One of the first platforms a talented candidate checks during or before the interview process is review sites like Glassdoor. There, one can sift through hundreds of reviews of a company – reviews on salaries and benefits, management, and the interview process. Unfortunately, comments about home assessments and unmet expectations end up most often in negative interview reviews.

 

“I spent three days on an assignment that didn’t connect to the actual job.” “I wasted time traveling and preparing for interviews before getting a feel for the day-to-day actual work.”

 

Sound familiar?

 

Although several factors make up an employer brand, interview stories are personal and passionately spoken about the element. When a company has an effective hiring process—meaning that candidates still feel positive about a company even after being rejected, or when they hire refers their talented friends—their experience will fuel that push.

 

So how can a company improve its interview process enough to maintain a high score online and through word of mouth? By painting the candidate a picture for the rest of the interview process and the position. One interview stage, in particular, is best for sharing the process and role expectations (spoiler alert: it isn’t the first call with HR or even the first interview). It’s the assessment.

 

The assessment goal is to understand every candidate’s professional and aptitude level quickly. This is usually created from a task a person in the past has already worked on or by finding one online. While it is easy for a recruiter or hiring manager to send over a doc with instructions and hope the candidate does well, it raises a few issues that can negatively impact the employer’s brand.

 

Getting an assessment without proper explanation might bother the candidate and leave him or her feeling uncomfortable. It is possible that the test was made hastily and did not provide an accurate picture of what their position would entail. Or worse, the candidate fails and is upset that they wasted time on previous interviews when they could have been rejected right away. Further, candidates don’t usually receive detailed feedback on their assessments, especially if they are rejected. Further, these types of assessments aren’t suitable for people with disabilities. In the worst-case scenario, a company may discriminate against certain candidates based on their results without any oversight. This can have dire consequences on the hiring process and the company’s reputation.

 

These kinds of tests usually have low face validity: candidates do not believe they accurately measure their skills and aptitude for the role, partially because it does not mimic the actual job—meaning the tests aren’t dynamic based on their previous answers.

Thus, candidates are left with the frustrating feeling that they have been unfairly evaluated.

 

Even if this candidate might not be fit for the role they tested poorly on, they could be an excellent fit for another position. However, they don’t want to suffer through the same experience again or speak negatively about the company to a potentially qualified candidate.

 

In addition to the challenges posed to the candidates, these assessments also present challenges to the hiring team. This hiring team must manually check the tests and update the results in their applicant tracking system. This causes the hiring team to waste time.

 

And there is no way to verify the authenticity of the test thanks to ChatGPT and other AI tools.

 

While we can continue discussing the challenges of the current assessment format, there’s evidence here that the assessment is a crucial phase of the interview process, if not 100% necessary. A recent study shows that…

 

The good news is that every company can create job simulation assessments that have the power to give every candidate a positive experience, regardless of their acceptance status, and boost their employer brand using Canditech.

 

Canditech eliminates the common gripes by setting expectations, respecting candidates’ time, and a positive relationship and experience throughout a stressful process. The experience is incredible for candidates – they don’t just answer multiple choice questions like in other tests, but solve real problems by coding online, using Excel, sending emails to managers, pitching to the camera, etc. Candidates value companies that allow them to shine in real-world challenges instead of using outdated assessments and knowledge tests that don’t reflect the actual role.

 

While there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction, it is impossible to interview every candidate. Therefore, you must rely on resumes showing only a small part of the picture. With Canditech, you can see beyond resumes and get more qualified candidates by letting them showcase their skills, including cognitive thinking and personality. This enables you to have meaningful interviews with those that have the highest chance of excelling in their role.

 

In most cases, the assessment will be sent after the HR call. However, in some cases, when a company hires in mass, the first point of contact is the assessment. Therefore, it is very critical to show respect for the candidate’s time, manage their expectations, accommodate anxiety, and impress the candidate.

 

Respecting the candidate’s time

 

Let’s say we have a candidate for a marketing position named Marcus. Marcus is excited to apply to your company but has also applied to several others to help him find the right position faster. If every company interviews Marcus and only then gives him the assessment, his schedule can be packed for an entire week just by preparing and traveling to and from interviews and working on tasks for jobs that might not be relevant to him.

 

If Marcus had been given the tasks earlier in the process, he would have at least saved time for the interviews. Sometimes, sending an assessment earlier can feel pretty impersonal, and perhaps he wouldn’t do his best work if he didn’t have a relationship with someone there. On the other hand, a personal video from the recruiting manager can make this experience positive and memorable. While doing the assessment, he might lean more toward working at your company. This would help you to differentiate yours from the pack.

 

Canditech’s mission is to give employers a leg-up by creating a positive, time-respecting job simulation. A company can give the assessment first and still provide an opportunity to form a relationship by customizing the job simulator to match the brand. This includes a place for the recruiter or hiring manager to upload a video introducing themselves and information they would normally share on a screening call.

 

Additionally, Canditech’s job simulator tests are 100% customizable. You can personalize the color scheme, logo, and copy to match your company’s employer branding. Now the test looks good, feels good, and is professionally put together instead of a rushed execution by an overloaded employee. So say goodbye to an impersonal document in black and white text and hello to a welcoming simulator!

 

Because Canditech has unique AI technology that learns the data and optimizes the assessments on ongoing bases, the assessments are short and to the point, which is an important factor for in-demand candidates.

 

Now Marcus is relieved because he doesn’t have to prepare for an interview before his skills are tested. He feels less like jumping through hoops and spending time (and money) preparing for interviews and is more satisfied with the company and employer brand so far.

 

Managing candidates’ expectations

 

When a hiring manager makes a skills assessment with Canditech, they can choose from a library of tasks designed by experts to give candidates like Marcus an honest look at what is expected from them in the day-to-day of the position. Canditech’s assessments are 100% customizable, meaning the questions and tasks can be rewritten or edited to fit your company’s needs and brand.

 

Canditech’s assessment platform also strengthens the employer brand by increasing talent longevity. When expectations are managed, both Marcus and your company can be confident that should he get hired, he will succeed long-term, and your employer brand will boost retention and satisfaction. 30% of all new hires leave a company within the first 90 days of starting, with almost the majority citing that their day-to-day role wasn’t what they expected. With the average cost per hire being $4,000, turnover damages the employer’s brand and bank account.

 

While in the Canditech job simulator, Marcus sees that the assessment comprises four or five smaller tasks in various technical and cultural areas. So now he understands that if he were to accept an offer at your company, part of his day would be focused on SEO optimization, a few hours would be dedicated to analytics, and he knows the level of collaboration required to succeed in his role with a soft-skills task.

 

Now Marcus can decide if he thinks he’ll enjoy this role and can let the recruiters know if he wants to continue. This will save your recruiters’ and hiring managers’ time too. If Marcus continues, he understands what the role requires.

 

Accommodating anxiety

 

Offering a job simulator test in the candidates’ environment also reduces the anxiety they might feel at the first interview or when taking the assessment in an office surrounded by other candidates (which this author has personally experienced).

 

Marcus is aware that he’s stressed out in interviews. He gets anxious for various reasons, but none impact his work. Interviews are simply stressful. Because he had the chance to show off his skills before the interview, his view of the company improved. This also helped to improve the likelihood of him accepting their job offer.

 

Impressing the candidate

 

When a qualified talent faces multiple job offers, they can quickly turn to emotion and gut feelings to decide where to start. However, those ‘gut feelings’ aren’t by chance. They’re developed throughout the entire process—the people, the office, the assessment, and the contents of the offer.

 

Let’s say your company offers Marcus the position (yay!), but Marcus has two other offers on the table. If they have similar salaries, Marcus will remember his experience. What will impress him more and make him feel more valued? What aspects of his experience would he recommend to a friend or be proud of working there? While the assessment is just one factor out of many, it signifies so much. If Marcus decides to accept your offer, your investment in your employer brand has paid off. If Marcus rejects it, your investment has also paid off.

 

Regardless of the job offer status, Marcus will recommend the experience to his network – his qualified friends and family who might also be in the job market. A whopping 86% of job seekers look at company reviews and ratings before applying to a company. And the reviews are more influential when they come from a trusted source firsthand.

 

The bottom line

 

Employer branding is difficult to measure with numbers, but it is easy to see a somewhat immediate payoff; instead of the red x-es next to Interview experience online, a green checkmark will populate your company’s page. And those green checks add up to boosting your employer’s brand.

 

These online reviews mirror what is happening offline–in LinkedIn messages or texts or at job fairs—arguably the places that matter the most. And in the age of TikTok, where influencing is just as common as de-influencing, maintaining a strong employer brand through word of mouth is crucial to attracting and hiring the highest quality talent.