How to Select the Right Candidate After Interview Stage | Thomas.co

Thanks to the global pandemic, businesses are doing things differently. One of the biggest changes is how businesses are recruiting. Interviewing and selecting candidates remotely has become a new business challenge.

The same reservations remain as they did with a face-to-face interview though, so you shouldn’t worry too much. Picking a candidate has moved on beyond gut feel in recent years, and luckily there are ways to select the right candidate after an interview thanks to these techniques.

We’re going to look at the different assessment tools you can use with candidates.

Candidate assessments and tools

One of the most effective tools to help in selecting the right candidate is an assessment tool. Depending on what you’re looking for from your ideal candidate, there is a suite of assessment tools that you can use to identify those traits and based on your organisational culture, make a reasoned choice.

For example, the Thomas.co TEIQue assessment helps to identify a candidate's level of emotional intelligence. If you have young teams or those who face a lot of challenging scenarios, this assessment can be used to check how the candidate responds and uses empathy, emotional control, well being and sociability.

The Aptitude assessment or GIA (General Intelligence Assessment) measures things like mental capacity and problem solving. It also helps to identify leadership potential with the skills to drive change. The HPTI (High Potential Trait Indicator) assesses the things that predict job success and job risk for the candidate.

These three tools, amongst others, help to give an insight into the candidates personality and abilities in a non-biased methodology. Alongside an interview and other competency based questioning, assessment tests are a powerful tool to help select the right candidate.

Hold another interview for top candidates

As for many businesses, you could have a situation where you have a few strong candidates, and that your assessment tools and other evaluation metrics point to a similar conclusion. This is where it may be that a second or a third interview is needed to reduce the shortlist.

By making this clear decision to reduce the number of candidates, you can not only interview again but also ask them to take another assessment or better yet, a competency based test to see who may have the best skill set for the specific job.

You may also want to re-evaluate priorities for the role to ensure that you’re valuing the right criteria for the successful candidate. It could be that the composition of the team they're joining requires a more empathetic person or perhaps that position needs more of a logical problem solving approach - which would be equally as beneficial across the business.

Take a moment to think

It's important to remember that candidates may be right for the business but not the role. Their assessment scores could indicate the strengths and characteristics of a great leader, someone sociable or a brilliant problem solver. Whatever it is, you may be passing up on a great talent that may be suited to another role within the business and not one you originally posted a position for.

The Thomas Recruitment platform helps your business by bringing together a candidate’s whole portfolio. From C.V. to assessment scores and for eventually successful candidates, the onboarding process. 

Selecting the right candidate after the interview stage has always been a complicated decision. Things like “gut feel” still have a place in making a decision, but it can be limited. Charismatic candidates can avoid scrutiny whilst shy candidates may perform “badly” on the day. Turn to assessment tools to help give you a balanced, non-biased idea of a potential employee's characteristics and capabilities and be sure to log the best candidates in a tool that will help identify talent for the future of your business.

Read our full manifesto for advice and guidance on how to attract and retain the best talent, without having to rely on “gut feel”.