Trevor Vas interviews Dr Charles Handler, Assessment Expert, at #ERE14

Trevor Vas (@trevorpvas), Director at ATC Events, and Dr Charles Handler (@charleshandler), Executive Scientist at Logi-Serve, sit down at the US #ERE14 Conference to talk about current trends in assessment, and why assessment is important.

 Key assessment trends from Dr Charles Handler:

  • Assessments are becoming more engaging and more integrated in other tools and platforms. They’re shorter and they’re mobile optimised.
  • Assessments are being used for:
    1. Sourcing– used to direct traffic above the funnel. Where assessment creates community based, social based matching systems. Company’s can then pay to access and post into a talent pool of qualified and assessed people.
    2. Branding– To reinforce the employment brand with a positive and engaging assessment experience
  • Assessment is just one data point; a decision making tool that can help support recruiters and hiring managers make informed decisions. At the end of the day the decision they make should be based on the cumulative collected information about that candidate and not just the results of a single assessment.

Watch the video interview or read the transcript below:

Trevor: Charles, really keen to know what are the latest assessment trends in the US? You guys tend to be ahead of the Australian market, so what’s happening in the US with assessment?
Charles: Yeah, well there are a lot of really exciting things happening. I’d say the number one thing that I’ve seen is that assessments are becoming more engaging and more integrated in other tools and platforms. In other words talent acquisition itself and talent management as well are starting to have more broader platforms are adopting assessment as one components that they offer and even getting more deeply integrated into it.
I think that the most interesting example of what’s going on is social job matching, where you’re seeing a lot of companies using assessment as a sourcing tool to help navigate, or as I call “directing traffic”.  Above the funnel where you have people seeking jobs and job seeking people it’s often difficult, the typical model of keyword searches and resume passing is not very effective so it’s hard for people to find opportunities that are relevant for them. What I think we’re finding now is more community based, social based matching systems. A lot of these are just coming onto the market. Where assessment isn’t something that a corporation pays for one by one but they subscribe to a talent pool- access to a pool of assessed people- where they can advertise jobs there and things like that are something I’ve been seeing.
The other thing I’ve been seeing is assessments are getting shorter, they’re getting more engaging they’re moving to mobile devices. We’re moving out of the old fashioned, 1950’s paradigm where you’ve been given a test with a thousand items on there where you’re just circling things, to something that’s more engaging and more brand relevant. So that would be the third thing, companies really trying to brand, or reinforce their employment brand with a positive assessment experience
Trevor: So Charles will you ever seen one assessment, one hire, no interviews, just look at the assessment and make a decision?
Charles: I would doubt it, I really do. I think that I’ve always viewed this, and I don’t think it’s changing at all, that assessment is just one data point, it’s a decision making tool that can support recruiters and hiring managers who are experts and who are looking to make informed decisions. Any piece of equipment, anything that you buy, a major purchase you make- you like to have data about it. If you’re going to buy an automobile you go look at all these different statistics and information, at the end of the day its part of what you’re looking for but you also know what you as a person really want. It’s the same thing with hiring. You get a lot of good data, that data can build as the process goes, and at the end of that you should have a really good window into a lot of different pieces of information about an individual.
Trevor: Dr Charles Handler, from LogiServe thank you very much and cheers!

*View more of Trevor’s Q&A Hot Seat interviews from #ERE14.

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