The digital ecosystem of Talent Technology is complex. Many companies talk a good game, but finding out what they actually do and how they do it takes work. This article cuts through the noise (and empty marketing promises) to provide insight into 8 of the best candidate selection tools used when hiring.

Why use candidate selection tools when hiring?

Today, the job market is more competitive than ever, making hiring the right talent difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. For companies with high employee turnover or application volumes, candidate selection tools are now necessary, not a luxury.

The benefits of having a smooth, automated, and consistent candidate selection process are obvious; here are just a few. 

1. Time is money. Candidate screening tools will save you time, which will, in turn, reduce your average cost per hire.
2. Hire a person, not a CV. Assessment tools allow you to judge beyond the standard information in a resume. Online assessments can digest cognitive ability, job suitability, personality, and cultural fit data.
3. Boost your employer brand. Personalised talent assessment tools can offer candidates guidance, support and information throughout the application process. The right assessment tool should increase the desirability of your roles and brand in the minds of suitable candidates. It should communicate your employee value proposition and can encourage unsuitable candidates to deselect themselves from the hiring process.

Put simply, candidate selection tools help you to recruit the best talent, more quickly, and for a lower cost.

9 best candidate selection tools for recruitment

1. ThriveMap (https://thrivemap.io/)

ThriveMap assessments are realistic digital assessments. 

Uniquely, our assessments take candidates through a digital “day in the life” experience of a specific job within an organisation. They consider how desired behaviours express themselves within your unique company culture and work environment.

This “real-life assessment” approach is more predictive than using abstract or generic assessments as they are customised to consider the specifics of your hiring requirements. This includes designing questions that incorporate the nuances of your culture and communicate the realities of your jobs to candidates in the process. We call these Realistic Job Assessments (or RJAs for short).

Candidates are scored and ranked directly in your ATS and interview reports provide automatically generated interview questions to enable a fairer more accurate hiring process.

ThriveMap’s assessments also get more predictive over time, through their Assessment Optimisation Engine which pattern matches assessment data with post-hire performance data. This means with ThriveMap your company is building a unique asset, a predictive model of success which enables your company to consistently select the right people.

Companies using ThriveMap include Safelite Autoglass, Hermes, Dolby, TELUS and Bulb Energy.

Pricing: Custom, transparent pricing. Request a demo.

2. Revelian (https://www.revelian.com/)

Revelian is a market leader in psychometric assessment development with a strong history of innovation, including award-winning game-based assessments for recruitment. With a broad range of pre-hire assessments, more than 500,000 individuals complete Revelian assessments annually, for roles with more than 2,000 employers globally.

Companies using Revelian range from SMB’s to Fortune 500 organizations and large government agencies.

Pricing: Custom. Contact them here.

3. Codility (https://www.codility.com/)

Hiring engineers is a fast-paced race that everyone has joined at once. Our evidence-based platform helps hiring teams predict the real-life skills of their candidates, at scale. This brings faster hiring, time savings, and gives engineers more time to solve problems that matter. 

Companies using Codility include Barclays, Amazon, Microsoft, American Express, Paypal and Slack.

Pricing: Custom. Request a demo.

4. Berke (https://www.berkeassessment.com/).

Berke is a pre-hire assessment platform that helps businesses make scalable, confident hiring decisions. They measure the traits, skills, and abilities that predict what people ‘will do’ and ‘can do’ on the job. They provide actionable, easy-to-understand people data that apply to any job in your organization.

See the screenshot below to see the many ways in which their data software allows you to view a full breakdown of a candidate’s personality traits, and their relative importance to the job.

Pricing: Custom. Request a demo.

5. Plum (https://www.plum.io/).

Plum uses ‘a sophisticated combination of ‘AI and human psychology’ to select the best candidates. The adaptability, innovation and communication skills of every candidate are measured and sorted into predictive talents. 

They argue that with AI, social and cultural factors are dismissed in favour of cold, hard data, which results in a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

The data provided by Plum helps hiring managers coordinate a talent hiring strategy without being overwhelmed by the volume of applicants.

Pricing: Custom. Request a trial

6. Toggl (https://toggl.com/hire/)

The Estonian tech start-up, Toggl is best known as a time tracking app that aids time management and organisation. Their next development, Toggl Hire, however, has entered the candidate selection tool market because of their own hiring experience. Toggl Hire is specialised to fill a small number of high-skilled posts that have lots of applicants. The use of skills tests reduced the number of interviews carried out by 72%. 

Toggl found that for hiring high-skilled, specialist jobs (such as web developers), CVs just didn’t represent a candidate’s ability. Their skills test is enjoyable for people with a genuine interest in the work. This widens the search for candidates to those that are just curious, rather than seeking employment.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $99 a month.

7. Arctic Shores (https://www.arcticshores.com/)

Arctic Shores uses a blend of AI, psychology and neuroscience to gather up to 12,000 data points on each candidate. They also use game technology to make their skills tests more entertaining and accessible to candidates, earning them an impressive 98% test completion rate. 

Arctic Shores worked with KPMG to diversify their talent pool; making use of skills tests to judge ability beyond the conventional academic indicators. Arctic Shores created a bespoke test, evaluating candidates on values, graduate role and numerical ability, ending up almost halving recruitment time and taking on a broader range of graduates.

Pricing: Custom. Request a demo.

8. Bryq (https://bryq.com/).

At Bryq the focus is on using blind candidate assessments to improve diversity and inclusion.

It identifies sixteen personality traits and four cognitive skills (numerical, problem solving, and attention to detail). Therefore, Bryq seems clear and more accessible in its operation than some recruiting tools which are heavier on the jargon.

Another cool feature of Bryq is that they put their science upfront with an easily accessible list of reference journals: the scientific underpinning of their software.

Pricing: From $99 a month. Request a free trial.

In summary

The best candidate selection tools are the ones that are likely to get adopted in your business and are proven to achieve your recruitment goals. Being clear on what you’re trying to achieve and why is the first step to improving your candidate selection process.

For more reading on this subject check out the following posts:

• Recruitment strategy: 7 essential things to include
• Candidate Testing: 10 Questions to Ask Before Buying
• Candidate assessments: Buy them or build them?
• 10 Key Benefits of Testing Candidates Before You Hire Them
• The buyers’ guide to pre-hire assessments
• Cognitive ability tests: 6 common tests used in hiring
• Multitasking Test: A Guide on How to Test it
• Online typing assessments: The 5 best to use for hiring

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There are lots of things that determine a successful recruitment strategy. Is it time to figure out where your weak spots are?

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