3 minute read
Posted by Emily Hill on 31 October 2023
It’s said that there are nine categories of intelligence. This means that while some individuals might excel in the structured world of mathematics, others will master more physical tasks, and so on.
When it comes to recruiting people with certain forms of intelligence, one type of intelligence isn’t easy to identify from screening a CV – and that’s emotional intelligence.
People with high levels of emotional intelligence excel at interaction, understanding, and connection – and it’s a crucial skill for customer-facing roles dealing with particularly difficult situations – such as death and bereavement support.
In this article, we share how ThriveMap has been working with Lap of Love, a specialist in providing compassionate end-of-life care for pets, to develop a custom pre-hire assessment to help them to select the best-fit candidates for a job that requires exceptional levels of emotional intelligence.
Lap of Love relies on its Veterinary Care Coordinators to provide vital phone support for families seeking information about pet euthanasia services and pet bereavement support. It’s a remote role that entails shift work.
Recognizing that this job is not be suitable for everyone, and with the goal of improving retention, Lap of Love reached out to ThriveMap to support the implementation of a pre-hire assessment process to ensure that the most resilient and skilled candidates are selected.
When designing a pre-hire assessment, ThriveMap recommends defining what success looks like, analysing the realities of the role, an internal workshop, and designing an ideal candidate profile, before even designing the workflow or building the assessment. This approach ensures the qualities necessary for success in this role are identified and alignment among the key business stakeholders.
After undertaking this process, core competencies such as compassionate communication, emotional recognition and response, and maintaining composure in emotionally charged situations were identified as top priorities.
Additionally, as the role was home-based, a minimum internet connectivity threshold needed to be met in order to pass the recruitment process.
With the Ideal Candidate profile as a foundation, ThriveMap’s team proceeded to create a Realistic Job Assessment. The design aimed to identify candidates whose qualities aligned with the specific skill set required.
Once built, ThriveMap’s custom pre-hire assessment seamlessly integrated into Lap of Love’s existing workflow, utilizing an API that harmonized with Workable’s Applicant Tracking System.
The assessment guided candidates through a series of questions mirroring a typical ‘day-in-the-life’. It explored aspects such as shift patterns and presented sample audio files challenging candidates to recognize and respond to customer emotions.
Importantly, candidates had the autonomy to self-opt out at any stage of the recruitment process if the role did not resonate with their career aspirations.
Megan Weich, Training Manager at Lap of Love said:
“Lap of Love successfully processed 4,000 assessments through Workable, thanks to ThriveMap’s pre-hire assessment featuring a ‘self-opt out’ component. This crucial addition ensures that Lap of Love is now able to identify and hire candidates who are the perfect fit for their respective roles. The insightful data derived from the reports has significantly benefited Lap of Love’s recruiting, training, and leadership teams in their efforts to hire top-notch Veterinary Care Coordinators.”
ThriveMap’s tailored pre-hire assessments address the specific needs of an organization and assist in selecting individuals with the right qualities and characteristics.
For more information about ThriveMap’s pre-hire assessments, you can request a demonstration here.
Subscribe for insights, debunks and what amounts to a free, up-to-date recruitment toolkit.
ThriveMap creates customised assessments for high volume roles, which take candidates through an online “day in the life” experience of work in your company. Our assessments have been proven to reduce staff turnover, reduce time to hire, and improve quality of hire.
Not sure what type of assessment is right for your business? Read our guide.
As the new UK National Hiring Strategy highlights, poor hiring decisions come at a significant cost. The strategy estimates that poor hiring decisions cost the UK economy £14.4 billion each year. Unemployment drains a further £61 billion, while inefficient recruitment processes and unfilled vacancies add nearly £150 million more. But the challenge facing employers isn’t […]
Continue reading
Most hiring teams optimise for speed. Time to hire.Application conversion.Assessment completion rates.Offer acceptance. These metrics are easy to measure and easy to improve. They also tell us very little about whether hiring actually worked. The real test of hiring success happens months later, when new employees decide whether to stay. Across early careers hiring, this […]
Continue reading
What 200,000+ candidate journeys reveal about how hiring performance changes across sectors Why do candidates complete nearly every assessment in some industries — but never even start them in others? At first glance, the explanation seems obvious. Different sectors have different candidates, different expectations, or different hiring challenges. But analysis of more than 200,000 pre-hire […]
Continue reading