We all know hiring is a daunting task both for employers and candidates. Early filtration of suitable candidates can eliminate much friction in the process. Online assessments have come to the rescue and are helping in this regard.
How about introducing another form of online assessments, where the candidates choose best amongst themselves!
How does it work?
Candidates sign up online and are automatically distributed into multiple groups. They are asked to come up with their top 3 questions (wearing interviewer hat) and answer the top 3 questions from each of the peers in the group. Candidates should also evaluate and pick top 3 best answers for the questions set by them & the top 3 best questions they faced from peers. The candidates are finally evaluated by the system with the criteria of picking top 3 best questions & answers. Selection of candidates for next rounds is done through leaderboard. This way the candidates will choose the best amongst themselves and also learn from their competition. It would be a win-win situation for all.
More details:
- Candidates apply for the job.
- When the candidate pool hits certain number, let’s say 10, Recruiter starts the crowd sourced assessment.
- Questionnaire setup:
1) System does the follow-up with the candidates to set 3 questions (wearing interviewer hat) each related to the job skills. Deadline for setting the questions should be couple of days. Candidates who miss the deadline despite the follow-ups shall be dropped/rejected.
2) System can give early heads-up, even before the assessment starts so that candidates get enough time to come up with their best questions.
3) The questions pooled from candidates are distributed to the rest. So in our example, 27 questions would be asked to each candidate.
4) There shall be a deadline of couple of days for candidates to answer these questions. - Evaluation:
1) Candidates should evaluate the peer answers to the questions set by them. They should pick the top 3 best answers to their questions.
2) Candidates should also mark the top 3 best questions faced by them from peers.
3) The rating engine in the system with weights for the criteria would evaluate the score and form the leaderboard of the candidates. - Screening:
Candidates who top the leaderboard shall move to the next phase of interviewing process. - Advantages:
1) Setting up questions is not trivial. Each candidate should invest good time to frame best questions and also answer questions from multiple peers.
2) Giving weightage to the best questions would make it a serious exercise.
3) All the participants can learn from their peer knowledge and identify their own strengths and knowledge gap.
4) Only serious candidates would put effort to complete and compete in this stage. Window shoppers would be automatically filtered. - Challenges:
1) In this era of LLMs, most of the questions can be answered by LLM models like ChatGPT. So the setting up of questions in this new era of smart models is a big challenge.
2) How do we handle malpractice? Candidates can take help from proxy and its hard to determine if the candidates have really answered or someone else on their behalf. One workaround could be to conduct this round in person. However in person interviewing has its own challenges and takes away the benefits of online recruiting. Setting time limits for the session and robust online proctoring might be required.
3) Ensure bias is elimiated through fraud and abuse. Candidates from similar backgrounds should be set in different groups.
Conclusion:
Recruiting has been a tricky area for many years. There are numerous start ups, processes that have emerged with continuous experimentation. However hiring the best talent with optimal usage of resources like time, money continues to be a challenge. Delegation of screening the best candidates to the candidates themselves can become a new trend where its a win-win situation for candidates, recruiters and also employers.