Human Resource Outsourcing

Beyond the resume: Assessing cultural fit with BPM recruitment solutions

A candidate’s resume is undeniably the first and most critical step of the pre-employment screening process. Employers must ensure that candidates possess the right qualifications and technical expertise for the job before granting them an interview.
However, in modern business environments, credential-based hiring assessments can result in significant skill gaps. It is becoming crucial for employers to evaluate potential employees’ cognitive abilities, leadership and collaborative skills, and value systems to determine if they are compatible with the workplace culture and the company’s vision.

An employee who functions by the rule book cannot thrive in a culture of innovation and self-learning. Employees used to an open work culture can feel limited by a culture of hierarchy. Businesses seeking to optimise productivity and minimise attrition rates must, therefore, switch from credential-based evaluations to skill-based assessments.

The growing need for skill-based hiring assessments

Statistics reveal that 74% of employers are unhappy with their new hires – a mistake that costs the organisation at least as much as the employee’s first salary. 80% of turnover results from poor hiring decisions. This means four out of five employees who leave the organisation either lack essential skills or are cultural misfits in the work environment.

Businesses are starting to realise that negligent hiring is a costly mistake. Besides being a waste of hiring resources, it adversely impacts the productivity of the entire team. Finding candidates that are ‘cultural fits’ or aligned with the company’s values, goals, and work culture is crucial in driving productivity and minimising employee turnover.

This is where skill-based hiring assessments come in. They reveal behavioural traits, attitudes, personal values, and preferences that go beyond the scope of a resume. Skill-based assessments typically include

• Work sample tasks to assess the candidate’s quality of work and get a comprehensive picture of their abilities
• Simulation exercises to gauge the candidate’s responses to various workplace situations
• Behavioural interviews to evaluate problem-solving abilities and collaborative skills
• Personality assessment is an additional tool to identify specific traits such as communication styles, leadership styles, and work preferences

Why outsourcing hiring assessments to recruitment providers is a good idea

The idea of outsourcing employee hiring assessments to recruitment providers is steadily gaining traction as companies lack the time and resources to conduct comprehensive soft skills and culture-fit analyses in-house.

The end-to-end recruitment process is long-drawn, tedious, and expensive. While the company culture and hiring needs change with digitalisation, expansion, and internal reforms, most employers continue to use traditional screening and assessment tools for hiring employees. While these ensure eligibility, they cannot always ascertain suitability.

Having to evaluate candidates on cognitive and behavioural parameters puts an additional burden on overwrought HR teams. Moreover, in the absence of data-driven and standardised assessment tools, cognitive evaluations may lack objectivity and yield extremely biased results.

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provides a time and cost-effective solution to these problems. Recruitment providers conduct in-depth behavioural interviews, culture-fit assessments, and social media screening of candidates to gauge their alignment with potential teams and organisations.

Here is how your business can benefit from RPO solutions for recruitment processes and hiring assessments:

Access to a larger talent pool

Recruitment providers have a much broader database of professionals from every field compared to in-house HR teams.

Additionally, they have the resources and expertise to leverage unconventional top-of-the-funnel hiring channels such as programmatic advertising, social media, employee referrals, and passive candidates.

This substantially increases your chances of finding the perfect match for a specific job.

Building an employer brand

Recruitment providers collaborate with their clients to understand their core values, work culture, and job-specific requirements. This enables them to build an employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand (EB).

They also market their clients through social media, advertising networks, and referrals in a way that reflects the brand’s voice. This ensures that you predominantly attract talent aligned with your company’s culture and brand image.

Reference checks

Reference checks are crucial in verifying a candidate’s authenticity and abilities.

Recruitment partners undertake in-depth reference checks to gain valuable insights into the applicant’s soft skills, leadership skills, collaborative abilities, and work ethic. This helps you determine their culture fitness and skill alignment with the potential role.

Technology-driven hiring processes

Recruiters use AI tools for strategic sourcing and screening, streamlining your options at the outset. Unlike HR teams that rely on legacy hiring assessments, recruiters leverage technology to identify best-fit candidates, such as simulations, gamified assessments, and social listening.

Some recruiters may also use personality assessments to gauge culture fitness.

Technology puts you in a better position to look beyond the resume into traits that may be aligned or misaligned with your requirements.

How can Infosys BPM help?

Infosys BPM’s recruitment process outsourcing solutions make it easier for you to access skilled applicants who can integrate seamlessly into your organisational culture. Our technology-based approach ensures efficient sourcing, in-depth screening, soft skills assessment, and assessment for identifying attrition-risk candidates.

Know how Infosys BPM’s RPO solutions can help you find the right culture fit for your organisation.