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Written by Nathan Hewitt

How Text-Based Interviews are Replacing Personality Assessments

Re-inventing personality assessments through text-based interviews.

Personality is revealed through text-based interviewsPredictiveHire has recently released a scientific research paper that shows that a simple chat interview can measure personality with improved user experience and at a fraction of the time required for a traditional psychometric assessment.

It proves that textual content of answers to standard interview questions related to past behaviour and situational judgement can be used to reliably infer personality traits. It explores how the AI techniques of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) present a new future for personality assessments.

Why this matters?

The ability to measure an applicant’s personality in the selection process helps recruiters, hiring managers and the applicant make better hiring decisions, including removing the subjective biases involved in human interviewer judgement of candidate personality.

Personality is widely accepted as an indicator of job performance, job satisfaction and tenure intention.

The research outcomes suggest that the work is more enjoyable and thus engaging to the individual and beneficial to the employer and the society at large when there is congruence between one’s personality and career.

However, conducting a traditional personality test adds an extra cost to the recruitment process. It also tends to diminish candidate experience as personality tests are less favoured by candidates compared to other assessment methods such as job interviews.

Interviews have been the preferred method of assessment

Therefore personality tests are not as ubiquitous as employment interviews. Actually, for the past 100 years, interviews are the most widely used selection method in. However, strong criticism of the job interview is the likelihood of bias introduced by the prejudices of the interviewer.

Structured interviews where the same questions are asked from every candidate, in a controlled conversation flow and evaluated using a well-defined rubric have shown to reduce bias and also increase the ability to predict future job performance. The questions asked in a structured interview are derived using a job analysis as opposed to interviewer preference and are typically based on past behaviour and situational judgement.

This research paper is written by Madhura Jayaratne, Data Scientist and Buddhi Jayatilleke, Principle Data Scientist of PredictiveHire.

The ability to infer personality from interview responses could replace lengthy and less favoured personality tests while also providing objective outcomes from text interviews.

Get the Research Paper here 


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SuccessFactors + Sapia = Faster, fairer hiring

The good people at SuccessFactors have created an HR software system to help you deliver business strategy alignment, team execution, and maximum people performance. They’re passionate about helping you empower your workforce. And with Sapia, you can now take full advantage of SuccessFactors ATS to get ahead of your competitors by integrating Sapia’s interview automation for faster, fairer and better hiring results.

Decrease SuccessFactors ATS hiring complexity

From attracting candidates of diverse backgrounds and delivering an exceptional candidate experience, you’re expected to do a lot! All whilst you’re selecting from thousands of applicants…
The good news is that technology has advanced to support recruiters. Integrating Sapia artificial intelligence technology with the powerful SuccessFactors ATS facilitates a fast, fair, efficient recruitment process that candidates love.

You can now: 

  • Reduce your screening time by up to 90%
  • Increase your candidate satisfaction to near 100%
  • Achieve interview completion rates over 90%
  • And reduce screening bias for good

Sapia + SuccessFactors

Gone are the days of screening CVs, followed by phone screens to find the best talent. The number of people applying for each job has grown 5-10 times in size recently. Reading each CV is simply no longer an option. In any case, the attributes that are markers of a high performer often aren’t in CVs and the risk of increasing bias is high.

You can now streamline your SuccessFactors process by integrating Sapia’s interview automation with SuccessFactors.

We’ve created a quick, easy and fair hiring process that candidates love.

  1. Create a vacancy in SuccessFactors, and a Sapia interview link will be created. 
  2. Include the link in your advertising. Every candidate will have an opportunity to complete a FirstInterview via chat.
  3. See results as soon as candidates complete their interview. Each candidate’s scores, rank, personality assessment, role-based traits and communication skills are available as soon as they complete the interview. Every candidate will receive automated, personalised feedback.

By sending out one simple interview link, you nail speed, quality and candidate experience in one hit.

Integrate SuccessFactors and get ahead

Sapia’s award-winning chat Ai is available to all SuccessFactors users. You can automate interviewing, screening, ranking and more, with a minimum of effort! Save time, reduce bias and deliver an outstanding candidate experience.

Experience the Sapia’s Chat Interview for yourself

 

The interview that all candidates love

As unemployment rates rise, it’s more important than ever to show empathy for candidates and add value when we can. Using Sapia, every single candidate gets a FirstInterview through an engaging text experience on their mobile device, whenever it suits them. Every candidate receives personalised MyInsights feedback, with helpful coaching tips which candidates love.

Together, Sapia and SuccessFactors deliver an approach that is: 

  • Relevant—move beyond the CV to the attributes that matter most to you: grit, curiosity, accountability, critical thinking, agility and communication skills
  • Respectful—give every single person an interview and never ghost a candidate again
  • Dignified—show you value people’s time by providing every single applicant personal feedback
  • Fair—avoid video in the first round interviews and take an approach that’s 100% blind to gender, age, ethnicity and other irrelevant attributes
  • Familiar—text chat interviewing is not only highly efficient, it’s also familiar to people of all ages  

There are thousands of comments just like this …

“I have never had an interview like this in my life and it was really good to be able to speak without fear of judgment and have the freedom to do so.

The feedback is also great. This is a great way to interview people as it helps an individual to be themselves.

The response back is written with a good sense of understanding and compassion.

I don’t know if it is a human or a robot answering me, but if it is a robot then technology is quite amazing.”

Take it for a 2-minute test drive here > 

Recruiters love using artificial intelligence in hiring

Recruiters love the TalentInsights Sapia surface in SuccessFactors as soon as each candidate finishes their interview.

Together, Sapia and SuccessFactors deliver an approach that is: 

  • Fast—Ai-powered scores and rankings make shortlisting candidates quicker
  • Insightful—Deep dive into the unique personality and other traits of each candidate 
  • Fair—Candidates are scored and ranked on their responses. The system is blind to other attributes and regularly checked for bias.
  • Streamlined—Our stand-alone LiveInterview mobile app makes arranging assessment centres easy. Automated record-keeping reduces paperwork and ensures everyone is fairly assessed.
  • Time-saving—Automating the first interview screening process and second-round scheduling delivers 90% time savings against a standard recruiting process.

Don’t believe us, read the reviews! 

See Recruiter Reviews here > 

HR Directors and CHROs love reliable bias tracking

Well-intentioned organisations have been trying to shift the needle on the bias that impacts diversity and inclusion for many years, without significant results. 

Together, Sapia and SuccessFactors deliver an approach that is: 

  • Measurable—DiscoverInsights, our operations dashboard that provides clear reporting on recruitment, including pipeline shortlisting, candidate experience and bias tracking.
  • Competitive—The Sapia and SuccessFactors experience is loved by candidates, ensuring you’ll attract the best candidates, and hire faster than competitors.
  • Scalable—Whether you’re hiring one hundred people, or one thousand, you can hire the best person for the job, on time, every time.
  • Best-in-class—Sapia easily integrates with SuccessFactors to provide you with a best-in-class AI-enabled HRTech stack. 

Getting started is easy

Let’s chat about getting you started – book a time here > 

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Here’s where to start with improving your employer brand

In this jobs market, the secret to success is not necessarily a huge job ad budget or a top-range salary and perks package. You don’t even need to be the biggest, or the best known – many are the top-notch candidates that have been ghosted by the world’s most sought-after companies.

How to improve your employer brand | Sapia.ai employer brand software
If you want to improve your employer brand, a mix of consistency, technology, and marketing nous is required.

You do, however, have to invest in employer brand. Most of us know this, of course, but few companies have made the appropriate investment in long-term brand building. It’s a marketing play, fundamentally, and it’s difficult to do right, but the benefits can be huge for your business.

Why should you care about employer branding?

It’s your best long-term approach to recruiting. If you give every candidate a caring, consistent, and memorable experience, you will dramatically increase your fill rate AND your talent network. People talk about good experiences – in fact, according to our own data, a single good experience while applying for a job makes candidates 77% more likely to recommend you as an employer of choice.

The good news is, too, that the impact of an employer brand can be easily measured, according to Dr John Sullivan: By the number of job applications you receive each year. Now, don’t confuse this point with the opening sentence of this post – there’s a difference between a company’s brand and its employer brand. You might be a Fortune 100 company with a household name, but if your job application process is terrible, people will know you and remember you for that. 

(And, if you’re not careful, a poor employer brand will end up affecting your wider brand.)

Where do you start with improving employer branding?

Your employer brand touches everything. You have seconds to introduce yourself to candidates, show off your best features, and get them to apply. That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to throw everything out and start again. Start with some easy wins, and then take a wider focus to include things like your technology and feedback processes.

Stodgy artwork, pixelated logos, spelling errors, outdated information, broken links… these will break your recruitment strategy before it has had the chance to work. So start here.

Employer brand audit checklist

Channel Items
Website Is our ‘About us’ section up to date?
Do we have a ‘careers’ or hiring information page?
Do both sections, along with the rest of our website, adequately reflect our values?
Social media platforms Is our ‘About us’ section up to date?
Do we include correct contact information, including to our website?
Does our imagery and content reflect our brand values?
Are our job postings attractive and adequately promoted on the page?
Recruiting portals (Seek, Indeed) Is all of our information up to date?
Are our visual branding touchpoints (logo, header/banner images) of sufficient quality?
Is all of our information up to date?
Third-party recommendation apps (e.g. Glassdoor, Productreview.com) What is the average star/quality rating of our reviews (mostly negative, positive, mostly positive)?
Have we made an effort to visibly address customer/employee feedback on the platform?

 

It’s important to note that the branding and visual appeal of your organization is not primarily your responsibility – maintaining it is a team effort. But portals and third-party apps are often overlooked over time, as a brand develops and organization information changes. It’s never a bad idea to champion the task of regular housekeeping, and get your best marketing minds to help.

Improving employer brand with technology

With our Ai Smart Interviewer on your team, you’ll give every single candidate an engaging, empowering experience with your brand, boosting its value from the moment they click ‘apply’.

You can have offers out to the best candidates in just 24 hours. This is an incredible value proposition for candidates who are applying for 5, 10, maybe even 20 jobs at a time and usually don’t expect to hear anything back.

Here’s how it works:

  • Every candidate interviews with our Ai over chat (and in return, gets personalised insights and tips – another tick for your employer brand and EVP)
  • Shortlisted candidates auto-progress to a non-Ai Video Interview (which, candidates rate 9/10)
  • Hiring managers review the video responses and pick the best with the help of our Talent Insights profile.

Our customers have cracked the candidate experience code, enjoying application completion rates in excess of 80%, and candidate satisfaction scores of more than 90%. Everyone gets an interview, and no one is ghosted.

Remember: There’s no space in this market to be slow.

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Accuracy in hiring decisions is not correlated with experience

To find out how to interpret bias in recruitment, we also have a great eBook on inclusive hiring.


It’s the start of the football season in Australia, and I’ve been thinking about how damn hard it must be to coach. Every week you need to revise your game plan, pick the best team to get the match-up right and galvanise your players behind your decisions. You’re constantly adjusting your approach depending on who you are up against, picking different players to counter your opponent’s strengths.

I have heard it said by people who are more football savvy than me that the best coach is the one who can rid him/herself of biases at the decision point of picking the right players for the match.

The well-known Nobel Laureate behavioural economist, Dr Daniel Kahneman, made the same discovery when he first started to work in the space of ‘human decisioning’.

As a young psychologist in the 1950’s, he was tasked with figuring out which recruits to the army should be allocated to which units, infantry, air force etc. 

All the generals of those units strongly asserted that there was a different type for each unit, and they wanted to make allocations that reflected those differences. What Kahneman found over time was that there was no difference between the best soldiers in each part of the army. 

What he observed was the intrusion of the interviewer’s own intuition when interviewing for these roles. Expert judgments were less reliable than they thought. The right algorithms might have solved this.

Accuracy is not correlated with experience. We rely on heuristics, rules of thumb, mental models that rely on similarity with our own past experience. 

The more likely the individual in front of you looks like your mental model of the person you hired last time that “was a great (insert role)”, the more likely you are to see them as a great (insert role).

Confirmation bias is something we see every day in the stock market. A stock price increase does not mean a company is successful. These buying decisions are emotional, not rational. People decisions suffer from the same human frailty.

That’s why Nobel Laureates like Dr Daniel Kahneman and many smart HR leaders are recognising that the only way to interrupt our own biases is with the right technology.

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