How to make the best use of recruiting questionnaires
Recruiting tips |

How to make the best use of recruiting questionnaires

Publishing a job posting is, as we know, one of the first steps to start the recruitment process. It is equally important to acquire information about candidates that goes beyond the CV. In these cases, a recruiter, almost like a private investigator, must have a clear profile of the person to be recruited before scheduling an interview, but especially after the first meeting has already taken place and the selection process is being considered.

Organising a second interview with the head of the area or team is certainly an act of responsibility and one should not be caught unprepared. Also because, nowadays, it is the candidates themselves who prepare well before the interview, they study, think about what they might be asked and how to give the best answer. To distinguish this from reality, a big help can come from recruiting questionnaires, psychological tests to bring out the personality of the candidate. They are a great tool when you have positive feelings about candidates who are somehow blocked, for example, by shyness or the fact that they are unfamiliar with interviews.
Let’s see in this article how to use recruiting tests, in which phases they are recommended, what are the main advantages and limitations and how an ATS software can help in recruiting management.

What are questionnaires in recruiting

As we have said, they are personality tests used to assess the soft skills of the candidate, such as open-mindedness, organisational skills, ability to work in a team and all those transversal skills that, as the word itself says, go beyond the roles that a candidate may have held up to that moment. They can also serve, as psychological tests, to bring out the personality, beyond the experiences that the candidate may have lived and told in the curriculum.

recruiting questionnaires

Let’s take an example: if a CV or LinkedIn profile shows that a candidate has changed jobs every two years, one might think that he/she is not a very stable and consistent person at work. However, with more careful analysis and the use of tests, you might learn the real reasons behind an initial negative impression (you might discover that the candidate has worked in environments where he/she could not express his/her personality or has held roles in which he/she did not recognise him/herself).

The results of the tests may help to avoid rejecting the candidate a prior and thus prevent prejudices from compromising the selection process. Recruitment questionnaires are different from those focused on personal development or career.

They are specifically designed to understand the candidate’s approach to the job by measuring specific indicators of behaviour and revealing the key characteristics that are desirable and those that can perhaps be ‘passed over’.

According to a study by Criteriagroup, 93% of HR professionals consider them useful for assessing candidates. As further confirmation of their validity, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), conducted on workers in the low-skilled service sector, found that workers who had been administered a test in the pre-selection phase stayed on the job longer, i.e. 15% longer than workers who had not received the questionnaire.

What kind of tests should be used?

Which psychological tests should you use in recruitment? The choice depends on many aspects – here we refer to an overview – such as the profile you are looking for, the budget and time you have available, the company you work for, the urgency to fill the vacant position, the number of candidates to be selected and much more.
Generally, this type of test covers several aspects: personality, emotional intelligence, motivation and professional values.

Personality tests: Big Five and 15FQ+ Fifteen Factor Questionnaire

As far as personality is concerned, there are various tests, called psychometric tests, which serve to identify a person’s characteristics and behaviour.

These include, for example, the test based on the Big Five theory, i.e. the existence of five main factors: energy, friendliness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and open-mindedness. The final profile is made up of a numerical value for each of these factors and is a test that can be very useful when forming a team, so that it does not include people who are too similar and risk not getting along.

Another widely used test is the 15FQ+ Fifteen Factor Questionnaire. Not surprisingly, it is also called the “killer application”: it consists of 200 questions that allow you to collect a lot of information about the candidate, such as leadership skills, the way he/she relates to superiors, persuasion skills and much more.

Emotional intelligence

As Daniel Goleman teaches us, emotional intelligence is not linked to reasoning or knowledge, but to the ability to recognise, understand and manage one’s own emotions, but also those of others. This is crucial when working in a team.

Personality tests

Tests of professional motivation and values: OPPro Occupational Personality Profile

Some types of tests assess motivation and professional values in order to understand behaviour in the workplace, one example being the OPPro Occupational Personality Profile. This is a test that reveals a candidate’s behaviour in different situations in the workplace by examining: how they relate to others, how they manifest their thinking, feelings and emotions. Moreover, this type of test can help the recruiter to identify the management and relationship style that can be established with one’s superiors.
All these examples of tests should be administered with a clear understanding of the objective for which they are being used, in order to exploit their full potential.

Why take a questionnaire: the objectives

Tests are used to get to know the candidate better, so before choosing the right questionnaire, it is good to identify what to focus on and why.

The questionnaire is in fact a tool that must serve a very specific purpose: to understand how that person can be useful to the company. Therefore, the context in which it is to be inserted should be clear and also what happened before the position opened.

For example, if the selection has been made to replace a resource that has been dismissed or has left, it is necessary to first understand what went wrong and only then to think about the test. In this sense, the test should be understood as an accessory tool to be administered only after clarifying how to deal with the resulting information and data.

It becomes necessary, if not crucial, to first make a selection of the tests one intends to administer to the candidate. One has to ask oneself which test might be most suitable for one’s purpose and, before choosing, try to find out how much budget one has available. Before opting for an inexpensive test, one should consider its scientific validity.

Another aspect to consider has to do with the candidate’s experience: whether you take the test before or after the interview, it is important to make the candidate feel comfortable.

Therefore, the choice should be a test that is intuitive and does not cause annoyance and frustration to the candidate, but at the same time has results that are easy to interpret. Ideally, a questionnaire should be chosen that is embedded in ATS software so that the administration and evaluation can be monitored.

In general, in order for a test to meet its objectives – first and foremost to find the best candidate – you need to focus on:

  • Validity (measuring what is really needed)
  • Reliability
  • Quantification of results
  • Giving the opportunity to really understand the person in front of you, i.e. not just mere numbers or percentages.

If a test is constructed in a rigorous and precise way, it is very likely that you will be able to extract data that is as truthful as possible.

When to use recruiting tests

Personality tests can be used at different stages of the selection process.

Questionnaires can be particularly useful in the pre-selection phase in order to ‘skim off’ applications if more people than expected have applied for a particular role. Once an initial selection has been made, based on the CV, a telephone interview can be arranged with the candidate, telling them more about the profile they are looking for and a questionnaire can be administered. It is advisable to always explain the reason for proposing a test, involving the resource in the selection process, and to avoid sending it in depersonalised e-mails which only increase the distance with the candidate.

human resources management

Psychological tests are very useful during, or after, the cognitive interview. All this in order to build a more detailed and even more global picture of the situation that takes into account not only the answers that the candidate gives – which can also be conditioned by the environment, by emotion or by the desire to make a good impression – but also by his/her experience, by what he/she has said, how he/she has told his/her story, etc…

Tests, as we have said, allow the recruiter to have some more information, but they should not be the only support through which the choice is made. This is because they do not analyse every aspect (technical and non-technical) of the candidate’s profile; in fact, with regard to hard skills, for example, personality tests say practically nothing.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of the tool.

The advantages of recruiting tests

Let’s start with the advantages of questionnaires. Here are some benefits of using a psychological test in recruiting:

  • They provide a more holistic picture of a candidate, as well as a better understanding of how the person might fit in a given context.
  • They narrow the pool of candidates by revealing those who are qualified, but would not fit into the company culture, without introducing personal biases.
  • They allow, when administered in the pre-selection phase but also after the first interview, to structure an interview process based on factual information. It may be possible to elaborate on aspects which have emerged from the questionnaire and which would not have emerged without it.
  • By sharing the results of the questionnaire, candidates can learn more about themselves and what their strengths and weaknesses are. This will improve the Candidate Experience and help them for future applications or career development.
  • Based on data, the questionnaires eliminate the biases that a recruiter may have for a certain type of person or based on past experience. The results are based on the answers given by the candidates themselves: it is possible to assess their role and organisational fit, how they might behave in a working environment and what might be expected of their future job performance.
  • They allow you to strengthen your team by ensuring that you select candidates who fit your company’s culture.
  • When combined with other pre-employment tests, such as cognitive ability tests, personality questionnaires can provide a prediction of future job performance.

The limits of recruiting tests

Of course, it is not all roses. Let us look at the limitations of recruiting questionnaires:

  • A candidate may not fully understand their relevance to the selection process and may feel ‘on trial’. That is why, as we said, it is important to explain the purpose of the questionnaire and why it is administered.
  • They can be lengthy and take up people’s valuable time. This can lead talented people who know they are talented, or those who already have a job but plan to leave it, to abandon the application process in favour of a company with a much less demanding selection process.
  • Candidates do not always see the advantages of personality questionnaires for themselves, rather they see them as an additional step to take. It is useful to explain that their use is important in order to get to know the candidates better as persons and not as mere ‘numbers’.
  • There is always the risk that the candidate lies or gives an image that does not correspond to reality, but is consistent with what companies are looking for. This is why personality questionnaires should be used in conjunction with other pre-employment tests and then confirm the answers through a face-to-face interview.

How ATS software helps you to manage the tests better

Are you interested in questionnaires, but have few resources/low budget/low time? Technology can help you in many ways. How? With ATS software such as In-recruiting that allows you to use questionnaires more profitably.

The fact that questionnaires are part of the software’s functionality saves you valuable time and ensures their validity. You can choose whether to carry out the questions in the pre-screening phase or afterwards, and calmly share the results with other colleagues, simply by logging into the platform. The software also allows you to offer the candidate a less demanding test and thus give them the feeling that they can easily answer all the questions.

You can manage the sending of the questions and the receipt of the answers in a simple and organised way according to the needs for which the test is being administered: to carry out an initial screening, to assess a shortlist of final candidates, but also to identify specific skills within companies before starting a new selection process.

Try In-recruiting for free to see all its functionalities.