Looking to diversify your talent pool? Identifying potential in diverse talent pools can be much easier if you try inclusive assessment techniques. So how do these techniques work, and what can they do for you? This article will explore the techniques and benefits of blind hiring, gamified assessments, and skills-based challenges. Learning these strategies helps eliminate biases, uncover hidden talents, and create a more equitable and innovative recruitment process.
What Is an Inclusive Assessment?
An inclusive assessment is an evaluation or measurement process designed to consider and accommodate a diverse range of individuals. It includes those with different backgrounds, abilities, and learning styles. It’s not a one-size-fits-all assessment where only one kind of learner or worker will flourish. These assessments aim to provide fair and unbiased evaluation opportunities that do not disadvantage any group and allow participants to effectively demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Inclusive assessments consider cultural differences, disabilities, language proficiency, and individual learning preferences. They are ideal for creating an equal opportunity to showcase a candidate’s abilities and accurately evaluate beyond their background or circumstances.
Inclusive assessments can open the talent pool and offer a different perspective on your candidates and how you think about your process. Thankfully you don’t have to spend much time and money developing your inclusive assessment; there are reputable companies that have already created them and offer metrics tracking. Pymetrics, Vervoe, InterviewBuddy, and Mercer Mettl are excellent examples. Do your research and see if any of these platforms are a good fit for your needs. Let’s delve into some fun strategies to diversify your talent pool and take an unbiased approach to your hiring process.
Blind Hiring
The practice of blind hiring reduces unconscious biases in the hiring process. The practice calls for the hiring team to conceal identifying information about each job applicant. These details include name, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and other personal characteristics that might lead to biases. The goal is to evaluate the candidate solely on skills, qualifications, and experience rather than being influenced by potential biases. This approach vastly improves workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion by solely evaluating the applicant’s merits. As you can imagine, it is an exciting process, and you will likely be surprised by the results. We all have unconscious bias; it’s human nature. But when hiring good talent, sometimes we must get out of our way for the sake of the company.
Gamification
Gamification has become increasingly popular in today’s digital age. Gamification of skill evaluation assessments offers a wide variety of ways for candidates to showcase their skills. Gamified assessments often measure cognitive abilities, problem-solving skills, and situational judgment rather than just resumes and qualifications. Without being hindered by past experiences or credentials, these gamified evaluations can show potential for growth and the ability to learn. Gamification is particularly beneficial if your business incorporates a training process before the candidate gets to work. It also eliminates bias by removing unfair advantages. Everyone is taking the same test with the same criteria, minimizing the impact of unconscious biases or experiences. You can find gamification assessments at many of the same companies listed previously.
Skills-Based Challenges
After you have sourced your last round of candidates, conducting a skills-based challenge can weed out the fake from the real. Skills-based challenges are practical skill assessments. These assessments allow you to evaluate whether a candidate can do what they say. For example, suppose a software development company is hiring a programmer. In that case, they might provide candidates with a coding challenge where they write a piece of code to solve a specific problem. To the same effect, a graphic design company could ask candidates to create a design mockup based on a given brief. These challenges evaluate the candidate’s proficiency in a practical and hands-on way, giving employers a more accurate assessment of their abilities. If you can have candidates complete these assessments “blind,” with no personal identifiers, it is even better.
Conclusion
Inclusive assessments are becoming increasingly common. If it’s not in your budget to pay for assessment or gamification, at least adopt the blind hiring and skills-based challenge methodologies. These both are keys to a successful, inclusive, strategic hiring process with long-standing results.
