Skill-based hiring is all the buzz, with platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed promoting their hiring services to “attract the right talent” and “reach professionals with just the right skills.” And it makes sense. If you are looking for candidates who can do a specific job, then why not have them show you they can actually do it as part of the application process? Instead of just taking a candidate’s word for it, you can see their skills in action.
For practical skills — like operating large machinery like a bulldozer, utilizing Excel’s technology like creating and implementing pivot tables, or lifting a 30-pound inventory item and moving it 200 feet — it’s straightforward. But what about soft skills? The stuff that is critical for service professionals, managers, and executives: critical thinking, communication, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and leadership. These are trickier to define and even harder to measure. Here’s why:
- Soft skills are difficult to define with operational precision. — What does oral and written communication or adaptability mean within the context of your specific business? These definitions are not clear-cut.
- Soft skills are difficult to assess objectively. — There is no easy “yes or no” answer when it comes to soft skills, and it’s not always clear what an assessment of soft skills looks like.
- Interpreting assessment results can require training. — If you manage to accurately assess a candidate’s soft skills, being able to use the results from the assessment correctly requires training in how to interpret and apply the results to the hiring decision.
- Businesses are slow to move away from traditional hiring practices. — Many businesses are still hooked on the old ways of doing things, using valuable time and money by relying on resumes and interviews as the main selection tools without first doing a preliminary cull of candidates through objective assessment.
- Candidates for professional level positions may fear or resent the assessment process. — Professionals applying for top-level positions may feel insulted or frustrated by being asked to prove their skills through an assessment when they feel their resume and years of experience speak for itself.
- Most organizations do not have the capacity to design, develop, validate, and deploy their own assessment instruments. – There’s a science to developing a valid and reliable assessment tool. And some training is needed for hiring managers on how to use, administer, and interpret the results.
Are there solutions to these challenges? Absolutely. We can take a page from how higher education uses objective testing to screen applicants for professional programs like nursing, law, business, and medicine.
Every term, more students apply to nursing programs than there are spots available. Schools have to screen applicants efficiently and objectively. One of the best predictors of success in a nursing program is the applicant’s critical thinking ability. It is not the only factor, but it is essential. Critical thinking is a must-have for nurses who need to solve complex problems and make quick decisions every day. Nursing programs nationwide use an objective assessment of critical thinking, the Health Sciences Reasoning Test, to establish a threshold score applicants must meet to continue as candidates for admission.
Similarly, when hiring managers or executives, companies need candidates who can think critically. Whether they are navigating a complicated business deal or handling team conflicts, these professionals must be able to solve problems and to make sound decisions under pressure. The same skills – analysis, interpretation, evaluation, inference, and explanation – that enable a person to solve problems and to make good decisions apply everywhere, not just in nursing or business. That is why critical thinking is such an important core skill.
Here is the good news: assessing a candidate’s critical thinking does not have to be complicated.
Just as with nursing, there are established assessments for use in business like the INSIGHT Business Professional and INSIGHT Executive. They are based on the same internationally accepted definition of critical thinking. These assessments can be taken online in 90 minutes, and they provide objective, easy-to-understand results. Hiring managers can confidently use these tools to weed out candidates who don’t have the critical thinking skills necessary for the job and identify those with the promise to become successful additions to the team.
Hiring someone who lacks critical thinking can be a costly mistake. You will spend time and money onboarding them, training them, and even trying to fix their mistakes. If they cannot solve problems or make smart decisions, it can hurt your bottom line—and removing them from the position will cost even more.
For mid-range positions, a bad hire might set you back $5,000 to $20,000 in just a few days. For senior-level positions, you could be looking at losses of $250,000 or more piling up very quickly.
That is why more businesses are augmenting their hiring process by including critical thinking assessments. Regardless of their resume or prior experience, if a candidate can’t prove they can think, there is no reason to move them to the interview round.
Want to see how your company can streamline its hiring process with skills-based assessments of critical thinking? Reach out to Insight Assessment today to learn how critical thinking assessments can enhance your hiring process.
