8 Powerful Hiring Selection Methods To Start Using Today

It’s an exciting time to be in the business of people. HR—long the butt of office workplace jokes—is transitioning more and more into “people operations”, recognizing all the joy, complexity, and nuance required for one of the most crucial components of any organization. With it, recruitment selection methods are changing too.

It’s time to say goodbye to old, admin-heavy recruitment methods (bye bye, complicated Excel spreadsheets describing each candidate!) and the subtly biased selection techniques which have prevailed (farewell, word-of-mouth boys’ club!). In this article, we’ll break down eight hiring selection methods you could use in your organization today. These employee selection methods bring you higher quality candidates, better retention, and a thriving company.

What’s the difference between recruiting and selecting?

Sometimes hiring is broken down into two stages: recruiting and selecting.

Recruiting is the process of finding candidates who are interested in your open role. This might include posting on job boards, employee referrals, and more. We’ll break them down for you in a moment!

Selecting is the process of deciding between all the candidates who’ve applied for your role to find the right person for your organization. We’ll get to the eight powerful selection methods shortly! But first…

What are different types of recruitment selection methods?

Before you get to the process of selecting your candidate, you have to decide where to recruit. Good recruitment methods are usually a blend of tried-and-true along with new and innovative techniques. You can probably rattle off a bunch from the top of your head, from working with external recruiters to posting on popular job boards to sharing on relevant social media like LinkedIn. Here are some other important methods and questions to keep in mind:

External vs internal recruitment

Are you going for an outside hire? Or is the right person for the role already working for you? Before you start the recruitment process, consider whether you definitely want someone new or whether an existing employee might be a great fit. And of course, you can always pursue both avenues: interviewing external candidates as well as considering existing employees for the role.

Talent pool recruitment

A talent pool makes your job as a recruiter much easier. The talent pool is a database of potential candidates who have either worked or shown interest in working for your organization in the past. They might have applied for another role and not quite been the right fit, or maybe they had an internship with you as part of their studies. With a talent pool, there’s a high chance that you already have some sense of who your candidate is and what makes them hireable, which means you can head to secondary recruitment stages (like an interview or skills assessment) with more knowledge.

Employee referrals

No one knows who will be a good fit for your organization better than the people already working within it! Employee referrals are an efficient and informed way to gather a group of potential candidates for any open role. Ask and incentivize your colleagues to refer their connections, previous colleagues, and friends who might be suited for the role, and you might find that they do most of the recruitment for you!

Eight hiring selection methods to improve your recruitment process

The time has come! Below you’ll find some of the best selection methods to ensure that your candidate is right for the job. Some of them might be familiar while others are innovative and modern. Using all of them together can help you find the best hire.

1. Cognitive ability assessments

Cognitive ability assessments are a great way to test how your candidate uses their brain on the job! This selection method might cover topics including numerical reasoning, problem solving, and logical thinking. A cognitive ability assessment might not always (or even usually!) have anything to do with the actual responsibilities the role requires, but it will give you a sense of how the candidate will approach similar problems in their day-to-day working life.

2. Integrity tests

This employee selection method turns its focus to a key value: integrity. An integrity test is a form of personality test which can indicate how trustworthy, dependable, and honest your candidate is. Candidates who score highly on integrity tests tend to treat others fairly and with respect, take responsibility for their own work, identify ethical dilemmas and conflict of interest situations, and more. Those who receive lower module scores, on the other hand, might be more careless with confidential matters or might knowingly accept security or compliance gaps. Integrity might be considered a “soft skill”, but it often makes all the difference to your organization’s reputation and smooth operation! It’s definitely worth testing.

3. Trial assignments

A trial assignment—sometimes also called a talent assessment test or skills assessment test—offers you the chance to test your candidate’s professional skill set before you offer them the job. The trial assessment tests different skills depending upon the role you’re hiring for, so you might offer a copywriter a chance to write a blog or newsletter, a programmer the chance to show off their coding, or a product manager a strategic thinking test. Try to make it relevant to your organization to make sure you can see how their professional expertise would work in practice.

4. Assess soft skills

Soft skills get a bad rap—but they’re crucial to any employee’s ability to perform. What are they? They are the social, emotional, and behavioral skills that characterize a person’s relationships with other people, e.g. communication and empathy. Not sure where to start in assessing soft skills? Check out our guide to seven key employee skills you should be on the hunt for.

5. Assess hard skills

At the same time, let’s not forget hard skills: the specific competencies, skills, knowledge, and abilities your candidate will need to succeed in the role. Hard skills are the all-important other side to soft skills, and you can test them with biodata personality assessments, professional history, trial assignments and more.

6. Evaluate adaptability

From corporate behemoths to zippy start-ups, change is a fundamental part of the modern workplace. Your dream candidate needs to be able to keep up with it! Testing a candidate’s adaptability gives you a sense of how they deal with unpredictable work situations and novel activities.

7. Interview process

Perhaps an obvious one—but the old-fashioned interview can’t be beat as a hiring selection method. There’s no better chance to get to know your candidate, test their on-the-spot answers, and decide if they’re the right fit for the role. Just make sure you’re avoiding bias and coming as prepared as you can be to the interview. Don’t fall into old-fashioned traps with a modern job interview!

8. Conduct reference checks

Reference checks are all-important for a reason. A person who looks amazing on paper and comes across great during the interview process might still be a nightmare to work with on a day-to-day basis, and realizing too late could cost your organization a lot of money. Just think of former Yahoo COO Henrique de Castro, who earned a $109m payout after being fired because CEO Marissa Mayer did not think to conduct reference checks. At the same time, make sure you’re asking the right questions in the right way: here’s our guide to conducting the best employee reference check.

Better hiring selection methods = better hiring

Implementing these employee selection methods ensures you find the right hire, every time. Thorough assessments lead to more successful predictions for how a candidate will perform in the role. And for the best outcome, use HiPeople: assessment checks, reference checks, and candidate insights to give you a full picture of everyone who enters your recruitment funnel. Book a demo today.

‍