Soft Skills Assessments that could Revolutionise Recruitment?

by Ruaidhri Horan, Marketing Manager, Abrivia Recruitment

A global survey by LinkedIn recently found that 63% of respondents believed that traditional interviews fell short when assessing candidates’ soft skills. That begs a question: How can a traditional interview allow you to find out if a candidate possesses true grit when placed in a very stressful situation with very tight deadlines?
This is where soft skill assessments and Artificial Intelligence come in.

Firstly, soft skills refer to traits such as problem-solving ability, conflict solution, integrity, teamwork, effective communication and adaptability.

Rather than relying on a candidate telling you through a few carefully scripted case studies of how they displayed critical soft skills in different scenarios in the past, why not substitute these claims by using online surveys or recorded interviews which feed in to sophisticated algorithms to get a more accurate view of a candidate’s soft skills. For example, a company called HireVue provide an innovate offering which combines “video, artificial intelligence and game-based challenges” which give hiring managers key insights into general cognitive ability, how applicants work and communicate with others and their general work style. It also gives hiring managers a huge insight into a person’s emotional intelligence through game-based assessments.

Another innovation to consider is speech analytics. Speech analytics is provided by companies such as Precire Technologies who use Artificial Intelligence and algorithms to analyse recorded conversations and can identify the personality and engagement of the person being recorded.

Neuroscience assessments powered by sophisticated Artificial Intelligence solutions is no longer confined to the realm of science fiction movies. These new innovative technologies will allow us, as hiring managers, identify high potential candidates faster and the early adopters will reap most of the benefits whereas the laggards risk being left behind.