Will killing the CV help companies make better hiring decisions?

Recruitment horror stories abound in the modern workplace. Many employers have experienced some common problems in the hiring process: job performance that doesn’t line up with on-paper qualifications, behavior at work that does not match with “works well in teams,” and even blatant mistruths about where someone has worked before or what their skill sets are.

Finding the right candidate is a tough call. Anyone can write anything in their resume or CV. An adage goes that everyone bends the truth somewhat to stand the best chance of getting hired out of a sea of potential candidates, some of them eminently qualified.

A major issue is how HR and hiring teams look for candidates. They’re faced with a sometimes alarming number of applicants – arguably more so than ever, following the recent surge in employees moving between jobs. So it’s understandable why a recruiter might want to scan quickly through CVs and single out those with exceptional talent or absolutely perfect work experience.

Good candidates laden with potential can be overlooked in such a scenario. Also troubling is how qualified individuals with a wealth of relevant job experience and the right skills can still be passed over. This happens often because hiring managers cannot quickly infer the right data from the documents in front of them.

HR managers have to rely on subjective criteria to assess CVs, most of them difficult to quantify objectively. Poor hiring calls waste everyone’s time and effort, and for the company, they can result in lost revenue opportunities and misspent resources.

Another issue with traditional hiring is that we, as a species, unintentionally but invariably fall back on unconscious bias. We can’t help it – human brains are wired to make snap judgments dating back to our fight-or-flight instinct. Unconscious bias encourages us to make rapid decisions based on our predispositions and preferences. These might be preferring someone with a similar educational background or skewing towards candidates that match the general makeup of the office – for example, hiring a white man because they would be a better “cultural fit” than others.

But a BCG global survey of 1,700 companies of varying sizes and verticals found that organizations with more diverse management teams were more innovative and reported 45% higher revenues on average. So ignoring bias (even unconsciously) can drastically affect the bottom line. But as they say, to err is be human.

Instead of looking through CVs, savvy hiring leaders are looking toward skills-based assessments. Illustrating the worth of specific skills for specific tasks, skills-based hiring uses tests to do away with the unqualified indicators in an applicant’s CV that often lead to biased hiring decisions.

At the forefront of this recruitment revolution is TestGorilla. Unlike old-fashioned resume screening and even AI-powered video interviews and assessments, TestGorilla places tests front and center to identify top candidates right at the start of the hiring process.

By testing for applicable skills and the right personality requirements at the start, HR personnel only place the most qualified candidates based on objective criteria in front of the interviewer. No more CV screening, wasting time and resources, and potentially missing the right person.

TestGorilla has a massive library of more than 260 (at the time of writing) peer-reviewed tests, covering everything from cognitive and software skills to language proficiency. Soft skills, motivation, culture-add, and job-specific skills can all be assessed in an unbiased setting, revolutionizing the process of filling vacancies.

HR teams get to focus on inviting only candidates whose skills fit the role, before further filtering them for soft skills and personality traits that align with the position and the organization. Instead of casting a broad net, interviews become a finely honed spear, sharpened by assessments.

TestGorilla’s SaaS solution aims to provide better information on candidates and to add extra layers of analytics and reporting. With data at the center of its HR experience and integration with other applicant tracking systems, TestGorilla enables the right talent to rise to the top, while optimizing organizations’ valuable time and money.

Ideal for any mid-sized to large company, TestGorilla is already used by the likes of Sony, PepsiCo, Bain & Company, the UK’s National Health Service, and H&M to source the best talent. Book a demo to see how TestGorilla can hone your recruitment process.