool to choose from, with the opportunity to minimise implicit bias and provide accessible assessments to all, paving the way to engage a diverse and talented workforce. Rather than adopting virtual hiring for the short-term, businesses need to be proactive in using online assessment tools. With a long-term virtual hiring strategy, they will gain a competitive edge.

Recruiting the right candidates is a continuous and long-term process. It is also a vital yet resource-intensive process with several moving parts, including screening, shortlisting, assessing, interviewing and onboarding. A job-specific functional test helps streamline the hiring process by testing a candidate’s personality, aptitude and technical and domain skills to help accurately spot candidates who are the right fit for your organisation. A job-specific functional test gives an accurate estimation of candidate performance and ensures that a candidate is able to efficiently and effectively fulfil unique job requirements.

Here are five advantages of job-specific functional tests.

Gauge a candidate’s ability with precision

Job-specific functional tests use customised questions presented in various formats such as MCQs, descriptive and coding to analyse whether a candidate is suitable for a specific domain or role. Advanced recruitment software provides hiring managers with a vast library of questions prepared by subject matter experts to ensure the highest accuracy and quality of questions. The software also evaluates the answers given by the candidate and prepares a precise and data-rich report to help the hiring manager decide whether an in-depth interview with the candidate can follow. Besides, the test report also provides meaningful talking points for an in-depth interview.

Reduce time-to-hire and cost-per-hire

To fulfil the rising demand for tech talent, organisations often opt for bulk-hiring. However, maintaining the quality of hires during large-scale hiring remains a challenge. Job-specific functional tests are an effective way to filter the best-suited candidates for specific roles. They save time and keep the cost of resources minimal. They also reduce the need for laborious scanning of resumes and time-consuming interviews. Since quick and accurate hiring decisions can be made using the detailed data provided in the test reports, job-specific functional tests accelerate hiring at scale.

Deter cheating

There is a possibility of candidates giving false or contrived responses during personality tests. Besides, the subjective answers that are given by candidates often yield inaccurate results and may lead to the hiring of candidates who may not be the right cultural fit for your team. Job-specific functional tests, on the other hand, are objective and when conducted using recruitment software, they give accurate results and reports on candidate performance. In addition, advanced recruitment software provides several tools such as candidate ID verification, impersonation detection, proctoring and plagiarism reports that enable you to instantly disqualify candidates indulging in fraudulent behaviour or suspicious activity.

Prevent potential mis-hires

Hiring managers that do not deploy job-specific functional tests stand to inadvertently onboard more than a handful of mis-hires. The cost of bad hires is often staggeringly high as it involves all the resources employed in hiring and training a new hire. Besides, compensation, opportunity costs and wasted time contribute to substantially high operating expenses. Job-specific functional tests are a surefire way of sidestepping potential mis-hires as they allow you to exhaustively assess candidates and make data-driven hiring decisions to ensure they are the right fit for the role, the team and your organisation.

Eliminate biases in the hiring process

Conscious and unconscious biases in the hiring process severely inhibit diversity, undermine recruitment efforts and reduce the retention rate. Biases may lead to the rejection of good candidates and the acceptance of unsuitable ones. Job-specific functional tests make an objective assessment of a candidate’s suitability and hence are a practical way to remove biases in hiring. Further, the objective results of these tests enable hiring managers to circumvent their biases to make better hiring decisions that are based on data rather than instincts or feelings.

Conclusion

Organisations are increasingly choosing job-specific functional tests to find the best candidates quickly and efficiently. Since these tests can be customised to test candidates for a wide array of roles and responsibilities, they speed up and streamline the hiring process. Besides, online assessment platforms have simplified the process of conducting job-specific functional tests at scale. They provide myriad assessment formats to help you assess candidates for specific requirements. Advanced online assessment platforms also provide several additional features such as intuitive user interfaces, ATS synchronisation of test data and 24/7 tech support via email or phone to facilitate a smooth experience for candidates and test administrators.

HirePro’s functional assessments are fraud-proof and scientifically crafted to suit any role, domain or industry. HirePro’s comprehensive library of +100k questions, diverse question formats and granular access control enable you to test candidates in a wide array of skills with ease. Find out how HirePro can help you achieve a superior candidate and test administrator experience in job-specific functional tests.

The process of hiring is not the same as it was a few years ago. Enterprises today have been forced to rethink and revamp their recruiting strategies. With everything going digital, the demand for top tech talent has shot up and the need to assess candidates to find the best fit has become more significant than ever. Hence, testing candidates’ technical and soft skills has also gone digital. Online coding assessment tools built with the latest technology have found their way into the recruitment process, helping recruiters find the best technical candidates for the roles open in their organisation. They also help save the all-critical cost and time for the organisation.

First things first…What is an online coding test?

Businesses have become extremely competitive today. Large enterprises vie for the best candidates from the available talent pool. With technological advancements, the demand for technically skilled candidates has shot up. Organisations could lose large amounts of money and precious time hiring candidates who may not be technically sound. It is the need of the hour to hire candidates who add value to the organisation in terms of technical skills.

Coding assessments help achieve that. Coding tests help recruiters assess the technical skills of a candidate with precision. Recruiters can do this by asking the candidates to solve a particular problem or issue. This will help recruiters gauge a candidate’s performance, skills and expertise as also his or her readiness to fulfil the requirements of a particular job role.

What type of assessment tool to choose?

The market today is flooded with many tools that may claim to satisfy your organisation’s coding assessment requirements. But watch out before investing in a tool. Not every tool may be suitable for your business. Among the various tools available in the market, how do you choose the right tool that is best suited to your organisation? What features should a good coding assessment tool include?

Primarily, a good assessment tool helps you find candidates who are a right fit for your organisation, with precision. Therefore, it is important to select the right type of assessment tool to invest in. If this is done right, you can assess the technical skills of candidates accurately.

Let’s take a look at some must-have features in an assessment tool before investing in one.

Expansive list of skill sets and programming languages to test:-

The main aim of a coding assessment tool is to test candidates’ technical knowledge. Therefore, it is obvious that a coding assessment tool should necessarily have an expansive range of programming languages built-in to test and assess candidates for a variety of job roles such as Android developer, iOS developer, data scientist etc,. The tool should come pre-built with technology questions and problems to test in-depth skills on coding concepts and development.

Effective proctor settings with the ability to generate reports:

One of the more important functions of a good coding assessment tool is to enable live or auto proctoring and generate detailed reports. Proctoring of an assessment enables fraud-detection, if any, and helps maintain integrity, which, in turn facilitates zeroing in on the right talent pool for the organisation. The entire assessment should be recorded for further analysis, where appropriate candidates can be filtered to the next stage of the hiring process.

The report should also come with the ability to generate detailed reports based on the recording of an assessment session to help recruiters select only the best candidates.

Auto-evaluation of the candidate:

With many candidates taking up coding assessments, it would be a mammoth task for the recruiters to mark or evaluate the candidates manually, based on their test responses. Hence, a good assessment tool should have an auto-evaluation option that can help recruiters analyse large volumes of candidates at once. Auto-evaluation also enables quick communication with the candidates, which will further help build a good brand value for the organisation.

In-built audio/video function:

With hiring happening remotely, an effective coding assessment tool should come with an in-built audio/video functionality to enable easy communication between the recruiters and the candidates. The ability to reach out to the candidates to ask questions or the interviewer to clarify queries would make the entire assessment process more effective. This will greatly help build a positive candidate experience.

A wide variety of question formats:

A versatile tool should have a wide variety of question formats for the recruiters to choose from. A combination of subjective questions and MCQs could work effectively in selecting candidates with the right skills. Different formats of questions help test candidates on critical knowledge and analytical skills. Additionally, there should be real-world problems that could effectively test candidates’ problem-solving ability.

Integration with the organisation’s ATS:

Over the years, recruiters and hiring managers have become dependent on spreadsheets and emails to track potential candidates. With advancements and adoption of new technology, there may be loss of data that could lead to confusion and chaos. Therefore, it is necessary for the coding assessment tool that you choose to have the ability to seamlessly integrate with any available applicant tracking system (ATS) with no additional effort required from the recruiter’s end to easily enjoy the benefits of using the tool.

These are some must-have features that an enterprise should definitely consider before deciding on an assessment tool for its hiring needs. But this is not all. Apart from the features discussed above, an assessment tool should also satisfy the following points.

• Setting up and using the assessment tool should be easy and straightforward. Recruiters do not have the leisure to set aside time to figure out how to run coding challenges for the candidates.
• The tool should contribute towards building a positive candidate experience. Ask yourself, is the tool that you would like to invest in providing a great experience for the candidates and recruiters?
• The tool should be customisable to the needs of your organisation. Does the tool have customisation options to let you set up bespoke challenges apart from the ones that are already available?
• The tool should be robust enough to let multiple candidates take assessments at the same time. It should also allow multiple reviewers to collaborate on the tool simultaneously.
• An effective tool should come with a good support team. Ensure the availability of effective and quick support in case of problems or glitches.
• When the organisation is investing huge amounts in a tool, it should provide the necessary functionalities and get you great value for the money that you spend..

How a right assessment tool helps candidate experience

A right assessment tool can work wonders for the recruitment team and the organisation at large. A good coding assessment tool helps organisations pick the very best candidates from the available talent pool. An effective tool helps streamline the recruitment process and create a positive experience for the candidate, thereby improving the brand value of the organisation.

Conclusion

Coding assessment tools have revolutionised hiring strategies across the globe. Gone are the days when recruiters onboarded candidates based on vague job descriptions. Gone are the days when candidates accepted job offers blindly. With the advent of advanced tools such as coding assessment tools, the entire process of recruitment can be streamlined. The adoption of assessments is going up among corporates. The receptiveness of candidates to undergo assessments has increased too. Therefore, it is vital for the organisation to choose a tool that will contribute to a smooth hiring process and ease the work for their recruitment team.

Hirepro’s automated coding assessment tool has been built by industry experts to assess freshers and advanced hires. Drop in an email at sales@hirepor.in to know more about their offering.