Recruit the right candidate with these 6 innovative techniques

How do you recruit the right candidate? Today's human resources managers are using innovative new recruitment techniques to woo candidates and find the rare pearl. 🌟

Good recruitment means not only choosing the right profile, but also ensuring the new recruit's long-term integration into the company.

In this article, we take a look back at recruitment processes from a more old-school management style, and share with you some innovative recruitment methods.

Combined with new recruitment tools, recruitment agencies and HR departments are recruiting talent by valuing innovation and teamwork. 👇

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Back to the basics of recruitment

Before diving into specific recruitment techniques, let's get back to basics. Understanding the basics allows us to approach the process in a more structured and efficient way.

What are recruitment strategies?

Recruitment strategies vary according to a company's objectives and needs:

• ✅ Internal recruitment: encourages internal mobility by promoting talent already on board.
  
  
• ✅ External recruitment: seeking new talent via advertisements, job fairs or agencies.
  
  
• ✅ Cooptation: encouraging internal referrals with bonuses.
  
  
• ✅ Direct sourcing: using databases and social networks to identify potential candidates.

What are the main recruitment methods?

Recruitment modes include various methods for attracting and selecting candidates:

• ✅ O nline advertising: posting vacancies on specialized sites and social networks, or even your career site.
  
  
• ✅ Recruitment agencies: working with specialist agencies to manage the process.
  
  
• ✅ Headhunting: use headhunters for rare or specialized profiles.
  
  
• ✅ Job fairs: participation in events to meet candidates in person.
  
  
• ✅ Internships and work-study programs: recruitment via internship or work-study programs to train and gradually integrate.

When well chosen and applied, these methods improve recruitment efficiency and the quality of the talent recruited.

What are recruitment techniques?

The 3 classic techniques

Let's take a look at the tests commonly used in job interviews. Some specialist recruitment consultants are in the habit of using them, whatever the position to be filled. Will you recognize yourself in this trend?

#1 The aptitude test

An aptitude test is a structured recruitment method. Its aim is to assess a candidate's ability to perform specific tasks requiring mastery of certain skills and qualifications.

• ✅ Comprehension: perceiving the meaning of words, both written and spoken.
  
  
• ✅ S peed of analysis: determine useful and relevant information.
  
  
• ✅ Verbal proposal of solutions: reason on the basis of data provided.
  
  
• ✅ Numerical proposal of solutions: reason on the basis of numerical concepts.
  
  
• ✅ Visual reasoning: visualize shapes and know how to associate concepts with visual elements.

These recruitment methods include psychotechnical and logic tests.

💡Sa ve time by using recruitment software to test your candidates.

⚒️ Jobaffinity is a recruitment platform that makes it easy to manage your applications. Thanks to its integration with specialized tools such as Goshaba, Central test and Assessfirst, have your candidates take the tests of your choice and let the software take care of centralizing all the results !

#2 The personality test

A personality test is used to evaluate :

• interpersonal skills,
• the affective and conative aspects of a candidate's personality.

☝️ To be considered reliable, this type of test must have been tested by an occupational psychologist in a professional context.

Professionals recognize that the candidate's subjectivity often distorts the results. This subjectivity may stem from :

• non-existent or inaccurate self-knowledge ;
• the desire to answer "yes" systematically, motivated by the fear of contradicting;
• answering neutrally, for example, by placing oneself in the middle of a response scale, motivated by the fear of expressing a clear-cut opinion;
• the need to please the interlocutor, motivated by the need to belong socially.

💡 To get around this subjectivity and ensure you make the best choice following tests, centralize all the information gathered on an application (CV, motivations, comments from your colleagues, etc.) in ATS software, such as Taleez, or on a collaborative platform.

⚒️ monday.com HR gives you an overview of your recruitment pipeline. This way, you have all the tools you need to get a 360° view of a profile, without having to stop at a gut feeling during a test.

#2 The graphology test

⚠️ Assessing a person's handwriting to make a psychological correlation with a job is by no means a scientifically proven recruitment method.

Certain handwriting styles may reveal certain psychological aspects, but can in no way tell you about a candidate's suitability for a job.

It's also a fact that the vast majority of today's working people use computer keyboards, and have long since abandoned handwriting. This obvious lack of practice will further distort the results of a graphological analysis...

👉So there's no point in asking a candidate to fill in a so-called information sheet, only to have them handwrite the CV they've provided!

The IQ test: prohibited by the CNIL!

The RGPD (European Data Protection Regulation) and the CNIL, its supervisory authority in France, prohibit any questions that are not related to the position. The recruiter has no right to do so!

The I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is therefore considered to be personal data unrelated to a position, in the same way as :

• political opinion ;
• religious opinion ;
• sexual orientation ;
• health data.

This applies to all written and oral questions. Even if the recruiter has the candidate sign an authorization, he or she is liable to sanctions: it's forbidden, period!

6 new recruitment techniques

New recruitment techniques are emerging that are proving more attractive to candidates, and enabling companies to project a more modern employer brand.

A human resources policy that doesn't focus on CVs and cover letters? Incredible, isn't it? 🤔

Let's take a look at how to garner applications by thinking outside the box with 6 innovative recruitment techniques.

#1 The jobboards, sites dedicated to employment

Pôle Emploi, Apec, Indeed... Who doesn't use job boards these days?

Candidates create accounts and set up alerts to receive job offers matching their criteria directly by email. They also identify companies and send them unsolicited applications.

Recruiters therefore need to adapt to these new recruitment methods and post their job offers on all the specialized sites to ensure the best possible visibility. It's also essential to take care with the title and description of the ad.

💡Save considerable time by optimizing the visibility of your offers.

⚒️ softgarden gives you access to over 300 international and local job boards to intelligently publish your job offers on the best platforms. You can also create a personalizedcareer page for your company, with the promise that it will be well-referenced on search engines.

⚒️ Recruitment software such as Flatchr (voted HR Solution 2018) or Recruitee (winner of the OnRec 2018 award for technical innovation) allows you to multicast and update your job ads on a multitude of professional sites.

⚒️ Softy offers its own integrated multicasting tool to send your offers to the main job boards on the market.

#2 LinkedIn and social networks

Social networks are consulted on a daily basis: mobile use is a major contributor to this.

Candidates follow companies and recruiters on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and share job offers, including in specialized groups on Facebook or LinkedIn, for example.

To facilitate your recruitments on LinkedIn, using the Recruiter application can prove to be an innovative sourcing method: you benefit from search tools to target precise profiles, internationally, and you can have a direct approach by contacting candidates on the network.

💡 LinkedIn's Recruiter application is interoperable with recruitment and application management software to update your data.

⚒️ Factorial Acquisition Talents is also a good solution, thanks to its free advanced search function that lets you easily source candidates who meet your requirements. What's more, the "candidate messaging" function enables hiring managers to send messages directly to their candidates, creating a two-way communication process. To take things a step further, with the paid version of the tool, it is possible to write a job advert directly via LinkedIn.

#3 The deferred video interview

The video interview approach involves sending an online questionnaire to the candidate in the form of a video. The candidate answers face-to-face and sends back the video response on a dedicated platform.

The candidate is not prepared for the questions, and has to answer them in a limited time.

Over and above the relevance of the answers given, which are already indicators, the aim of this approach is to observe the respondent's body language, behavior, voice, intonation, stress management and so on.

This technique is one of the new recruitment methods and offers several advantages:

• breaking out of the routine framework of individual interviews ;
• giving all candidates a fair chance;
• save time and travel costs for candidates;
• convey a modern, digital image of the company;
• respond quickly to candidates;
• save precious time compared to multiple physical appointments.

Here are a few popular deferred video applications:

⚒️ EasyRECrue, for deferred and live video interviews, schedule management, AI-assisted pre-selection and language testing.

⚒️ VisioTalent also offers deferred and live video interviews, to discover candidates' personalities.

⚒️ InterviewApp, for smaller recruitment volumes, charges only for what you use.

⚒️ Interconnected with these 3 applications, Beetween software innovates by systematically proposing a deferred video interview to candidates, with targeted questions to replace the traditional (and outdated) cover letter.

#4 The coded job offer or test

Innovative recruitment methods include the use of codes or rebuses.

👉 Decathlon, for example, has hidden a job offer in the source code of one of its pages, aimed at developers, knowing full well that they are curious and will often rummage through it. There are also advertisements or tests in the form of riddles or rebus. A good way to skim the list of candidates in a fun way, and create a buzz.

Here's a visual example: in 2015, an advertising agency tested the advertising culture of its candidates for a creative internship, via a rebus-emojis. The result? The e-mail address to send their portfolio to 😄 and some of the most viral communication ever!

💡So igner la marque employeur est très important pour attirer les talents, en toute cohérence avec la culture d'entreprise. You trigger emotions, and recruit people who are like you.

#5 Hackathon

A hackathon is originally a marathon in which a developer hacks the code or a computer program. Today, this type of game is adapted and used to attract and recruit other types of business profiles.

The hackathon is an innovative recruitment technique for recruiters and candidates alike:

• the recruiter puts the best potential candidates for a position in competition with each other by launching a major challenge;
• the successful candidate is offered the job, usually accompanied by a prestigious title (since he or she has met a great challenge!).

👉 Example of a hackathon organized by the French Navy in partnership with Thalès:

#6 The game

For example, a serious game is a subtle combination of a serious objective and a fun way of achieving it.

☝️ This type of game is widely used by marketing, sales and HR departments for training, motivational seminars and team building.

It's an innovative recruitment technique that's highly appealing to candidates: caught up in the heat of the playful action, they forget about stress, are much more natural, and even perform better!

The recruiter can observe the behavior and reactions of candidates in situations of reflection, questioning, failure, success and so on. These human experiences are also an opportunity to appreciate candidates' ability to unite their efforts to achieve the goal. The spirit of cohesion is best detected naturally.

Video example of a serious game:

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Candidates' preferred selection techniques

Many of these techniques can be used for external recruitment, but also to promote internal mobility. Some of your employees may be interested in other careers and have unsuspected technical skills. Games and challenges can help you detect your hidden talents.

To complete and conclude our article, let's take a look at a study carried out by AssessFirst, a company specializing in predictive recruitment:

• escape games appeal to 64% of respondents, who consider this technique to be innovative and reliable, although less than 2% have actually tried it out;
• the deferred video interview is deemed innovative by 59% of respondents, but only 39% consider it reliable, certainly because 63% admit to feeling uncomfortable with this technique;
• the personality questionnaire has been tested by 78% of respondents, 63% consider this technique innovative, 58% consider it reliable;
• the reasoning test was tested by 67% of respondents, 57% consider it reliable.

What's your recruitment tip? And have you found the answer to the Lost Boys riddle? We're still looking...