People are your power source for any organization. A bad hire here and there eventually leads to a great resignation wave. Hiring the right fit is one of the top priorities for HR and talent acquisition leaders, yet over 60% of candidates have reported negative candidate experiences with potential employers.
Besides this gap in candidate experiences, the demand-supply gap in this candidate-driven market, an urgency to fill the jobs, a lack of awareness in the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate pool, recruiter's bias, and poorly designed interviewing processes add to the challenge of finding the right fit. Lack of right development opportunities or failure to identify the high potential leads to attrition in tenured employees.
Organizations trust talent assessments to make a more informed choice about the job and culture fit and create a development/training plan for a candidate, and also is the go-to tool for HiPo and succession planning.
But many HR and hiring managers complain that these post-assessment reports seem like coming from a black box. A lot of assessments are designed in a manner that only a certified professional can only decipher the complex language and proprietary terms and make sense of it.
One of the other reasons that impact the overall adoption is that the reports provide only the final result (like a school final mark sheet) with little or no insight to assist the hiring and development process. They don't provide a roadmap or support recruiters to ask the right questions and expected responses to assist them with the interviewing process. Also, for individual employees, there is no way to suggest how they can better themselves by working on their competencies, which ultimately can lead to job satisfaction and better productivity
Many organizations are using easy-to-understand reports (Doesn't need certifications) from assessments like Gammezo to identify the job and culture fit confidently. The assessment and development reports are actually the hidden treasure that, if used correctly, can give valuable and precise inputs on hiring as well as the development of an employee.
With that said, all assessment and development reports are not created equal. In our experience of over a decade working with hundreds of clients, here is a list of must-haves in an assessment and development report.
- 1. Profile Summary
The summary should provide an overview of the overall suitability of the person to perform a job. The organizations can use the overall fitment score based on their individual benchmarks to decide the next steps regarding the candidature - short-listing or rejection.
It should provide for the strengths that the organization can leverage and characteristics that need improvement.
2. Dominant Personality Style-
The dominant personality style should highlight the innate dominant style or the managerial style for people managers' assessments.
The report should also highlight the benefits of that certain personality style, derailers, and the suitability of that person for a specific role.
3. Competency Analysis-
The competency analysis should provide a detailed analysis of all the competencies identified to be successful for a typical role. Further classification of competencies should also highlight the proficiency level observed in the candidate. This helps in identifying and creating a learning roadmap for the candidate once selected, or IDP for an existing employee.
4. Interview Guides-
In-build interview guides help interviewers ask specific questions and look for specific responses, which makes the process standardized and free from bias.
By leveraging psychometrics to guide the interviews, organizations make an informed choice for the role. One can identify the job fit as well as the role fit based on the insights provided. The reports should not only provide the leading questions, but also the probing questions to dig deeper in a standardized process.
The weightage provided for each of the competencies will vary depending on the organizational requirements, but figuring out these scores becomes much easier with the interview guides. The interview guide creates a meaningful and unified experience for the candidates as they also learn more about their strengths and weaknesses.
5. Development Guide-
The development notes/guides help employees to work and grow their specific competencies, which enables them to perform better and become productive faster.
It provides insights on what are some things they can learn by doing. The advice to learn by training, watching, and reading is provided for a comprehensive developmental method. The reporting managers can use this developmental action plan as part of their review with the employees. The short-term, mid-term, and long-term development action plan helps employees develop the competencies in a defined time frame for success in their current and future roles.
When organizations use assessments with interview guides and development reports, they can compare and measure candidates more easily, eliminate subjectivity and bias, while reducing time-to-hire, enabling a consistent, structured approach to executing your hiring plans.
Historically, the assessment reports have been used for hiring and then forgotten. But the assessment reports include the above must-haves and if used holistically, they are actually a treasure trove for employers, recruiters, hiring managers, L&D, OD, and the candidates themselves. It also helps organizations create a unified, engaging experience for the candidates and create a great employer brand that is focused on candidates' success.