Why Our Assessment Uses Precisely Zero Questions | Arctic Shores

Make great hires. No questions asked.

When you’re looking for answers, it seems logical to ask questions. And, when hiring, that’s exactly what most companies do. Theyask and ask. Tried and traditional.

But, for all the questions, do they ever really see their candidates? Are high-stakes responses ever a fair, accurate measure of likely performance?

As you may know, we do things a bit differently.

In fact, our assessment involves precisely zero questions. Here are three reasons to put your faith in our behaviour-based psychometric assessment instead:

Authenticity

Whether we’re 15 or 50, everybody wants to be liked. It’s called social desirability, and it’s in our DNA. 

This is why, when there’s a job on the line, your candidates will often tweak their responses to resemble what you’re looking for. Unconscious or not, this trait can make it hard to ever really know anything for certain about your candidates.

Here are two reasons why our tasks give you more authentic data than typical questions:

1. They’re a type of stealth assessment. It’s difficult to know what’s being assessed, so candidates are more likely to respond naturally.
2. The tasks prompt intuitive responses, which leave no window for premeditation. In short, there’s little time to fake.

By actively seeing behaviour, rather than asking about it, you get a clear, trustworthy picture of how your candidates will think and act in your role. This means more confident hiring.

Fairness

Bias doesn’t just hurt candidates – it hurts companies too. Those able to attract talent from all backgrounds, genders, ages and ethnicities outperform and out-innovate their peers. 

But the more questions you ask, the greater the opportunity for bias to creep in. We use interactive tasks because they give you truly objective data. That’s why so many of our customers report higher numbers of women and minority groups reaching their final stages:

• Siemens doubled the number of women reaching its final stage
• Evry saw its proportion of female hires jump to 40%, far beyond the industry average
• Kantar increased the number of BAME hires by 7%

Candidate experience

Three in five candidates will tell their family and friends about their application experience. So, while the risks of a stressful process are obvious, there’s also a great opportunity for the organisations getting it right. 

Our assessment helps you do just that. By replacing questions with tasks, our assessment’s been found to encourage a state of “flow” – or total concentration – which helps candidates relax and respond naturally. 

This contrasts to typical question/answer tests, where candidates often stress over things like what the question’s measuring, or how their answer might reflect on them. 

But don’t just take our word for it:

• 90% of Thales’ candidates actively enjoyed the assessment
• Three in four Siemens applicants said it made them feel more relaxed than traditional tests
• 90% of Capita’s candidates were more excited to work for the company after taking our assessment.

So, having trouble with faking, fairness or your candidate experience? Ditching the questions might be the answer you’re looking for. Arrange your demo here, and let’s find out.