What do organizations that continuously field great employees do in their hiring process?
Well, professional sports teams, orchestras, and Broadway musicals require everyone to audition for the job. Common to each of these types of organizations is the desire for excellence. To help them ensure they will deliver a product that pleases their fans, they will typically require all potential team members or performers to audition for the job.
There are various types of pre-employment assessments, and job auditions are just one type. No matter what form pre-employments tests take, there two overarching goals. One is to get proof the job applicant can really do what the person claims on resumes and job applications. The other goal is to see if those skills and abilities are a good fit for the job responsibilities.
Why Job Simulations are Beneficial
Unlike traditional interviews, which are all about “tell me” what you can do, auditions or simulations require potential future employees to “show me” what you can do.
For recruiting leaders hiring customer service, sales, or support employees, using job simulations can help you measure key job skills and abilities.
Realistic multimedia job simulations allow job candidates to play the part of a fictitious service, sales, or support representative while auditioning for a job from anywhere in the world. This gives hiring managers a realistic preview of a candidate’s skills, such as computer, multitasking and data entry skills.
Learn How to Use FurstPerson's Pre-Hire Audition Job Simulation to Maximize the ROI of Contact Center Applicant Screening
Leading job simulations have evolved from minimally interactive situational judgment tests to microcosms of service economy jobs, complete with training, interactive dashboards, timers, and branching that allows candidates to escalate or deescalate a customer’s emotional response based on how well they manage the interaction.
As one of the pre-employment assessments, work simulations are used in numerous industries today for all kinds of positions, ranging from managers or supervisors to frontline staff members and from hospitality workers to call center employees. The reason is that they enable the company to go deeper into a person's skills. This ability to assess both skills and personality is particularly useful when the job requires a lot of customer contact or frequent collaboration with team members.
The call center is a good example. The job related simulation enables the job candidate to respond to or make customer calls that reflect real life. The virtual environment tests the ability of the person to live chat or instant message a customer. It can create situations in which customers are pleasant, irate, difficult or unreasonable. The pre-employment simulation can assess the person's ability to promote new sales, identify and understand the customer's issue, resolve problems, multitask and work with team members.
Does the applicant get flustered when faced with multiple tasks? Does the person express impatience with difficult customers? Are the person's decision-making skills good, and are the qualities of creative thinking apparent during problem-solving? Does the person take opportunities to market products or make new sales? These are the kinds of applicant characteristics that job audition simulations can measure, with the goal of hiring the people who have the right skills and are a good cultural fit.
It is impossible to learn about a person's personality or even competencies without administering pre-employment tests, including the job simulation. That is just one benefit of the work simulation. There are many more as described below.
Job SIMULATIONS & Pre-Employment Assessments PROVIDE A COMPANY’S TALENT ACQUISITION TEAM and Human Resources BENEFITS IN FIVE WAYS:
1. Job simulations recreate critical job tasks
The pre-employment simulation recreates job tasks critical to the performance required in any given job which provides you with an improved way to measure the candidate.2. Job simulations show aptitude for learning and job work performance
The pre employment simulation assesses an applicant's aptitude for learning how to perform tasks required on a given job before they are hired.3. Pre-Employment simulations use predictive analytics to discover the ability to perform job related tasks
Job simulations assess a candidate's present ability to perform job related tasks by linking simulation performance to actual job performance using predictive analytics. The ability to predict on-the-job performance is a key advantage of using job audition simulations.4. Provide job seekers a realistic preview of the job
Job simulations provide applicants with a realistic preview of critical job tasks so they have a better understanding of the job requirements and duties. Work simulations are win-win assessment tests because the job recruit gets a better idea of what the job really entails, and the employer can determine if the job candidate will work well in the real world setting.5. Simulations provide an engaging candidate experience
Work simulations create an engaging candidate experience which promotes your employment brand. In fact, the work simulation test also provide the job candidate some information about the work culture, especially when the workplace is dynamic and collaborative. Thus, through greater candidate engagement, the employer is better able to determine if the person is likely to be a good cultural fit.
The beauty of the job simulation process is that it not only imitates but also recreates the job experience, allowing candidates to learn new systems, apply them, and improve throughout the simulation process. By doing this, applicants can demonstrate skills and abilities directly related to the job for which they're applying, as opposed to just talking about them in an interview or writing them down on a resume!
In addition, if the person is hired, the training process is already underway, since the job simulation mirrors the real world of the work environment and responsibilities. There are really no downsides to using pre-employment tests.
Learn more about how simulations can help you find, hire, and keep the right talent for your organization by downloading your free copy of the whitepaper below.
Topics: Talent Selection Ideas