Multi-national investment bank online aptitude test
A multi-national investment bank recruiting large numbers of graduates into financial roles in the UK and Europe wanted to reduce the workload generated by screening candidates for graduate roles at the pre-selection stage for the first round by adding some additional selection methods to their existing online application form. Criterion Partnership worked with the client to develop an online aptitude test, which gathered extra information for making more effective pre-selection decisions.
The client faced a number of key issues:
Historically the sifting of candidate applications for graduate roles took a long time and was resource intensive. HR assistants in the graduate recruitment department had to manually assess each application form in order to identify those candidates who would be invited to the first round of the process for interview and cognitive testing.
The client had to run a large number of first round assessments, which was time consuming and costly, with candidates attending from all over Europe.
The pre-selection sifting was not very reliable as demonstrated by the unacceptably high number of unsuitable candidates making it through to the first round. Many candidates were unsuitable in terms of their interview performance and/or ability test scores.
The client therefore needed to improve the effectiveness of the pre-selection process to achieve these objectives:
- Expedite the pre-selection process through automisation where possible.
- Make the process online like their existing application form.
- Raise the standards and consistency of pre-selection decisions and as a result the calibre of candidates going through to the first round. Fewer first round assessments should be necessary as a consequence.
- Reduce the volume of candidates reaching the later stages in the selection process.
- Leave recruitment “customers” (i.e. successful and unsuccessful candidates, assessors and managers in the business) with a positive and favourable impression of the firm and the selection process.
We recommended that the online pre-selection process consist of three prongs, gathering biographical/competency based information, obtaining indications of cognitive ability and using a measure of personality. Gathering a range of selection information in this way would sharpen the effectiveness of the pre-selection decisions, be fairer to candidates whose strengths may otherwise be missed and be defensible in terms of best practice.
