Hiring Remote Workers with the Core Values Index Psychometric Assessment

Using the Core Values Index psychometric assessment to screen and hire remote workers makes more sense than ever. Social distancing and quarantine protocols make in-person interviews impractical. With the recent increase in remote working, it is entirely possible to hire and employ a worker you never meet in person.

Although remote work has been going on for years, its prevalence due to the COVID-19 pandemic has made it commonplace. Many jobs that were formerly done in the office have been adapted so they can be performed from a worker's home. Although it is too soon to tell, many in the human resources field predict that remote work will become the norm for many occupations and organizations even after the pandemic is brought under control.

Although the recruiting process still remains largely the same, the screening phase of the hiring process faces new challenges.

When hiring someone who will work remotely, does it make sense to hold a face-to-face interview?

Regardless of the differences between in-house and remote work, there are some fundamentals of employment screening and hiring that remain the same.

Hiring Fundamentals

A match must be made between employer and candidate that benefits both parties. The hiring organization needs a worker that will meet or exceed performance expectations. The worker needs a job that takes advantage of their education and experience, meets their financial and benefits goals, and makes them feel empowered, engaged, and appreciated.

→ See: The Principle of Fueling Performance

This alignment between employer and candidate expectations and capabilities requires the discovery and evaluation of key information.

• Does the candidate have the experience and education required to perform the duties of the role?
• Does the employer provide pay and benefits that compete in a compelling way to the candidate?
• Can everyone get along, contributing positively and organically to the company culture?
• Is the candidate emotionally and psychologically hardwired to perform well in the position?

All of these data points, as we stated, require both discovery and evaluation to provide the information needed for a mutually agreed upon match to be made.

The Pandemic Operational Model

In the current pandemic operational model, where social distancing, face masks and hand washing is the rule, how does this employer-candidate discovery and evaluation take place?

Since many workers will be conducting their daily operations remotely, much of the screening and hiring process must also be conducted remotely. The traditional method entailed posting a job ad, receiving and filtering resumes, reviewing education and experience of those who made it through the first screening round, conducting in-person interviews, and making an offer to the top candidate.

Although there are many forms of unconscious bias at play in the hiring lifecycle, those that can negatively impact the decision maker's judgment in this model have an outsized role.

→ See: Challenging Cognitive Biases in Hiring

Many forms of cognitive bias in hiring are enabled to occur through in-person interviews. It is also a current trend for the hiring team to bias their hiring decisions toward building and reinforcing a predefined culture within their organization. Culture is important but it should be built organically by hiring people who are psychometrically aligned to their role while flavoring that process with the organization's mission and vision.

[One of the negative risks of hiring to fit a culture is homogeneity in your team. Read our blog for articles about this challenge.]

Psychometric Data in Hiring

If you take away the in-person component of the hiring process, how does the organization determine candidate fit with an adequate degree of certainty?

In our view and based on our experience, personal interaction with the candidate should be held off until the last phase of the hiring process. Prior to that, the Core Values Index psychometric assessment should be leveraged to analyze the characteristics of the role using a Top Performer Profile™, then candidate CVI scores are compared against that analysis to find highly recommended matches.

This is a highly efficient and accurate screening process that reduces a long list of candidates down to a very manageable few, all of whom have been determined to be hardwired to excel in the role. A review of their resumes will quickly establish a short list of those who have the required education and experience. The top one to three candidates can be interviewed via Zoom or other remote technology with confidence that any of them in that final group would perform equally well.

Over many years of experience and thousands of placements, we have found that candidates hired with a 'high recommend' match to the role's TPP score frequently outperform their unmatched peers by 200% or more. Turnover is drastically reduced, often by 50% or greater.

This combination of analyzing the role with a Top Performer Profile and screening candidates based on their CVI score yields:

• Higher operational efficiency
• Increased profit
• Employee engagement

Workers psychometrically aligned to their role are:

• Happier
• More productive
• Fulfilled

At no point during this process is an in-person interview required. In fact, if a position is filled by someone who works remotely on a permanent or semi-permanent basis, the idea of having to meet them in person to determine cultural fit or other 'soft' metrics is essentially moot — it becomes a waste of time and resources with no tangible benefit.

Conclusion

If the candidate is highly matched between their CVI and the role's TPP score, and they have the minimum education and experience, you can hire with confidence without ever having to meet them in person.