“If you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.”
Recently I have been in a position to screen candidate’s CVs. I am not a recruiter by trade, so I came in with a fresh set of eyes. One thing I noticed about myself was that when things weren’t completely clear in the CV, I started making all sorts of assumptions about the candidate. Curious as I am, I tried to puzzle and guess my way through the pile. This experience got me thinking, if I’m already guessing, what would actual recruiters do? And how do they prevent this from happening? I will describe a few tools that will help you eliminate bias and assumptions in your recruitment process.
If a candidate lacks years of experience, or doesn’t speak the required language, they can already be knocked-out based on their answers in the application form. By implementing knock-out questions in the very first stage of your process, you will make sure that the candidates that continue in the process at least have the hard skills that are needed for the job. It also helps you to not assume things that “could be”, for example someone who spent a year in France might not be able to speak French.
Parsing software will help you save time by removing the first task of sifting through CV’s and making a definitely not pile. This software is programmed to read through a CV like you would, looking for the correct keywords and grammatical context. After creating the needed skillset all you need to do is let the system perform its magic! Again, you will no longer have to assume that candidates have a certain skill, or pick CVs of candidates you “like”.
By using automated video interviews in your process, every candidate will have to answer the same question within the same time to answer. By asking questions and letting the candidate provide examples, you can assess whether a candidate has the skills they listed on their CV. As a recruiter, you can reduce bias as you are comparing apples to apples by only judging candidates on given answers. An added benefit is that you get a first impression of the personality behind the CV, for example by asking questions about a candidate’s hobbies and passions. This allows you to assess the cultural fit of the candidate with you company.
By creating profiles for the perfect candidates, systems are able to predict the ideal candidate. For example, Cammio’s Xpress Analytics is able to perform a tonality and linguistics analysis to assess a candidate’s personality. The system will rank applicants based on the best personality match with more accuracy and less bias than a person could. All these systems and robotics may make you feel that recruiters will be out of a job sooner rather than later, but not to worry – recruitment is and always will be a human role. There has to be a human that makes sure the tools work correctly, feeds it with the needed data, and assesses if the candidate in the end is the best match for the company. These tools will help recruiters make better decisions more efficiently, and save time which can be spent on other areas of the job.
Let’s find the tool that helps eliminate assumptions and make better recruiting decisions!
Happy (fair) hiring!
