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The incorporation of new members into a company's workforce is a long and complex process in which candidates must be discarded little by little until finding the one whose profile best fits the offered position.
To reach that point, a pre-selection must be carried out. This involves applying filters that lead those who best fit what the company is looking for from one phase of the recruitment process to the next.
Far from being an unimportant process, pre-selection is essential to finding the perfect applicant. If done well, it allows us to:
· Save time and resources. Because it reduces the number of candidates passing from one phase of the selection process to the next.
· Improve the quality of interviews. By having to interview fewer people, questionnaires can be deeper and better focused on high-impact factors such as hard and soft skills.
· Increase the chances of hiring the right candidate. By gradually eliminating applicants, those who reach the end of the process are the ones who best adapt to the profile.
It is clear that a good pre-selection will facilitate and improve the efficiency of the recruitment process. But how is it carried out to be as accurate as possible?
Factors to consider during pre-selection
When a company publishes a job offer, it can receive hundreds or even thousands of resumes. It would be unfeasible for all those people to go through a selection interview or tests to measure their technical and interpersonal skills. Therefore, from the very first moment, tests are applied that allow for filtering profiles and eliminating those that do not meet the minimum requirements to move on to the next phase of selection.
Clear definition of the job profile
Personnel pre-selection begins even before the company publishes its job offer. To guarantee success in hiring, it is fundamental to have described the position to be filled in detail:
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What tasks and responsibilities it includes.
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Technical knowledge and skills necessary to address the tasks that compose it.
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Required soft skills.
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Minimum level of experience.
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Type of contract offered.
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Remuneration.
It is about being clear, on the one hand, about what the company needs and, on the other hand, the “persona” of what the perfect candidate for that position would look like. With this information, it is easier to create a job offer that attracts candidates who best fit what is being sought.
Resume screening
Once the job offer is published, the first phase of the personnel selection process begins, which consists of conducting an exhaustive review of the resumes received. The goal is to identify candidates whose profile matches the vacant position and discard all others.
Many job seekers are not very selective and send their resumes even to offers that have nothing to do with their professional profile, which places an overhead on those in charge of personnel selection. Fortunately, the task of resume screening can be carried out today with the help of technology.
One only needs to tell the specialized software what criteria to use to filter the profiles. In this way, candidates who do not have a specific set of the following are directly discarded:
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Work experience.
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Academic background.
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Technical skills.
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Soft skills.
Technical tests
If it is a position where technical skills are especially important, the next phase of pre-selection will consist of technical tests.
These are of great help in corroborating that a person has the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary for the position and evaluating their degree of experience and development of those competencies.
Ideally, in these cases, tests that provide objective and quantifiable results that are easily comparable should be used. These can be psychometric tests, knowledge tests, tests of the ability to perform a specific task, or even simulations.
These tests allow for the precise identification of the candidates' strengths and weaknesses and can serve as an indicator of their future performance in the position.
In any case, it is important to use tests that are truly relevant. That is, they must measure skills essential to the position being filled. Furthermore, they must be valid and reliable, which requires avoiding all types of subjective bias in their design, application, and scoring.
Once this process is finished, some candidates will have been discarded, and those who have demonstrated they possess the technical skills necessary to perform the duties of the job the company wants to fill will move forward.
Competency-based interview
At this point in the pre-selection, the number of candidates will have been significantly reduced, making personal interviews feasible.
Due to the growing importance that soft or interpersonal skills have gained in today's work environment, job interviews are changing and are no longer limited to verifying or delving into the information on the applicants' resumes.
Competency-based interviews are much more effective, as they seek to evaluate the
skills, knowledge, and behaviors that a candidate has demonstrated in past situations that may be relevant to successful performance in the position.
This type of interview helps to better predict performance in the workplace, as well as identify their values and whether they align with the company culture.
To carry out this interview, several factors must be considered:
1. Define which competencies are most important for the position. This should have been done during the profile definition phase.
2. Prepare a battery of open-ended questions that allow the candidate to explain how they acted in specific situations. These questions will be the same for all interviewees to guarantee the greatest possible objectivity.
3. Creation of a relaxed atmosphere. The questions asked in this type of interview require extensive and detailed answers, and it is necessary to create an environment that encourages conversation and invites the applicant to speak and present their ideas without fear.
4. Active listening. The interviewer must pay maximum attention to the candidate's answers, delving into details or aspects that allow for a better evaluation of their competencies.
Although these types of tests offer greater objectivity and allow for getting to know the candidate better than traditional interviews, it is necessary for recruiters to prepare the questions well and manage to set aside subjective biases.
Psychometric tests to measure soft skills
After the interviews, a few more candidates will have been discarded, and those who reach nearly the end of the recruitment process have demonstrated they possess the necessary hard and soft skills required for the position.
The problem is that
measuring soft skills is
very complicated without the help of specialized tests. Therefore, at this point,
psychometric tests are performed.
These are tests that delve into the individual's personality and allow us to know if a person is a good communicator, if they know how to work in a team, if they are empathetic, have leadership skills, etc.
Currently, technology is the best ally for performing these types of tests. Thanks to it, candidates can take the tests remotely, without the need for another trip to the company, and the company, in turn, receives a report with results that facilitates comparison between applicants.
A complete profile and all the information to decide
Once all tests are completed, the number of candidates who truly fit the offered profile is usually quite low. If we have prioritized objectivity, we can be confident that those who have reached the end of the pre-selection are the best prepared to fill the vacant job position.
At this point, the work of the selection technicians is finished, because the final decision is not made by them, but by the head of the Human Resources department or the manager of the department where the new member will be integrated.
What remains to be done is to create a dossier with the applicants' information, ensuring it is as objective as possible and provides all relevant data. Thus, the person in charge of choosing between them can make an informed decision.
If the work has been done with the expected quality, the finally chosen candidate will adapt well to the company and will be developing their full productive potential in a short time.
It is clear that pre-selection is a fundamental stage within the process of recruitment and personnel selection. It allows for finding the best candidates while saving time and resources. Furthermore, a well-conducted pre-selection also has a very positive influence on the candidate experience and improves the organization's reputation as an employer.
Designing and applying a good pre-selection may be costly at first, but it ends up generating great long-term benefits, making it a good investment.
An effective pre-selection not only saves time and resources but also raises the quality of the process and helps build solid teams aligned with the company's values.