HR: Skills Assessment in Recruitment

In the context of recruitment, the evaluation of professional skills is essential. Whether it is purely technical skills (hard skills) or behavioral skills (soft skills), it is essential to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your candidates or employees.

On the one hand, these assessments are useful to companies: they allow them to clarify their selection processes, increase their productivity and limit their recruitment errors. On the other hand, it can allow the individuals assessed to confirm their aptitudes, to seize opportunities for professional development, but also to strengthen their self-confidence.

In this article, we are going to give you advice on how to correctly put your skills assessments into practice: we will present you with different tools to assess the level of your talents, including one in particular that will transform your vision of the assessment as well as your management of human ressources.

1 - Understanding the basics of skills assessment

What is a skills assessment?

A skills assessment is a process that consists of objectively evaluating the skills, knowledge and professional abilities of candidates or employees, to see if they are able to fill the position to which they aspire.

The purpose of these assessments is to verify whether the candidates or employees in question indeed possess the qualities required for the performance of their duties. Based on the results of these tailor-made tests, recruiters can assess the skills of applicants and thus offer themselves a more informed selection process.

Why assess skills?

Skills assessments offer several advantages :

• As mentioned in the introduction, these assessments are beneficial for both companies and employees. On the one hand, by identifying and recruiting the best talent from their pool, companies indirectly increase their productivity and efficiency. They also avoid recruitment errors, which saves them both time and money.

• On the other hand, the individuals evaluated can have confirmation of their level, and therefore legitimately claim the position they are aiming for. They can also unearth development opportunities (personal or professional) and be guided in their choice of professions according to their results and abilities.

• These assessments also have a positive impact on organizational performance : they contribute to arranging talent, human resources and company objectives on the same guideline, all in a strategic way.

They make it possible to optimize the use of talent and promote efficiency, while creating a working environment conducive to innovation and the well-being of employees. With such a combination of benefits, the success of a business can only be guaranteed.

2 - Evaluation methods and tools

Traditional methods

Among the traditional skills assessment methods, there are 3:

• The individual interview: It takes the form of a face-to-face interview, during which a recruiter, a manager or an HR manager will ask a candidate behavioral questions, focused on key skills. The candidate will then have to report on his past experiences, in order to present his experience and show his knowledge in the matter. The objective is to highlight the moments when the candidate demonstrated specific skills in their work.

• The written and/or oral test: It is more like a school test or an oral assessment: the recruiter prepares a series of questions on paper, and the applicant will have to answer them. The objective here is to put the candidates in fictitious situations, to observe their reactions and the answers they will provide accordingly. Using this process will highlight their technical skills, their level of analysis but also their ability to solve problems. The operation of this method is similar to that of a logic test.

• Peer evaluation (this one concerns more internal recruitment): it consists of collecting comments and opinions provided by work colleagues. These are analyzed to identify trends, the strong points of the candidate but also the areas in which he should improve. An evaluation report is then written afterwards, compiling all the comments collected previously. The employee discusses the results with his manager, and the latter can then define an action plan in order to improve the said employee's skills.

Skill-based assessment

Where traditional methods assess competencies in a rather over-the-top manner, focusing on general aspects or subjective opinions, competency-based assessment assesses them in a systemic and structured way. It is based on specific and measurable criteria, linked to the skills required to succeed in a given position.

In order to accurately measure the results of these evaluations, we are going to create evaluation grids : in the context of such a test, this grid is in the form of a table or a form with categories and rating scales for each skill analyzed. The cells of this grid contain information to be read or entered, and this process is used to accurately measure specific skills in an individual.

After having defined the skills to be assessed as well as the assessment criteria, the recruiter or the HR manager completes the grid: he ticks boxes, notes certain behaviors and takes note of the candidate's performance. Once the collection of information is complete, the evaluator assigns a mark to the candidate and the latter will be called back later to give a debrief. That is to say a debriefing of the session, in which the evaluator and the candidate will have the opportunity to discuss what could be improved.

3 - Gamification: a new direction for businesses

The digitization of recruitment

Although the methods mentioned above have always been successful in the past, the situation has changed since the Covid-19 crisis. For fear that a similar phenomenon will occur again, companies have adapted and many have integrated digital into their recruitment process. But then, if it is no longer possible to do face-to-face interviews, how to recruit online ? And by extension, how to assess skills at a distance?

To address this issue, new players have recently appeared on the recruitment market: digital assessment centers. These are assessment centers consisting of putting candidates in fictitious and playful situations. These tests come in the form of quizzes, MCQs or even mini-games. We then speak of gamification because these centers use methods from video games to evaluate their candidates.

However, while these new tests are meant to be fun and playful, they are often poorly thought out and more likely to bore test takers who are looking for authentic and challenging experiences. This is where our Yuzu software comes in, which offers you to assess your candidates using immersive video games.

Yuzu, the new skills assessment software

After several years of R&D with researchers in Psychology and Neurosciences, we imagined Yuzu : a new generation Assessment Center, specialized in the evaluation of know-how (the famous soft skills), intended for HR departments and more particularly for recruiters.

With Yuzu, talents are immersed in situations developed with the latest Video Game technologies, each adventure evaluating a skill in 10 minutes.

As for the assessments, they are accessible to all profiles thanks to simplified controls and cloud technologies (all you need is a computer and an internet connection to be assessed).

Click here to discover our gamified solution!

The advantages of our solution:

• An exceptional candidate experience to boost your employer brand;
• A solution accessible to all to ensure equal opportunities;
• A decision support tool for detecting and enhancing soft skills.

Whether for your recruitment or internal mobility processes, we transform the assessment of soft skills into a strong and fun moment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the assessment of skills is a key issue in the context of your recruitment. Human resources management is an essential process to ensure the match between the capacities of the employees and the needs of the company. It helps identify strengths and weaknesses, define action plans, and create an environment conducive to learning and professional development.

We explored traditional methods of assessment, such as individual interviews, written and oral tests, and peer assessment; however, it is essential to note that these methods, while useful, may have limitations in terms of subjectivity and relevance.

Skill-based assessment, on the other hand, stands out for its more systemic and objective approach: by using precise assessment grids and measurable criteria, this method offers a more in-depth perspective of an individual's skills.

But ultimately, the ideal solution lies in digital assessment centers like Yuzu: this solution not only revolutionizes the assessment of soft skills, but also offers a candidate experience. unprecedented. Our software reduces cognitive biases and transforms assessment sessions into an entertaining and memorable moment for candidates.

By using the behavioral skills assessment via Yuzu, you will earn points on your employer brand. In addition, you will also increase the attractiveness of your company, since you will attract and unearth the best talents from your pool.