COMMENTS
I understand where you are coming from Dave but there is another side to this coin.
I don't think recruiters "fear" assessments. I happen to agree with them that if the candidate is to take an assessment, it should be after a phone screen. Here is why...
Sales people will interact verbally with their prospects. Tonality, grammar, diction and a great vocabulary are the cornerstones of effective communication. Taking an online assessment does not allow the hiring manager to judge any of these things.
Also, there is something to be said for predisposition. If you take an assessment that points out all your flaws before I speak with you, it would only be human nature for me to concentrate on probing what I perceive to be your weak areas. That may cause me to miss what are your obvious strengths.
Finally, in this age of technology, we communicate far too much in a non human manner. Mano y mano is still the best way to build a relationship.
Just MHO and btw many of our clients use assessment quite successfully but where they insert them in the process has to make sense.
@Trish - I agree with everything you said.
But why waste time with candidates that will ultimately not be recommended? If we have the tools to filter out those who we know with 95% accuracy will not succeed at this company, or selling into this marketplace, or selling these products/services, why speak with them before we know that they will succeed? If we wait (a few minutes) until after the assessment indicates that they will succeed, we'll be talking to the cream of the crop instead of the whole partly infested crop. Who has that much time to waste today?
Dave, we do a lot of recruiting and we screen every candidate. The candidates that do not want to be screened are eliminated from the process. We feel if they do not want to take the time to do the assessment they are not that interested and are curiosity seekers.
We do explain to the client that we work for them and the candidate. Our purpose is to make a good match so the client and candidate are successful.
When we talk with the candidate we explain that they have an advantage working with us over other recruiting firms because we use the OMG Screening process. We then know the candidate has the strengths, skill sets, the proper amount of hunter, qualifier and closing skills and match up to the compatibilities of the target company. Every single candidate we discussed this with was very impressed. Every candidate we have placed has been a home run.
@Al - you have the kind of rare recruiting philosophy that I admire and companies should use you when they need recruiting help! Keep up the great work.
Dave, it would be unfair for me to take all the credit. I have learned so much from you over the years. I can’t tell you how much you have contributed to my career, business and personal development. Thank you and thank you to the OMG staff.
Recruiters are a pain. Most I've dealth with dislike assessments because they tend to discount too many of their recruits. A good client of mine in HR was a former recruiter who told me that the key to recruiting is to pad resumes to make everyone look like a good candidate. It's all about collecting the fee, then talking your way out of the fact that someone fails.