Group Interview Ideas for Better Hiring

As the U.S. unemployment rate continues to remain at historic lows and the skills gap—the discrepancy between the skills individuals have and the skills required by businesses to stay competitive—continues to grow, the large volume of revenue wasted with mis-hires continues to increase.

In 2019, an average of $4,129 was spent per job in the United States, and many times that amount for managerial roles, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Because of the mis-hires rate and the complexity of finding great hires, businesses are looking for ways to optimize the hiring process to find top talent.

Collaborative thinking has been mainstreamed in the business world for some time and is now gaining traction in talent acquisition. HR leaders now recognize that having the input of more than just one person creates expansion for analyzing the talent of each candidate. And given the candidate-driven market, organizations are being forced to think strategically and modernize outdated hiring practices.

Tools such as eSkill’s team scoring feature, lessen any pressures that surround the implementation of collaborative hiring. With a user-friendly interface for both the candidate and hiring teams to assess the skills and competencies of potential hires, eSkill enables employers to save time and money.

Disrupt the Traditional Interview Process

Shifting from traditional hiring processes to a modern approach allows employers, and job-seekers alike, to view the interview process in a new light. eSkill has introduced a virtual group interview protocol that is revolutionizing the hiring process. 

Below is a quick look at the steps of eSkill’s group interview protocol.

• HR professionals and ‘in-house’ experts define the skills and competencies required for the open position. Conducting a job analysis is the first step in facilitating the development of reliable and valid measurements of candidates’ fit for positions. 
• Create open-ended questions or prompts. Hiring teams can create customized questions or prompts, or utilize eSkill’s library of pre-written questions categorized by industry, occupation, and subject matter. eSkill’s assessment experts can assist your team in developing questions that are both reliable and valid predictors of future success on the job.
• The hiring team creates standardized criteria to score interview questions and prompts. The scoring criteria are intended to clearly outline the requirements associated with each point value for each response.
• Assign reviewers to score questions or prompts. Not every member of the hiring team needs to score every question. It is best to match questions with the individuals most capable of scoring accurately. For instance, it is reasonable to assign a question about cybersecurity to a cybersecurity professional currently working for your organization. It is not reasonable to assign the scoring of a cybersecurity question to a newly hired HR intern. Simply put, match evaluators’ expertise with relevant questions and prompts.
• Start testing. Send the test to candidates. eSkill’s team scoring feature can automate the process of sending group interview questions and prompts to candidates, streamlining the process.
• Score responses. An email notifying assigned evaluators of a newly completed ‘group interview’ will prompt them to score only the questions they are assigned. These responses will be free of any of the candidates’ identifying information.
• HR admin approves scores. To avoid the risk of mistakes, an HR admin reviews, and approves scores to ensure consistent scoring is taking place.

Increase Your Talent Pool

With eSkill’s online group interview and team scoring approach, members of the hiring team can ‘blindly’ score responses based on the predetermined criteria. Topping the list of group interview ideas for employers is ‘blind’ hiring, as it eliminates bias. By creating a process that removes subjectivity, collaborative hiring realizes immense benefits.

‘Blind’ hiring increases inclusion and diversity in the workplace, as it removes the potential for unconscious or conscious bias. Research shows that an increase in the diversity of employees leads to a harder working and more creative workforce. ‘Blind’ hiring is an increasingly accepted practice in the talent acquisition space, as it removes the faulty human judgment element that injects biased opinions into the hiring process.

Collaborative hiring alleviates the pressure of one recruiter doing all of the work, which makes for a smoother transition for the new hire who is eventually selected. This method of hiring creates an “all hands on deck” mentality, making each member of the hiring team feel personally invested in the success of the new-hire. This collaboration promotes a team-like culture that top companies value.

eSkill makes compiling, sharing, and analyzing assessment scores easy and flexible, as it easily integrates with most applicant tracking software. These group interviews can also be combined with eSkill’s pre-employment skills tests, behavioral assessments, and virtual video interviews. When administered together, hiring teams are able to obtain quantifiable data that can be leveraged to prognosticate the potential performance of applicants, efficiently and effectively.

A successful job performance depends on employees possessing the required skills, aptitude, and personality traits. Not only does eSkill’s suite of automated hiring assessment technologies speed the hiring process, but they also objectively identify applicants with the required skills and competencies to succeed in a position, ultimately increasing profitability and reducing employee turnover.
Interested in Team Scoring for Group Interviews?

Learn more about the benefits of using eSkill’s team scoring to find qualified candidates quickly. Contact us for more group interview ideas for employers.