Criteria Corp Blog

Corporate culture and mental health initiatives are more than just buzzwords to attract millennial job seekers in a candidate’s market.   U.S. employers lose about $226 billion each year due to conditions like stress, anxiety, depression, and addiction.  Therefore, it’s no surprise that more companies are implementing wellness programs than ever before.  Not only are these initiatives financially worthwhile, but they are also crucial for cultivating a positive work environment.  While the focus of company wellness programs is usually physical health, mental wellbeing is just as critical to company success.

In today’s competitive hiring landscape, a good candidate experience is more important than ever. With the unemployment rate at a historic low, employers are facing a challenge when it comes to not just attracting top talent but also keeping them engaged and committed throughout the entire hiring process.

If your company is trying to win over top talent, you should consider starting before they even apply.  That’s where recruitment marketing comes in.  Recruitment marketing refers to the tactics used by a company to attract applicants.  It applies the same strategies as traditional marketing, but instead of selling products and services to consumer, companies attempt to sell themselves to potential job candidates.  Strategies used in recruitment marketing include physical and online advertisements as well as analytics and job market research.

Human resources departments are the backbone of any company: they oversee hiring and firing, they reward employees for good behavior and chastise them for infringements, they make decisions regarding benefits, regulations, and policies. Though outstanding HR managers can come from many different backgrounds and use various management strategies, there are a several characteristics that the best HR managers often have in common.

Any HR leader, hiring manager, or recruiter who is interested in using pre-employment tests knows how important is to tests that are validated. After all, the goal of using pre-employment tests is to drive better hiring decisions, which in turn lead to better performance outcomes across the entire organization. The validation process provides the backbone for a test’s ability to predict and drive these positive outcomes.

Too often, hiring managers prioritize stellar work experience or a prestigious college degree when deciding on which candidate will be the best fit for a particular role. However, an applicant’s soft skills – or personal attributes that help them to interact effectively with their peers – are often just as important, if not more so. When assessing candidates, keep in mind that aptitude and personality are just as influential in job performance as experience and education.

When evaluating candidates, these are some of the top soft skills you should look for:

Curious about pre-employment testing? 82% of companies are already using some form of pre-employment tests to evaluate their candidates in the hiring process.

In today’s challenging labor market, companies are struggling to find job candidates with the right experience or the relevant skills – according to a report from CareerBuilder, 45% of employers have jobs they can’t fill because they can’t find qualified candidates.

In an era in which dress codes are quickly going out of fashion, many companies are hesitant to jump on the no-dress-code bandwagon.  In 2017, only 10% of companies had no official dress policy.  However, 30% had business casual every day, 23% had one casual dress day per week, and 22% had casual dress everyday, indicating a shift toward less-formal workplace attire.  Though this transition started back in the 1980s, its momentum has yet to slow; in the last decade alone, there has been a 10% increase in companies that permit casual attire.

There are a lot of factors to consider when deciding which pre-employment testing provider is right for your hiring goals. 82% of companies use some form of assessments in the hiring process. Use this checklist to better understand what your needs are and how different testing options can provide solutions: