Do you sometimes share Tim’s frustration?

Get in touch with us, we have a solution.

Every recruiter knows the problem: time and again, the candidate with the perfect CV is not the most suitable candidate for the job. “Suitable” means: a person whose typical behavior matches with the job requirements and whose personality fits with the team.

Poorly fitting soft skills lead to expensive wrong hires, not just in management positions but everywhere in the organization, especially when the relationship side of a team shows dysfunctional symptoms.

Our behavior as human beings results from deeply rooted personality dimensions and is thus difficult to change. Do you remember how hard it can be to change an old habit and the beliefs that are attached to it? This is another reason why we should put an eye on the preferred behavior patterns of candidates.

However, the reality is often very different: Still today, many organizations focus first and singlemindedly on the fit between CV and job requirements. Only at the end of the hiring – in interviews or assessments – they eventually take a closer look at the human side.

In many recruitings, after a round of disappointing interviews, the hiring manager returns back to the initial pool of names to find another applicant. What a waste of time and resources, and how frustrating from a human point of view!

Checking soft skills early in the recruiting dramatically enhances chances of identifying a well-fitting candidate and also reduces time to hire. And the good news is: a standardized soft-skill screening is easy to implement, thanks to latest technologies. Say goodbye to elefantastic IT-implementation projects!

Employer Branding creates tangible value for the candidate

Soft-skill recruiting not only improves quality and speed of hiring. It also creates a new and different candidate experience which leads to a concrete and real benefit in terms of Employer Branding.

The old way is to use a technocratic ATS-system for uploading CVs filled with hard factor evidence through an often times complicated platform. The new way is to offer the candidate an easy-to-use and pleasant (or even fun) access point for applying, and even though it is still an electronic platform: it puts the human side of the candidate in the center of the process.

In a way, you can describe it as a digital mini-assessment where candidates create a description of their thinking and communication styles. As a result, you get an understanding of the preferences and habits that drive the way we think, take decisions and interact with others. And all candidates automatically receive the results of the screening summarized in a short and easy-to-understand personality profile.

Imagine how you feel as a candidate when you not only get the usual “Thank you for applying…” confirmation mail but a report indicating the strong and weak aspects of the fit between you and the job and allows you to have a realistic look at your preferred communication patterns. Quite a different message for a candidate, even if she/he doesn’t get the job in the end, isn’t it?

Employers can thus create a win-win situation with a double benefit: They receive candidate profiles that are more meaningful than just the CV and, at the same time, they create a positive image towards candidates by offering them a better value from the application.

Professional soft-skill screening – based on clear and thorough job profiles

If you want to benefit from such a win-win situation (after all, a successful hiring is nothing else but a win-win situation, isn’t it?), you have to start at the beginning: a clear and thorough job profile.

Take a look at a typical job description: A list of detailed and well-written tasks and responsibilities, but when it comes to personality- or behavior-related qualities the language becomes vague and general, pop psychology-like and the words become exchangeable (for example, think of the word “team player”!).

The challenge is to bring the job to life: What kind of human being would you like to see on this job? Somebody delivering thorough research results or somebody keeping a strategic look at things? What special skills do you want a new member to add to an existing team? These are examples of specific attributes which define a “team player”. And this is the language you need in a meaningful job profile.

If you think that writing such a job profile must be a complicated and time-consuming task, think again: softfactors has a job library full of templates, based on 26 competencies and more than 100 behaviors. Writing a job profile becomes fast and easy, and the result is the foundation of soft-skill screening.

Your choice: Be a CV broker or a recruiter with human touch!

Give it a try and check us out: We invite you to experience the softfactors recruiting suite from a candidate’s perspective. Get to know our field-tested instruments which offer a fast and reliable first check of hard factors and soft skills, leading to an impactful screening of candidates.

Click here to start the free demo.

We don’t know if wrestling was Pythagoras’ source of inspiration to develop his most famous formula: a2 + b2 = c2. Of him we think when we see the following video clip. Look at it with us, it takes less than two minutes.

Would you hire the professional nurse that you saw in this video clip? Do you think he is a good employee? And if yes, why?

The person does the job – not the CV or diploma

Volunteerism, except professional commitment, sports – from these actions we can derive crucial personality traits and skills, transferable characteristics and competencies. We believe it is always the person as a whole who does the work and makes the difference.

Softfactors matter.

PS: Soft skills like “focus” and “resilience” are measurable. And that’s what we do.

A surprising number of companies in Switzerland use Haufe / Umantis (14%), even more than Taleo(14%) or SuccessFactors (3%). SAP is listed in the study under “other or own brand”. Refline, a Swiss product from Muri AG (recently acquired by Abraxas computers) is with 4% ahead of SuccessFactors and Brass Ring. The solution stands out above all by the professional tender of vacancies and integration with job boards. Basically, we see this market very strong in motion.

Often we observed a huge gap between the regular career site and the process in the ATS. A more seamless integration would be desirable according to the panelists.

In general it can be said that despite the use of ATS (or because of) the quality neither increases nor decreases. Companies that employ an application tracking system scored higher in “recommending the job” than those who do not have an ATS in place. Most ATS support this feature and makes it so readily available. The contact details and personification are naturally higher and of more quality with companies that do not use an ATS.

Generally the application complexity increases with the use of ATS in same cases even drastically.

Basically, the test persons were willing to take a substantial effort in the application process to apply as long as they felt that something was given back in return from the hiring company. An application process is always mutual: not only the candidate is applying, but he or she also wants to know what the job involves and why he or she is the perfect fit.

Of course you can argue that a job application without ATS and e-mail means less work. In the analysis we considered this factor into account separately, as these two types of recruitment are poorly comparable. Depending on the situation, the test persons considered the application with an ATS with uploading a CV and a cover letter only marginally as more effort than sending this same per email. Except some of the more enterprise ATS who use endless and unnecessary questions in drop down menus who made the candidate experience painful and user unfriendly.

Softfactors conducted a comprehensive study of the current recruitment process and analyzed over 265 websites. The emphasis was placed on the study of the Candidate Experience and the simplicity of the application process. The results were as expected: old economy prevails.

We wanted to know it a little bit more precisely and conducted an extensive study. In the period from 9 to 22 February 2015, six fictitious candidates (three men and three women, 26 to 60 years old) applied to over 265 companies in Switzerland. At each company two different candidates applied to a job, often with unpleasant experiences, such as cumbersome logins and CV upload. Only by actually applying, a qualitative statement about the good and not so good factors of career pages could be made. The result is the “Career Pages survey 2015”. The study tested the 265 career pages after ten criteria on a score of 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). The ten criteria include: ease of access, job reccomendation, structure of job adds, personal contact, process description, look-and-feel, and application effort.

The study also looked at the the use of ATS (Application Tracking Systems) and how they affect the Candidate Experience.

You may download the extensive study in German for free.