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To shortlist resumes: Giving a Take-Home Test
If you're still racking your brain on how to find much easier ways to
initially weed out the big pack of resumes for your firm's vacancy, try
giving a take-home test.
YES, it will probably discourage some applicants to apply, much less
follow-up. YES, its extra work checking all those answers. And YES, you
can't even be 100% sure that the applicant did the work all by himself.
But you also have to consider that, YES, only those truly interested in the
job will bother to apply and take the test. YES, you'll have a pretty good
glimpse of how the candidate ticks professionally. And YES, it'll give you a
good topic to start on for the job interview.
If you're ready to give a take-home test to candidates (and if your
recruiting deadline permits it), take some time to read a few tips on giving
and maximizing the administration of a take-home test:
-
Make sure the test fits the job you're offering.
Don't give a test that isn't relevant to the job opening, or to the kind of
applicants you're looking for. Don't give an oral communications test if the
job you're offering is in Computer Programming; it only adds work to both
you and the candidate. Remember that the objective of giving a take-home
test is to test the candidate's basic technical know-how for the job. If
there's anything else you want to know about the candidate (such as
attitude, work ethic, etc), you can ask that during the interview. Besides,
if the candidate turns out badly during the test, you wouldn't want to know
anything else about him or her anyway.
-
Talk about their answers during the interview.
When the test turns out fine, and you decide to schedule the candidate for
an interview, make sure to make them elaborate on their answers during the
test. See if they really know their stuff. This'll help you check the
validity of their answer and see whether they really DID answer the test
themselves like they were supposed to.
-
Give a test that involves a bit of research on the part of the applicant.
Doing this further weeds out the people in your applicant pool who are not
as interested in the job as you'd want them to be. Not to mention the lazy
ones. Also, this requires the applicant to use more skills that you can
assessed earlier on. You may want to ask applicants for a Bank Loan Officer
to review and give a mock decision to a credit application of a certain
company (which they have to research on), or ask sales applicants to explain
how they'd land a big account with a certain firm.
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