As a recruiter, you
have to take care of many things – vetting resumes, finding and calling
candidates, shortlisting, negotiating and then ensuring that you get paid for
your effort. All of these take time. So how would you increase productivity of
your team without investing in expensive new tools and more recruiters?
More effective
recruitment practices and better understanding of an employer’s requirement
will obviously help, but our research suggest that you can easily increase productivity
in fulfilling positions by 16% on average. All you have to do is something very
simple – Conduct a screening test and attach the report with the resume before
sending it to the employer.
Over the last two
years, SkillSign worked with fourteen recruitment consulting firms in US,
Canada, Australia and India to understand the impact of written tests conducted
by recruiters in final hiring decision. SkillSign has been providing online testing
platform to these firms. These firms were requested to provide hiring data based
on screening done by recruiters themselves. All positions were divided in three
categories.
1. No written screening done by recruiter; though
candidates were screened based on resumes and brief telephone chat.
2. Written screening test conducted but report not
attached with resumes submitted to employers
3. Written screening test report attached with resumes
submitted to employers
It’s interesting to
note that there is no real difference in second and third vacancy categories,
except that written screening test report was attached in third category, but
not in the second.
These positions were
further categorized on average experience level needed and industry. Survey
results were quite interesting, even for the recruiters who provided the data.
·
Screening
tests are most effective in junior positions in technology, banking and
insurance sectors, and least effective in positions requiring exceptional creativity
or high-touch in retail, design and advertising sectors.
·
Conducting
screening tests for junior positions and attaching reports with resumes,
resulted in 16% more positions fulfilled during the same period. Though we
expected the productivity increase; such a drastic improvement surprised even
us.
·
Only 22%
of employers asked for screening report, though a healthy 75% of them did not
mind, and in fact appreciated, the written screening report provided by the
recruitment firm.
·
During our
discussion with recruiters, we found that that even if an employer initially
did not demand a written test report, it gave significant importance to the screening
report results in shortlisting candidates for next rounds of interviews. And
that seems to have made most of the difference.
·
Employers do
not generally expect very specifics screening test from the recruiter. Only 15%
of employers provided their own test content. Assessing specific skills is left
for later interview rounds. Even a standard but well-crafted aptitude test
increases the hiring probability for junior technology or banking positions.
Interestingly, when a recruitment
consultant conducted a screening test but did not submit the written report to
employer, hiring probability improved by a marginal 0-4%. Apparently, it’s not
enough to just conduct a screening test but providing the written report to
employers dramatically improves the chances of a candidate being shortlisted
for next round and thus the final selection.
Lessons for recruitment firms
You can significantly increase
your revenue by getting candidates to take an online screening test and
submitting the test result along with resumes to the prospective employer.
SkillSign provides an
industry leading solution to quickly create and deliver tests under your own
logo, get analytical score cards and email them to employers without requiring
any technical knowledge or infrastructure. You can create branded tests in
minutes and use them to screen hundreds of candidates. For more details on how
SkillSign can help you increase your productivity, email us at recruit@skillsign.com.
Visit us on www.skillsign.com to know more.
