Out of sheer curiosity (read, nerdiness) I spent my Sunday morning clicking through a Ceridian Slideshare presentation on the history of HR technology. Yes, my life really is that exciting!

Comparing tech from the 1960’s to that used by HR professionals today made me feel an overwhelming sense of sympathy for the human resources departments of the past.

Completely manual payroll systems, no ATS, no Excel... Oh the humanity!

Access to personal computers and the internet has revolutionized HR and recruitment helping to facilitate the wealth of fantastic HR tech tools at our disposal today.

As someone who works in the field of recruitment technology, it’s my job to stay informed about the latest trends and innovations in HR tech and what these changes mean for recruiting.

By researching performance reports, surveys, and our own user generated data, I’ve noticed 5 key areas where HR tech is changing recruitment for the better:

Candidate Assessment, Employee Referrals, Matching, Automation, and Reporting.

This article is the beginning of a five part series on the most game changing innovations in recruitment technology. Starting with...

Candidate Assessments

Candidate Assessment is an interesting area of HR tech because it can go so very, very wrong!

Take this example from an article in the Economist about “a case where the [assessment] software rejected every one of many good applicants for a job because the firm in question had specified that they must have held a particular job title—one that existed at no other company.”

But, when used well, assessment tools are an effective way to boost retention rates and quality of hire.

Xerox used Evolv to mine their employee data in an effort to improve their candidate assessment process. Evolv found that the best predictors that customer-service employee will have a lengthy future at Xerox, is that they lives nearby their place of work and that they can get to work easily.

Neither of these things were previously priorities to Xerox when assessing potential hires.

Xerox used the information that Evolv gave them to cut attrition by a fifth!

Another way that assessment tools are helping companies find the right talent is with intelligently designed survey tools.

Surveys can measure soft skills by asking a series of indirect questions, such as “How good at computers are you?” followed up several questions later with “What does control-V do on a word-processing program?”

Good assessment tools are linked to the actual performance of the people they are used to hire, so that HR can measure success, and better understand how to optimize their use in the future.

These tools with help minimize bias in the recruitment process, analyze employees soft skills, and change how and what questions we ask to determine a candidate’s fit.