This is part 3 of our Tru Recruitment ebook series.

1. e Tru Files
ASSESSMENTS
3
4.0
TRU HEAT
INDEX
@BillBoorman and Sally Hunter

2. 10 /02
EVENTS
8,000field of recruiting. 48
We scoured
presentations and
conversations from
the last twelve
months of TRU
events to bring you
the best forward-looking
ideas in the
ATTENDEES BIG IDEAS

3. ASSESSMENTS /03
HIGH-VOLUME, LOW-COST
ASSESSMENTS WILL
HERALD A NEW AGE OF
CANDIDATE MATCHMAKING.
THE NEW RECRUITING MANTRA:
ATTRACT FEWER APPLICANTS.

4. ASSESSMENTS /04
Traditional assessments—used by HR executives to screen job
candidates—are typically developed by academics who may
spend years designing, testing and validating psychometric
and skills-based evaluation tools.
Given the high level of investment, assessment companies charge a lot of money to administer
these tests. With per-person fees as high as $2,000, traditional assessments are used for only
a small handful of all candidates a company recruits.
What’s more, because they are so meticulously designed, these types of assessments are
created to last a decade or more without revision. And that’s a problem. The competencies
required in many professions look very different today than they did five years ago. Consider
the role of a pharmaceutical sales executive. The field now demands highly specialized medical
knowledge, expertise with reimbursements and regulation, and consulting skills (compared to
the greater emphasis on traditional sales skills seen a decade ago). Long-run assessment tools
simply can’t adapt fast enough to keep pace with radically shifting talent demands.
HR executives are
on the hunt for new
and better candidate
assessment tools—
particularly low-cost,
front-end testing that
screens all potential job
candidates rather than
a select few.

5. ASSESSMENTS /05
HR executives are on the hunt for new and better solutions—particularly low-cost, front-end
assessments that can screen all potential job candidates rather than a select few. They also
need highly efficient tests (e.g. boiling down a 400-question test into as few as a dozen key
questions) that assess personality and cultural fit. And in highly specialized fields (e.g. software
development), HR executives want to test whether candidates truly have the breadth and depth
of knowledge they claim to.

6. ASSESSMENTS /06
Over the last five years, the number of competitors in the market
of low-cost, front-end HR assessments has expanded at an
aggressive clip. Among the most interesting entrants to this
up-and-coming space:
Smarterer (http://smarterer.com/) verifies candidates’ skills
to make a better job match. The site includes hundreds of
crowdsourced knowledge tests (anyone can submit a test
to the site and receive feedback), and verifies skills using
a combination of scoring and badges. As a social widget,
Smarterer can plug in to any career site.
jobFig (http://www.jobfig.com/) uses personality—or
psychometric—testing to assess job fit, or how well an
individual will fit into a company’s culture. The test is unusual
in its ability to boil down complex assessments into as few as
six or seven questions.

7. /07
Checkster (http://www.checkster.com/) automates reference
checking. Checkster reaches out to candidates’ professional
contacts (on average six compared to just 2.4 for manual
reference checking) and polls them for a more nuanced view of
a potential candidate. The company also argues its algorithms
prevent fraud more effectively.
SmartHires (http://www.smarthires.com/) also automates
reference checks. A candidate loads in reference names and
contacts, and then the solution seeks out references on the
candidate’s behalf. Since the reference request is initiated
by the candidate rather than the hiring company, and results
are aggregated and anonymized, SmartHire claims it
mitigates the legal risk involved in attesting for (or critiquing)
past employees. (Plus, previous employers are more likely to
be honest when they know their answers will be
mixed with others.)
ASSESSMENTS

8. /08
eiTalent. (https://eitalent.com/) is an algorithmic tool to
search a candidate’s social content (including social updates,
comments and authored content) and provide a personality
report based on a candidate’s online footprint.
Chemistry Group (http://www.thechemistrygroup.com/)
offers job seekers and hiring companies an “early detection
system,” illustrating how well a particular individual will fit
within an organization even before they apply. A graduate
student, for example, can take a five-minute test to find out
how well their personality matches a variety of participating
companies, or more specifically, a particular division of a single
company. For the oil company BP, for example, Chemistry
Group tested a selection of graduate students BP was actively
trying to recruit, and determined where each candidate would
best fit within the global organization based on intellect,
values, motivations, behaviors and experience.
ASSESSMENTS

9. /09
ASSESSMENTS THE GAMIFICATION OF
The Good Jobs (https://www.thegoodjobs.com/) is the
eHarmony of the assessment marketplace, offering a job
board that matches job seekers and hiring companies based
on psychometric factors.
With all these tools available to hiring companies—and with unit prices substantially lower than
traditional psychometric testing—organizations can assess a broader range of candidates, make
more informed decisions about skills, and study a candidate’s degree of cultural fit. And many
of these tools can be deployed pre-application.
Which raises a profoundly interesting question: Is it possible interviewing will be much less
important in the near future? If it’s now possible to ask candidates before they’ve formally
applied for a position to complete a knowledge assessment (e.g. Smarterer) and skills
assessment (e.g. Smarterer or CodeView), share references (e.g. SmartHires and Checkster)
and a personality profile (e.g. jobFig), and to verify credentials via professional networks
(e.g. LinkedIn), is an interview overkill?
ASSESSING SKILLS
The notion of awarding digital
“badges” for specific achievements
or skills is quickly gaining
acceptance. Badge icons come from
the world of gaming, but are now
used by training and development
organizations to offer a fast and
easy visual verification of skills.
Among the pace-setters in this
emerging field is Open Badges.
The free software offered by Mozilla
is an open technical standard any
organization can use to create,
issue and verify digital badges.
Dozens of organizations have joined
Open Badges to date, including
top-tier universities, professional
associations and corporations.
To learn more about how
companies are using gaming
strategies to assess candidates
and improve the recruiting
process experience, download
the Gamification eBook.
4
e Tru Files
GAMIFICATION
9 3.5
TRU HEAT
INDEX
➔ DOWNLOAD HERE

10. /10
ASSESSMENTS
WHY ASSESSMENTS
MATTER MORE THAN EVER
For both recruiters and hiring companies, it’s critical to understand
how assessments relate to profound changes in the way companies
will secure talent. We’re about to share ideas with you that will
up-end the field of recruiting in the next five years.
We can all agree the resume is an impractical tool to evaluate an individual’s job suitability. It’s
simply an inventory of academic credentials and previous work that communicates little about
true ability, knowledge, or personality. LinkedIn offers a bit more: references and endorsements
from colleagues, as well as a greater understanding of what issues interest a candidate. And yet,
a hiring manager needs much more to pull out one talented candidate from a sea of hundreds.
Hiring companies also need more because the nature of work has changed. High-growth
organizations no longer want to hire employees (particularly knowledge workers) for long
tenures in stable, static jobs. If a healthcare device manufacturer, for example, wants to consider
expanding and selling its product in Southeast Asia, it will assemble the proper team of market

11. /11
ASSESSMENTS
researchers, forecasters, attorneys and regulatory experts to weigh the market’s potential
profitability. These individuals may be company employees, contingent labor, freelancers or
consultants; such categories won’t matter as long as the company is recruiting the very best
talent to solve that specific, critical problem.
But making rapid-fire assessments of skills and fit to assemble such teams simply won’t work
using the tools recruiters have in their tool belts today. Traditional credentials such as past
employers and alma maters don’t convey an individual’s specialized knowledge and skills.
Going forward, recruiters will have to embrace the types of high-volume, low-cost assessment
tools discussed here.
In time we believe even the notion of an application process will become outdated. If artificial
intelligence can analyze the credentials of large pools of people, and select an individual based
on knowledge, skills, personality and availability, it’s easy to see how the traditional application
process is obsolete.
And while it may seem counterintuitive, attracting fewer job applicants is actually a good thing.
Technology will winnow the field of attractive candidates such that only a dozen perfectly suited
candidates will apply for a job—and that bodes well for both applicants and hiring companies.
Why invite someone
to apply, after all, if
you’re extremely
likely to reject them?
In any other business,
inviting clients to make
a purchase, subjecting
them to a long and
time-consuming
application process,
and then rejecting
99.8 percent of invitees
would simply be
considered abysmal
customer service.

12. /12
ASSESSMENTS
Why invite someone to apply, after all, if you’re extremely likely to reject them? In any other
business, inviting clients to make a purchase, subjecting them to a long and time-consuming
buying process, and then rejecting 99.8 percent of invitees would be considered abysmal
customer service. And yet most recruiting practices are designed to do just that. Rather than
find the perfect candidate, they are more focused on rejecting legions of applicants. High-quality,
artificial intelligence-driven assessments have the potential to tranform recruiting and
refocus efforts on locating and truly recruiting viable candidates.

13. /13
ASSESSMENTS:
ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
MAP YOUR
CURRENT NEEDS
One of the biggest shifts
we see in the assessments
market is the ability to use
these tools much earlier
in the candidate attraction
and hiring process. Rather
than assess only the three
finalists, why not assess
100 applicants?
Easier said than done.
Before shopping for
assessment tools, take a
close look at your hiring
process, and what types
of assessments (e.g.
sourcing, psychometric,
skills, reference checking)
you would like to introduce
at which stages? What
value will each serve and
which are priorities within
your organization? While
psychometric testing all
candidates may seem
attractive, for example,
it’s possible your biggest
priority is sourcing a stronger
pool of applicants.
And remember: Assessment
technology is but one set
of solutions within a much
larger portfolio of talent
attraction and hiring
technologies (a set that
includes applicant sourcing,
tracking, video interviewing
and social recruiting).
Consider a holistic approach
to talent-related technology,
rather than considering each
solution independently.

14. ASSESSMENTS: /14
ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
MAP YOUR
FUTURE NEEDS
As you weigh technology
decisions, also consider
what you will need three
years from now rather than
what you want today.
Too many organizations
fail to appreciate the pace
of change within their HR
and recruiting departments,
and make time-consuming
technology adoption
decisions that must
be replaced within
12–18 months.
Think about how your
recruiting strategy is
evolving, and what a
future state may look like.
Place calls to current
vendors and find out their
plans for future add-ons.
For example, your applicant
tracking system may be
readying a new feature you
are considering purchasing.
For more information about other technologies in the
recruiter’s arsenal, download the Video Interviewing and
Sourcing Technology eBooks.
e Tru Files
SOURCING TECHNOLOGY
6 4.0
➔ DOWNLOAD HERE ➔ DOWNLOAD HERE
TRU HEAT
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e Tru Files
VIDEO INTERVIEWING
4 3.5
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INDEX

15. ASSESSMENTS /15
THE #TRU STORY
I first discovered the Unconference concept when I led a track at #RecruitFest in Toronto in
1999. I was taken aback by the way discussion flowed and how different the format was to a
traditional conference. I led a track all day under a tree and learnt far more than I gave.
Two months later and back in the UK, we ran the first #truLondon at Canary Wharf in November
2009. Today, we’re running dozens of #tru events a year across Europe, North America, Africa
and the Asia-Pacific. Thousands of recruiters, HR leaders and providers come together in an
informal spirit of information sharing and networking.
#tru is based on the BarCamp principle, which means that everybody can be an active
participant instead of listening to speakers and watching presentations all day. The emphasis is
on communication and the free exchange of ideas and experiences where the participants fuel
the conversations.
BILL BOORMAN

16. /16
ATTRACT FEWER APPLICANTS: THIS IS THE NEW RECRUITMENT MANTRA
Why? Because assessment tools simply can’t adapt fast enough to keep pace with radically
shifting talent demands. Traditional assessment tools and processes are failing to tell HR teams
and hiring managers what they really need to know about the suitability of candidates. Resumes
offer little more than an inventory of academic credentials and previous work¬; Interviews are
time consuming and favour specific personality traits over others. Both communicate very little
about true ability, knowledge, or personality of a candidate.
Both recruiters and hiring companies are experiencing profound changes in the way they need
to secure talent. They are challenged to match hiring to specific business problems, and rapid-fire
assessments of skills and cultural fit simply don’t work using the tools recruiters have in their
tool belts today.
More importantly, however, the very notion of attracting a large volume of unsuitable candidates
for a single job opening is being called into question. When many recruitment processes are
simply seeking one ideal candidate, what is the purpose of attracting many applicants that are
extremely likely to be rejected? The logic is flawed and it’s making the candidate experience less
than optimal. Why disappoint a higher number of candidates than is necessary and run the risk of
them not applying for a more suitable position when the time comes.
Making more informed hiring decisions to meet rapidly evolving business problems is the
challenge. This Tru file e-book has the insights to meet them: Assessments @BillBoorman.
SALLY HUNTER
SALLY HUNTER,
RPO Practice Lead EMEA
for the Kelly Outsourcing
Consulting Group
Sally is responsible for the
RPO proposition from client
relationships via the account
management team to consulting
on HR transformation. She has
extensive experience in the
human capital sector, including
leadership positions within
strategic account management
for staffing providers to
operational delivery. Sally has
also been on the ‘buy/client’
side leading transformational
efficiency projects, that have
included the outsourcing of
large scale recruitment and
learning operations. As an
independent Consultant, Sally
has worked with a number of
clients to build the business
case for change and shape
their HR model in the context
of outsourcing partnerships.
ASSESSMENTS

17. For more thought leadership go to talentproject.com
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ABOUT KELLY SERVICES®
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HIRE WORK, NOT WORKERS
8
TRU HEAT
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e Tru Files
ASSESSMENTS
3
4.0
TRU HEAT
INDEX
e Tru Files
SOURCING TECHNOLOGY
6 4.0
TRU HEAT
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e Tru Files
GAMIFICATION
9 3.5
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e Tru Files
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