Advancements in manufacturing and transportation technology in the 18th century ultimately led to the Industrial Revolution. Consequently, the 21st century has seen another significant leap. This time it does not just involve machinery or equipment. Rather, the change lies in the access and speed of information – what Alvin Toffler referred to as the Third Wave.
The ability to gather and intelligently assess data has arguably become most valuable. Air travel relies on predicting weather and travel behavior of consumers. Moreover, modern economies work around the appraisal of information – from stock markets to insurance companies. Meanwhile, the field of recruitment is no different. Hence, we are now seeing the advent of mobility and technology such as the Hire.Me app.
Assessment Innovation, in partnership with Pearson, developed WeRK + Hire.Me as essentially a mobile app that simplifies the hiring process. Connected to the WeRK.PH app, it allows people to search and apply for a job. Once they click the apply button, it seamlessly opens to the Hire.Me gamified challenges, which will then ask a series of assessment questions. Finally, the answers and results show up on the potential employer’s dashboard.
At first glance, it is simple. A user signs up and creates a profile in the WeRK app and gets matched to companies based on listed preferences. Furthermore, the app asks the user a series of questions. The benefit of this set-up is twofold: first, convenience for the job seeker, and second, efficiency for the company.
However, underneath that simplicity lies WeRK + Hire.Me’s innovative nature. The app developers have posed the questions to candidates using methods meant to gather information about the job seeker. Gamified challenges on subjects such as English proficiency allow companies to identify talent in real time. All of this is done on a mobile phone.
Mark de Rugeriis, CEO of Assessment Innovation, the group behind the WeRK + Hire.Me app, explains this gamification further. “These users don’t want to take your pen-and-paper test. They want to be engaged in a process and they want to take a test that’s fun. We take those tests and gamify them—they look at images and respond to stimuli. [These are] simulations of actual work. And we time this—that gamifies the task. People don’t feel like they’re taking tests.”
WeRK + Hire.Me is a flexible app. Clients can modify questions and specify the order of how these questions appear. Some questions come in audio form. Users listen to determine if the person is angry or happy. The ability to read verbal cues or even establish an emotional connection is quite useful in any job. But it is especially essential in hiring for contact centers. Recruiters can even conduct interviews on the app, with clients submitting recorded audio or videotaped questions.
According to Kelvin Villafuerte, marketing manager of Werk, “The WeRK + Hire.Me app is a complete mobile recruitment tech solution. It allows a job seeker to search and apply to jobs and be assessed by the recruiter in terms of their cognitive thinking skills, multi-focus among others, and they apply several kinds of assessments based on psychologists in recruitment.”
Developers designed the assessments so they do not just show how many correct answers the user can rack up. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the app is that it provides insight on the personality of the job seeker. “The assessment is timed,” says Villafuerte. “There is a pattern recognition that reads how fast you are able to answer. If you are answering only based on a hunch, [the app] will be able to know.”
Some of the tests are psychological in nature. Pearson, the company who created the assessments found in the app, is well-respected in the academe and corporate worlds. The challenges on the app help identify the strengths of the applicant. For example, the app shows a series of sentences. Then it records how many questions the test taker properly comprehends over a certain period of time.
The major implication of an app such as WeRK + Hire.Me is that people no longer need to be physically present to conduct a job search. Since the jobseeker can download the app to a mobile or tablet device, they can take the assessments anywhere. With this, the employer can see the results real time.
WeRK + Hire.Me’s clients — the hiring organizations — have access to a larger talent pool, unfettered by the limitations of proximity. De Rugeriis recognizes this increased reach: “Most job candidates today search for jobs on mobile. [Their mobile device is] the first thing they see when they wake up, the last thing they see before the go to sleep. Alarm clock, social media, weather checks. They’re always on mobile.”
Another advantage is that the process of finding talent does not anymore waste company resources. The assessment questions allow hiring companies to cull talents that pique their interest even before setting up a single meeting.
By combining established evaluation tools and pioneering technology, Assessment Innovation has come up with a streamlined hiring process. It is, in many ways, revolutionary. According to De Rugeriis, the future — mobility — is heading in this direction: “You improve user experience, leverage technology, have better data on candidates. That’s where this industry is headed, and it’s just going to get better and better as we’re seeing in the marketplace.”
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About TDS Global Solutions (formerly TeleDevelopment Services Inc.)
TDS has established key partnerships with organizations to serve and stimulate growth in the IT-BPM industry. It has spent decades providing outsourcing solutions, management consulting services, talent assessments, executive recruitment, and vendor selection & management for crucial departments of call center operations. For more info, please email TDS at marketing@tdsgs.com or dial US number (1-888) 788-4441.
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