I believe that the standard candidate experience is not just stale, but broken. We ask candidates to sum up their experience on a piece of paper, sit through a nerve-wracking interview, and then wait weeks as we deliberate on a yes or no. This sequence of events is tedious for the applicant and unproductive for the employer.

There’s a better way. Consider these three steps to rethink your hiring process.

#1: Reconsider the resume

Here is a hot take more and more business leaders share: Resumes are worthless.

I know this idea challenges the recruiting status quo, but hear me out. Resumes aren’t the most reliable sources of information. In a 2020 report from ResumeLab, 36% of Americans admitted to lying on their resumes. The fibbing stemmed from insecurity; most of those who fessed up said they lied because they lacked the required experience.

Despite this, the vast majority of employers require resumes, posing them as the first step in selecting a new worker. Even so, research shows that recruiters look at a resume for only a few seconds. A quick glance isn’t enough time for talent professionals to understand whether an applicant can do the job they’re looking to fill.

This information should cause us to question the current process. Instead of relying on a resume to kick off your recruiting process, consider identifying the most important aspects of the role you’re looking to fill and screening candidates based on how their strengths match up.

#2: Think beyond the interview

I’m frustrated with our reliance on the resume. But I’m simply over our insistence on the interview. Job interviews aren’t inherently bad, of course. But when waste time, money, and energy with a process that requires weeks of scheduling, slotting, and conferencing.

As one lecturer wrote in the Harvard Business Review, interviews cause many employers to pass over great candidates. And not because the candidates underperform, but because employers ask the wrong questions. “If you are working on innovation, you need someone who can think with you,” Nilofer Merchant wrote in the article. “And by focusing on capability over experience, you increase the chances you find that person.”

I believe the problem with interviews runs even deeper bad questions: Interviews can’t produce completely unbiased assessments of a candidate’s strengths. So what can?

Standardize your process with assessments

Companies can measure the strengths and opportunities each candidate presents with standardized assessments. Equipped with that information, they can select the person who best fits the needs of the job — not the person with the nicest resume or the sharpest interviewing skills.

PeopleBest “Profiles” are customized to the exact job you need done. They find the unique ‘code of success’ inside of people, offering insights and identifying missing areas that may frustrate an employer — or drive an employee to quit. By discovering how workers score in the skills most important to an opportunity, companies can better understand what workers want, how they stay motivated, and where they can grow to better contribute to their teams.

We go beyond having killer Profiles — we use analytics to uncover why certain people outperform others, adding to an even faster, impartial, and unbiased way of learning through every person inside your company.

To find out how PeopleBest can serve your team, book a demo and set up a time to chat with one of our specialists. PeopleBest will provide you a no-cost opportunity to hire your next person to experience a better way to hire!

PeopleBest is a revolutionary, simple and powerful way to capture the exact ‘DNA of success’ inside people, teams and companies.