PMaps Test

2 Best Customer Service Skill Tests To Screen Your Candidates

·         Post author:Pratisrutee Mishra

·         Post published:02/08/2022

·         Post category:HR Trends & Practices

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Do you feel the HRs’ hiring block too? It’s time to embrace the advanced customer service skill tests! A tiringly-long hiring process is a cue enough to change the usual method of hiring. And how you engage with your existing and future employees. 

Today’s consumer market demands progressive customer service. It has become important to hire candidates who are fit for the role as technology advances. In this situation, it is better to put effort into SMART WORK, rather than giving into regular, hard work.

This article aims to provide you with clarity on how to improve customer service levels. How to utilize digital resources and adopt smart hiring… Embracing the ever-changing world around you will enable you to stay up-to-date.

Let’s Suppose…

There are two companies, presumably A and B.

Company A employs competent customer service executives using visual-based psychometric assessments. It facilitates the assessment of specific role-based characteristics and aptitudes for the job. Company B, however, sticks adamantly to lengthy and time-taking traditional hiring techniques. They strictly believe in the one-to-one interview process.

As a result, after hiring the candidates, Company B was least aware of the strengths and weaknesses of its employees. And hence, they administered ‘not so effective’ training sessions. These barely showed any effect on their skill set or altered their mind frame.

On the other hand, company A received a detailed report from the evaluative customer service assessment. They could successfully arrange relevant training courses and toolkits. These effectively nurtured the new hires to perform better in the company.

For Company A, one wise hiring decision led to the development of a good CSE team. In contrast, Company B’s customer support team performed poorly.

The new team of CSE  hired in ‘Company A’ helped them decrease the call handling time. And also contributed in increasing C-SAT Scores through efficient engagement. While the job performance of Company B went down in contrast.

Who does not want to keep their customers happy? Therefore, Company A in this scenario has the most desirable and ideal organizational setting for a progressive HR manager. It’s evident that company A has a better customer and producer relationship than company B. 

But where can you access these modern hiring tools?

In case you were wondering, PMaps is the right destination for you. A diligent group of organizational psychologists develop the pre-employment assessment at PMaps. Using these online assessments makes customer service hiring easy, accurate, detailed, and time-saving.

PMaps Solutions: CSA And eVA Pre-Employment Test

These excellent visual-based recruiting tools assess the right skills in a combination that can benefit you! It evaluates the job-specific aptitude and voice accent proficiency of your candidate with ease. You can find the best candidate by using customer service cognitive ability tests and voice and accent tests. 

The CSA evaluates 5 important traits of the aspiring customer service agents such as empathy, presence of mind, emotional control, conscientiousness, and achievement orientation. And eVA assesses the speech delivery and fluency of your applicants with specific grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, and pronunciation. Let’s dive deeper into their functions and importance.

CSA-Customer Service Skill Tests Your Fittest Candidate

Empathy-

A little warmth and empathy can make the customers comfortable expressing their struggles. A study in 2020 shows a positive correlation between employee empathy and customer satisfaction. It plays a vital role in the approach while dealing with customer complaints.

Hiring an empathetic candidate will help you improve your customers’ experiences.  The customer-centric behavior will also increase customers’ engagement, leading to better bonding. 

According to a study in 2021, customer bonding plays an important role in retaining trusted customers. Therefore, good customer service skill tests measure the applicants’ ability to handle customers’ moods.

Presence Of Mind-

The focus on providing quick, easy, and unique solutions determines the efficiency of a CSE team. Fast-paced customer service often delivers the message of a prompt CSE team. The enthusiasm to face clients makes the role of CSE more genuine and effective. In fact, 76% of customers expect to engage immediately with a CSE as soon as they reach out.

Fast response from a customer care agent imprints an impression of well-organized professional space. https://pmapstest.com/customer-service-assessments/89% of customers tend to associate further when they are attended immediately on their initial inquiry. Therefore, fast thinking and decision-making are significant factors in the PMaps customer service skill tests.

Emotional Control-

The ability to manage and regulate oneself individually and socially helps the agents ‘stand out’ while facing clients. Adjusting well with the customers’ moods and intentions is a must-have trait for all CSE aspirants.

However, it is not easy to deal with one’s personal emotions and operate unaffectedly in a professional setting. It takes courage to say, “I can understand how disturbing it can be. Let me resolve it for you.”

And “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused. We will work to fix the issue as soon as possible.” when the other side is extremely angry,  beyond usual tolerable levels. High emotional control will help the agents recover from these encounters easily.

Achievement Orientation-

An enthusiastic agent can enhance the standards of customer service in the organization. If each member of the CSE team contributes, it improves overall performance, approach and dealing with your clients. An ideal customer service team must be achievement-oriented. They must be internally motivated, driven towards higher goals, futuristic and visionary.

Setting goals and coping with global customer support standards are the primary concerns of support agents. It is not easy to identify ideal candidates through in-person job interviews. Therefore, smart psychometric assessments filter the best hiring options for you. The customer service skill tests eliminates biases through scientific analysis of their personality and potential.

Conscientiousness-

Conscientiousness helps customer support agents execute their dealings professionally and ethically. According to research conducted at Rice University, conscientious customer agents deliver better performances. The strategy of dealing with the customers in a detailed and pre-planned manner always brings  targeted results.

Through PMaps, you can compare your applicants and filter out your ideal ones with the help of our advanced customer service aptitude test. 

A good customer experience is key to successful customer retention and network expansion. Hire your dedicated customer service agents wisely.

Voice and Accent Assessment – Customer Service Skill Tests For Language Proficiency!

Grammar-

It is very important to get your candidates checked for language proficiency. Especially grammar, as this foundation of communication is  based on the accurate forming of sentences. You definitely do not wish to have a customer care agent who picks up the call and says,

“Hello, Sir. How you are? How I can help?”

Not only will it be difficult for your customers, but it will also create a bad brand impression. https://pmapstest.com/management-aptitude-test-visual-based-psychometric-test-pmaps/In customer service, being polite only works well when you can deliver structured statements.

Vocabulary-

Are your customer service agents aware of local terms and terminologies?

This helps the agents develop bonds with their clients. This can become a major problem when you are hiring Gen-Z candidates. Why? Because today’s generation is more inclined toward the use of short forms and abbreviations.

However, customers are either Millennials or even older. To keep the conversation going, both sides need to be aware of this tendency. It’s not the customers’ responsibility to do this.

‘Sorry’ and ‘Thank You’ are only a couple of examples.

Again, there are particular phrases mostly used by customer service agents to handle angry customers. The agents must also be fluent in business languages in order to be able to provide the best customer support.

Comprehension-

What matters the most for a team of customer service agents?

It is to understand the customers of the company. Customer service personnel need to have an in-depth understanding of the products. Also about the organization’s mottos and ethics in order to be able to interpret and solve customers’ problems. An agent cannot deliver satisfactory targets with all awareness if they fail to understand the speech used by the client.

The candidates must have the Triple-A-Listening Skills to be able to perfectly comprehend:

·         Attitude

·         Attention

·         Adjustment

These skills ensure effective communication with clients. Engaging in client-agent conversations becomes hard in the case of telephonic and virtual support. The availability of wide exposure and modern reach can be a bonus. But, only if CSE hires are open to advancement and comfortable with the digital interface. 

Fluency-

“We are…mm…we will…try to…umm…solve your…problem” (Imagine that your customer service agents say this).

Chances are, your customers are not patient enough to deal with abrupt pauses and lengthy discussions. A valuable long conversation on the concerned topic can give your agents a bonus point for helpfulness. But, a conversation that is uselessly dragging on may cost you the loss of a valued client.

Most customers expect instant solutions to their problems. Therefore, 67% of customer loss is avoidable only through solving concerns promptly, reports Ameyo Stats.

This is because slow-witted customer agents often engender frustration in their clients. The combination of humor, general intelligence, and politeness will help you establish a strong bond with your customers.

Pronunciation-

Lastly, what impacts a conversation with a customer is pronunciation. Depending on the birth region of an individual and the surrounding, there can be differences in pronouncing a syllable. This happens because certain muscles are not actively performing due to a lack of habit.

Another issue can be confusion between two similar-sounding syllables. The pronunciation of a good customer service agent must be clear and understandable. Customers’ pronunciations, however, are not controllable nor predictable.

So, why not use common sense in the latter case?

Final Words

PMaps CSA and eVA hiring tools help you secure all the ideal skills for customer service so that you can take a sigh of relief and relax. The PMaps reports will help you organize the required training and resources. Also, you can shortlist the frontline candidates that will lead the team of new hires. 

A detailed, upfront evaluation of candidates protects you from certain customer service gaffes. After all, everything comes down to the quality of the workforce employed by your company. Hire your candidates wisely through the pre-hiring test and reach your customers wholeheartedly!

Tell us about your problems on a short 30 minutes call and let us introduce our  best customer service skill tests to you. Visit our client-friendly website to learn more about our diversified HR Tech services.

Varied Employees and Various Motivators

Be it Hertzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory or Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, numerous theories suggest that success & happiness both are governed by whether your individual motivators are being met or not, and that’s not always all about money.

We all have our distinct blend of motivators and for leaders to better engage the team to prosper in their respective roles. As the time goes by the type of people who work for us or around us keeps changing. From the employee who is as virtuous as a saint to the one whose mind is a sinner’s sanctum, we come across numerous types of employees in every workplace. A few of the many varieties of employees along with their different motivators are discussed under:

The Groundbreaker

He/She is always striving for creativity, innovation and challenging environments. The groundbreakers are usually really more motivated than they actually appear. They want you to engage them into projects that need some originality or problem solving. What really matters for them is workplace flexibility. Since they get bored and feel demotivated quite easily, you need to shake up the routine, hold some brainstorming sessions; do anything that will trigger their brain neurons and this will give them a boost. Also, they want people (especially an employer) who are/is clearly devoted to something more than just profits.

The Free Spirit/Bird

They want to make their own decision, control their time and environment. They want their own space to get things done. Rules and regulations, micro-management are a big turnoff for them as they hate authority and bureaucracy. They are often hard to handle and understand, but they always play a crucial role in organizations. Give them any job and their space (both literal and figurative) and boom! consider it done (just forget about everything and everybody else). They are the no-nonsense, ambitious entities who like to work autonomously in their own workspace. Help them clarify their vision for their work and life, be clear & specific while sharing the organization’s aims and objectives but also define clear boundaries allowing them the freedom they need.

The Perfectionist

They are the ones who will always have a plan in place for everything they do. They exactly know what they want to do and wish to achieve. Employers love such employees as they can absorb complicated, abstract ideas and concepts, work on them and then come out with a seamless, extensive plan for achieving optimum results. They like to stretch it out at times to get a job done, provided they are given their personal space. Give them a profile that emulates power, responsibility and gives them control over resources and be rest assured about the work that you are planning to get done.

The Hustler

He/She is the one who can be taken at his/her word. They are often the ones with maximum leaves left in their kitty as they rarely take sick days and put their life into their work and hence they often rise to the level of “boss’s right-hand”. They don’t have to be the most talented to earn this title but it’s their great level of self-confidence and commitment towards their work which does the trick. They are highly versatile, self-motivated and sensitive. Organizations that manage to retain such hustlers usually go a long way. They would be happy to stick to your organization for rest of their life, provided you value their commitment and offer them the right opportunities to grow.

The Pundit

They seek proficiency, expertise and knowledge. They want a job which requires specialized skill set and knowledge. Their key motivators are training or coaching programs, especially when such an initiative is linked to a promotion. They do enjoy it when it is giving them a chance to specialize in the areas of their own interest. Also, it would be a dream come true for them if such personal development leads to formal appreciation and/or recognition. Hence motivate them by giving them ambitious targets and a chance to act as a mentor to others, so as to further boost their expertise.

The Socialist

They need belongingness, a sense of fulfilling relationships in the organization. They are people-oriented beings who love strong team-spirit, liveliness and social hustle bustle around them. They get highly motivated when they get opportunities for helping others. Hence forget about the heavy paychecks, just give them an excellent work-environment, develop a anthropo-centric culture, consult them, get them involved in daily social events and your job is done. They always prefer a personalized approach hence a regular “How are you doing? What’s your view on this?” will make their day.

The Seeker

He/She is trying to find a purpose and meaning in everything he/she does. The Seeker always wants his/her work to make a considerable difference in the lives of his/her circle. They constantly look for purposeful, significant, care-oriented roles where they can see the bigger picture and are highly motivated when they receive regular praises and feedback on how they are making a difference to their organization. Since they strive for a greater good, a simple paycheck would not cut it, you need to show him/her that the efforts and the amount of time he/she is putting at your organization serves a greater good.

The Crabby

They believe that they are not getting paid what they are worth and think that whatever benefits your organization is offering to them are awful. Such crabs are a real pain for any organization, especially when it comes to motivating them. Since they are a firm believer of “nothing can beat a hefty paycheck” policy, so you can’t do much to motivate them (actually you can’t afford to keep them motivated). But trying to replace them could prove even more costly and if you are not cautious they can drag your other employees down with them.

The Materialist

Material satisfaction is the whole and sole aim of their living. They want above-average living and hence are attracted to profession with above average pay scale and clear routes to promotion. They are the one with very clear career plan and path. They have the ability to adapt and are able to access the future accurately. If you want to get your work done from them, you need to link them to some kind of rewards (especially monetary ones) and set for them clear goals to engage their competitive spirit.

The Hotshot

He/She seeks honor, appreciation and self-esteem. They are the star employees who know the ins and outs of every job they have been given till date and hence their employers know that they have the capability and potential to do any assigned job seamlessly. These highly ambitious creatures constantly seek an opportunity to shine, so an organization must feed their hunger to be recognized by engaging them in important projects, challenging them with complex problems and regularly reviewing their achievements and targets. They will value your positive feedback and they love good publicity (And who doesn’t?). They get motivated by awards (not rewards) and status, so whenever they achieve their ambitious targets confer them with visible perquisites which link to their position.

It is very difficult to spot all the traits in your team members and identify the different motivating factors. Gradually but, the employers and /or the HR heads have to analyze and need to identify the type of employees they have in their team. With the help of such insights, the management can really predict what really boosts their morale or what they need to fix to keep up their Fire.

– Chetan

3 Best Lie Detectors: Catch Job Interview Lying!

Truth Behind Mass Hiring: Major Foul-Up!

The human tendency to portray oneself as an extraordinaire sometimes can yield disastrous consequences. The Recruiters often get influenced by the applicant lying in responses to get done with the job interview post-haste.

Imagine hiring a fake good-doer as your frontline member. It is noxious enough to make you repent as an HR Manager. This shows how haphazard mass hiring can be.

Did you know? 66% of HR Managers are willing to overlook the lies that jobseekers present!

This mostly happens in mass hiring, because;

· In-person interviews are full of bias

· Recruiters are hurried to hire

· Liars are well-prepared, smooth, and undetectable

Nonetheless, it’s better late than never. At last, the modern HR managers have implemented HR tech services to find, hire, and train new employees, says a news headline on ‘The Federal’. The ‘little lie’ that people put in to emboss a good impression, can now cost them a loss of a good job opportunity. Why?

Because in the digital world, smart recruiters have switched to online psychometric assessments. These tools use lie scales to detect not only truthfulness but also the genuineness of the applicants.

This article will help you pinpoint the most probable segments where candidates lie. And also, help you understand the role of lie scales in hiring assessments. So that, you can prevent the consequences of haphazard mass hiring falling upon your organization.

Truth Default Theory: Beware Of Deceptive Candidates

According to Truth-Default Theory, humans often believe the second person is conveying the truth. And in an industrial scenario, every recruiter in a job interview tends to trust the responses of the candidates.

For instance, the first time you meet someone, you tend to believe the personality they portray to be the original personality they bear. So, when a candidate makes a positive statement or compliment interviewers, they believe it to be true.

This leads to a favoring tendency of the interviewer towards the candidates. Therefore, it is even more necessary to switch to online hiring assessments that are employed with lie detection scales.

Types of Lie Scale Used In Hiring Assessments

The competition in the job market pushes the candidates to exceptionalize their skills during mass hiring process. It makes them over-commit and forge their experience and backgrounds. Also, they frequently fake a socially desirable personality all-inclusive.

Now take a look at a survey report from Checkster, 78% of applicants lie to pass the hiring process. If these 78% of candidates lie in a job interview, and managers ignore these direct cues, then how much do you think the hiring quality would be impacted? Extremely much!

It is clear that, the eye-catchy and braggy resume can be pleasing and understandable to some extent. And a little overestimation of self is acceptable in interviews. But, it goes over the board when candidates fake past working experiences, professional or personal traits that they inhibit, and it affects their performance later.

Here are the 3 best lie detectors used in PMaps psychometric hiring assessments to detect true personality traits of the candidates. It gives you the complete privilege to hire authentic and unique applicants as per organizational preference.

Acquiescence Scale-

This scale identifies the candidates that respond in extremes. The report obtained turns out to have a skewed graph to either the negative or positive side of the traits. You must have experienced the strong urge to portray yourself as incompetent in a job interview that your parents forced you into. And in contrast, a strong urge to portray yourself as a perfectionist when you are attending the hiring assessment of your dream company.

If it can happen to you, it can happen to anyone. Though candidates cannot prevent themselves from lying, the lie scale can help you avoid hiring troublesome employees. The structure of this test considers exceptions (certain extreme answers may pass through). And the extreme responses are often the result of the pre-assumption of what the interviewer expects to read.

But, the acquiescence bias occurs when people encounter bipolar statements (Bipolar statement refers to two contrasting outcomes such as, yes or no). This refers to the tendency of answering positively. To give you clarity on the scale, here is an elucidated example of the scale.

Suppose “Are you influenced by a professional goal?” asks one question, many would tend to answer ‘strongly agree’ to it. However, if the same asks as “Do you prioritize professional targets over personal goals?”, the reply favors a well-thought-out response, despite the fact that both statements mean the same thing.

Another way to tackle the tendency of yes-sayers according to Yphtach Lelkes and Rebecca Weiss, you can implement yes and no questions into the questionnaire. In this form, the scale will identify the propensity of the candidate to answer ‘yes’ to an item.

Features of acquiescence scale:-

· Identifies whimsical responses

· It consists of exceptional items with extreme ‘yes or no’ responses

· Reports genuine responders

· Prevents self-boasting bias on the candidate’s side

· Combats the tendency of respondents to ‘go with the crowd’

Infrequency Scale-

This scale has a simple structure with extreme elements. It measures how “NEUTRAL” the responses of a candidate are. It means how obliviously they have responded to the questionnaire. The reason can be anything.

Sometimes, the candidates might need to present themselves ideally and unrealistically to make a distinct impression. Or it can be due to the length of the questionnaire, that many candidates tend to lose interest halfway through. This can also be a cause of infrequent or typical responses, says Journal Of Business And Psychology (2022).

Therefore, the role of this scale is quite significant. Let’s suppose an element of the questionnaire happens to be “Are you economically ambitious?”. We are all aware that the world now is much more money-oriented than it was in the past, as capital provides us with social standing. Now, if the candidate chooses ‘neutral’ to this item, they might as well be lying about their actual motive.

The scale, however, considers the chances of a candidate picking ‘neutral’ in a literal sense. It might be true to some extent that he/she had been truly satisfied enough with whatever they earn. The scales show the percentage of conscientious responses of the examinees. This further contributes to chunking out genuine candidates through an online report.

Features of infrequency scale:-

· It increases the validity of the assessment

· Detects exaggerated personality components

· Filters conscientious responders

· Fairly evaluates all the candidates

· It is easy to implement

Impression Management:-

The most complex tendency of human beings is to act as per the expectation of the second person. According to a paper published by Duke University, Durham, NC, USA, impression management involves self-promotive, ingratiation, exemplification, intimidation, and supplication tactics as core traits. This is where the test givers tend to exaggerate their actual nature and motive. If not for the scale, you would have fallen victim to the smooth-talkers during the job interviews.

To help you understand the role of this scale better, here is an example. Suppose, an item asks, “Have you been through the company’s website?”, “Yes” will be a natural response for any attendee. This is because it goes unsaid that a company expects the applicants to have a brief idea of their organization.

Nevertheless, the scale considers genuine responses and acknowledges the true achievements of the applicants up to a certain level. Overachievers can be a good hire given the fact they are genuine. At the same time, underachievers with potential can prove to be good recruitment if they are genuine enough.

Features of impression management:-

· Sorts candidates who are truthful

· Tackles impression management tactics of candidates

· Identifies liars and reports them as ‘not genuine’

· Picks out intentional frauds

· It is valid and reliable

Final Words

All candidates prepare a bit before getting into a job interview. Even if one is not interested in an interview, the bare minimum they aim for is completing the job interview as soon as possible. In the process, knowingly or unknowingly people turn in careless responses, implement impression management, and tend to respond acquiescently and infrequently.

To avoid committing a hiring blunder, ensure these lie detection scales are running well on your hiring assessments. PMaps hiring assessments are pre-deployed to filter out the genuine candidates for this matter. Experience the ease of avoiding hiring biases through online assessments.

How to Avoid 12 Irrational Biases In Recruitment?

It Takes 7.6 Seconds To Make A Bad Hiring Decision!

What are your criteria to select an applicant for a job interview? A good CV, a charming personality, significant experience, quick wit or intellect, maybe?

But, are you truly screening your candidates on these criteria? Or are you letting the hiring biases lead your decisions?

An HR manager takes barely 7.6 seconds to ‘SELECT’ or ‘DISCARD’ a candidate. Screening their Resume hastily and relying on the first impression made by the applicant. This can occur due to many factors. Such as limited time, an excessive number of applicants, the first impression bias, or other responsibilities.

Recruiters notice a lot beyond the professional view when it comes to job interviews, be it virtual or in-person. Many other traits displayed by the candidates lead to various premature judgments, which are called ‘RECRUITER OPINIONS’. Now, to verify their assumptions, recruiters deliberately form questions with a set of expected answers and possible lies.

Result?

You might put the ideal candidate in the ‘NO’ list just because your gut didn’t send you the right vibe. If you go through the biographies of great personalities, they have always experienced a fair amount of rejection before achieving brilliance.

As a recruiter, you must aim to hire a smarter future for your company! The genius in your candidate might not show up at the first encounter. To screen for abilities and best talents, it is necessary to give up on biased human judgment while hiring.

What Is Mindful Hiring?

Benjamin Zander, a famous music conductor, while conducting, stands silent, and gestures to his musicians on stage in a concert. This is the best example of mindful hiring skill, where each musician understands and bonds beyond words with the conductor. The melodious performance presented, is the collective harmony of Benjamin’s efforts in selecting, training, and coordinating his team of musicians. However, the skill of assembling a productive team does not come naturally to all. Hiring, as a talent, is underrated. Nobody teaches HR managers how to select candidates, or how to assess them deeply without any bias. Then again, the definition of a good hire can change across industries.

To keep in mind your organizational motives and hiring without prejudice and various other biases is referred to as mindful hiring. In other words, mindful hiring simply refers to objectively assessing candidates.

But then, do the HR managers truly screen objectively?

A study by Harvard Business Review states that only 40% of employers use an IQ test, Skill test, and Attitude test.

Nathan Kuncel and his colleagues found that when recruiters use well-defined hiring criteria and objective tests, they can still face certain human biases. These biases can lead to the selection of poor candidates. In this article, you will read about the human biases that affect hiring decisions and the alternative solutions to adopt.

Types Of Hiring Biases In Interviews

To rectify bad hiring decisions, you need to first acknowledge the types of biases in hiring. These human biases can come in many forms. For example, pressure from authority, lengthy interviews and even minimal irritation caused due to bad weather or any other personal issues. You cannot prevent all these biases while making a decision.

Most prominently, candidates experience gender bias and age bias. Many other external factors like background, caste, religion, skin color, attire, and so on affect the filtering of good quality candidates. Some human biases might be related to the interviewer, whereas some others could be ploys set by the interviewees.

Intriguingly, these biases can be conscious or unconscious.

The conscious biases are mostly preventable with a logical approach and careful thinking. But, the unconscious biases can often slip past your attention, no matter how careful your approach is.

Certain conscious biases can look and sound like, “Oh, what a coincidence. We share the same Alma Mater!” or “God, when will the list get over?”. While some unconscious biases might come as thoughts that sound like “Huh, what’s so different? All the candidates say so!” or “What were they thinking when they thought of appearing in that get up”.

Conscious Bias: Are You Deliberately Overlooking Flaws?

In layman’s terms, conscious biases are factors that prevent you from properly assessing the subject based on evidence and reasoning. In the context of hiring, HR managers or recruiters might deliberately overlook flaws in the Resume and behavioral presentation under pressure. Furthermore, unimportant traits like caste, gender, marital status, and so on, can also be factors affecting judgments.

Long gone is the stereotype that academic prodigies make the best employees. To make sure you are hiring genuine candidates, you must avail certain objective tools. This is where the role and utility of intelligent HR tech for organizational decision-makers are important.

Which side are you on?

Lengthy, time-consuming, faulty, traditional hiring OR smart PMaps hiring assessments?

If you don’t switch to modern hiring tools in the 21st century, you’ll experience some common conscious biases, including:

Similarity Attraction Bias/Affinity Bias

Confusing Job Role

Fluctuating Requirements

Wishful Thinking

Overconfidence Bias

Impatience

Unconscious Bias: Are You Hiding Your Thoughts From Yourself?

There is a high chance of you not being aware that a candidate’s dressing style is irritating you. These often occur without any rational thoughts or even consciousness, and therefore these are mostly impossible to prevent. Proceeding with the interview while you have already formed a judgment will certainly disturb your hiring objective.

Here is an underrated piece of information – The candidates get invited to one job interview after applying for 21-80 job postings on an average. Why? Because even the most competent candidate can fall victim to a recruiter’s first impression bias right from their Resume!

Besides the first impression bias, there are some other cognitive biases adversely affecting the quality of hire:

Generalization Effect

Intuition Dependency

Confirmation Bias

Conformity Bias

Halo Effect & Horn Effects

Recency Bias & Primacy Bias

You See What “They” Want To Show: Your Biases Are Favoring Candidates!

Biases can be an error in perception. Your candidates know you would give in to these biases. They prepare thoroughly to present a good impression at the first glance. The tendency to act differently with the knowledge of being watched is termed as ‘DISPLAY RULES’.

According to Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen, when individuals are not aware of being watched, they act almost the same but, when they are under observation, their behavior significantly changes.

Applicants become conscious of how interviewers are viewing them. In their enthusiasm to clear the HR rounds, job seekers tend to put up a facade of competence. There are certain particular behavioral dispositions they adopt to be perceived as fit for the job. Below are some tactics your candidates might be using on you!.

A) Interview Body Language

As you type ‘Interview body language’ in the Google bar, you would be able to see a number of recommendations. These recommendations include tips, dos and don’ts, position, eye contact, and so on. All the candidates usually go through all these pre-interview preparations to present themselves formally in the best way possible. Next time you see a sophisticated interviewee, you had better be aware of their tactics!

B) Way Of Speaking

The tone, pitch, fluency, pronunciation, and vocabulary of a candidate directly affect the first impression judgment of the recruiter. Nowadays, applicants are aware of your unconscious biases! They rehearse answers that are ideal for the job role. You may have noticed that there are many Instagram influencers that teach candidates how to answer questions diplomatically and also how to provide a witty response.

C) Appearance & Expressions

Yes, you read it right! Appearance and expressions of a candidate can be factors that influence your views about an individual. You must be thinking– “NAH… I never get swayed by appearances or expressions.”

Now consider this… Your candidate shows up with unpressed formals and punctured boots. Their appearance can instantly make you wonder if the applicant is at all serious about the interview or job position.

D) White Lies

One of the most frequent mutual biases committed by recruiters and employed by candidates is ‘white lies’. These lies are acceptable to the interviewers. In fact, 42.5% of employees believe it’s ‘OK’ to throw in white lies on a job application.

Let’s go through some other hiring statistics garnered by The Interview Guys. Responses from 800 employees and 200 managers, when analyzed by The Interview Guys, reveal that;

65% of interviewees overstate their qualifications

27.8% lie about professional prospects

27.3% bluff on strengths and weaknesses

23.7% fake their previous job role and responsibilities

21% exaggerate achievements

20.6% compliment the organization

16.8% overbid their current salary

12.9% hide problems in their past job

11.2% lie about their reasons for a job change

5 Hiring Red Flags To Identify And Solve

In order to prevent irrational hiring, you can adopt various effective defenses. The most important of which is HR awareness. An organization must train their recruiters on the bias possibility and equip them with adequate hiring kits. The HR manuals might also help in guiding the recruitment objectively and reduce human judgement. Below are some other ways of preventing bad hires;

A) Logical Assumptions

Problem: You would not wish to be someone who stalks their candidates’ social media accounts to ensure they are reliable. While meeting new people, a certain amount of curiosity gets fostered. Giving in to these urges, hiring managers often end up performing a ‘BACKGROUND CHECK’ on the social media activities of candidates.

Solution: One best alternative to truly check your candidates’ personality and background is to switch from traditional verbal interviews to online psychometric hiring tools.

B) Transparency & Consistency

Problem: The recruiters are the face of the organizations. The first association of any applicant with the company is exerted through the HRs. The recruiters need to present themselves as well-aligned with their organizational values.

Solution: Maintaining transparency and consistency while hiring candidates will help them reduce biases. Not just that, it will enhance the experience of the candidates and increase their enthusiasm to work with the organization.

C) Equal Questions For All Candidates

Problem: Many times, to validate their human judgement, hiring managers tend to make up questions unfairly different for every candidate. This is to procure answers favoring their predictions regarding the interviewees in the first look.

Solution: To significantly reduce recruitment bias, interviewers must implement a standard question bank for every candidate. And evaluate the answers of each applicant independent of any personal judgments.

D) Elimination/Decrease In Heuristic

Problem: Do not make the mistake of imposing your bitter encounters on potential candidates. If you ever had a bad hire in your life, it is natural to get conscious of whom you select next. However, it is found that most hiring managers utilize their worst experiences as a cue. This is called heuristic bias.

They do this to make quick judgments and avoid any possible mishire. Although you are only ‘BEING CAREFUL’, most recruiters end up hiring even worse candidates.

Solution: To reduce this effect, you can either cross-check your assumption with candidates’ background details or validate it with any reliable psychometric test.

E) InterviewTraining – HR Awareness

Problem: Gen-Z candidates expect advanced hiring trends and remote selection for almost all job roles. To attract their interest and make bias-free decisions, hiring managers are required to cope with 21st-century hiring techniques.

Solution: Besides the training manuals for HRs, companies must consider employing better HR tech services. The best alternative or solution to stop unruly hiring biases is to adopt recruitment tools. These tools help you in identifying the potent front-line candidates for your job role. And also, cultural fit employees for your organization.

Sum Up

This article only informs you regarding the faulty interview practices you might be performing. The next step is to implement the information and rectify your hiring faults and effectively recruit top talent.

PMaps Assessments help you assess your candidates quickly and efficiently. Our psychometric assessments can gauge the job-related aptitude through situation judgmental test items. And it also evaluates personality traits through fun, visual-based questions. These assessments also evaluate the genuineness of your applicants through reliable lie scales.

DEMO

Artificial Neural Networks: Predictive Analytics – PMaps

From the past few years, the need for automation is increasing. This may be due to a growing demand of building reliable and efficient systems to scrutinize an enormous amount of data. The field of machine learning utterly caters to such demands. The history of machine learning can be traced back to the mid-twentieth century wherein it was developed as an integral part of Artificial Intelligence. It basically relies largely on computational statistical theory.

Machine learning can be perceived as an algorithmic approach which imparts human intellect to machines by way of different methods for learning, training, testing and prediction purposes. It plays a pivotal role in Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) and finds application in a wide range of industries – healthcare and medicine, affective computing, call centres, education, automobile, entertainment. Hollywood movies such as “The Bicentennial Man”, “I, Robot”, “Real Steel”, “Transcendence” have used the similar concept.

A question arises that how machine learning takes place in practice? In general, when we think of machine learning, the first thing that strikes our mind is a machine behaving just like a human being. One such paradigm of machine learning that aims to mimic the functioning of human brain is the Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The human brain can be considered as the most advanced and extensively developed organ of human anatomy. So, how does a machine acquire knowledge or how does it “learn” like we humans do? The answer to this is that we learn most of the things through our past experiences. In a similar way, ANN grasps knowledge through a large amount of pre-recorded data.

Identical to a human brain, an ANN consists of massively interconnected structural processing units, aptly called as “neurons”. It has a layered structure, the input layer, output layer and a number of layers in between called as hidden layers. The ability of parallel computations, power to model non-linearity efficiently and simplicity, makes ANN a feasible choice for a majority of applications. Hence, ANN essays an important role in pattern recognition and prediction queries.

Can an ANN predict the occurrence of future events? A lot of work is going on, on predictive analytics in recent years. Organisations are focusing more on predictive analytics with a purpose to improve business quality and revenue by analysing the available resources. Predictive analytics involves anticipating the future events by closely evaluating the past data. A simple illustration for predictive analytics would be daily weather forecasting which relies highly upon predictive models created from pre-reported climate statistics. The development of such a predictive algorithm demands huge amount of data. In addition, the prediction accuracy depends upon the quality of data. The predictive algorithm should be capable of making predictions in noisy environments. All such needs can be handled efficiently by ANN. Besides, ANN requires large amount of data for proper training. Thus, ANN fits precisely for deducing a predictive model.

Predictive analytics intends to find correlation between these traits and create the desired hypothesis.From an organizational point of view, predictive analytics may be used to predict the commitment of an employee towards the company, that is, probability whether an employee will stay in the organization for long term. In the banking sector, it may be helpful to determine if the customer will be a good or a bad one depending on past records such as financial status, timely reimbursement of loan or maintaining minimum account balance. This can be achieved by analyzing the past records of the customer based on performance, work culture, rapport with team mates, etc. Currently, PMaps carries out such assessment tests with a goal to improve hiring efficiency for different organizations. In the near future, PMaps envisions to implement predictive analytics using neural networks in order to provide a cost effective and productive solution for better hiring.

To know more, visit our website at https://pmapstest.com/

Ten Soft-Skills favoured by the Recruiters for hiring!!

In ‘The 2020 State of Recruiting Report’ by Lever, it was found that around 62% of recruiters agreed that they will be needing to hire workers with skills that weren’t prioritized in the hiring process before this pandemic to fit this unpredictable business environment.

These soft skills can act as an enabler for the recruiters to hire employees with better cultural fitment thus making a positive and powerful impact on the company’s growth in the coming times. Here are the top ten soft-skills that the recruiters are looking for while hiring employees in the post-pandemic world:

1.) Adaptability and Flexibility: Adaptability means one’s ability to adjust to unexpected changes, and Flexibility is one’s ability to stay in the present moment and behave according to the changes in the situation. There is a continued shift in the market in the post-pandemic world which changed the skills needed by employers as well.

A survey done by The Talent Professionals found that adaptability will be the #1 recruiter skill for 2021. Another article published in Forbes writes, “Flexibility is going to be key in 2021”. We are moving to the virtual world, not just technologically, but also socially. The meetings are now conducted online, and people are using online platforms for collaboration work. Hiring employees that are flexible and quickly adapt to these changes will save a lot of time and resources for the company.

2.) Emotional Intelligence: Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to understand and manage emotions. Yolanda LauForbes, Forbes Councils Member, listed emotional intelligence as one of the top soft skills in demand for future hiring practices. Emotional Intelligence is essential especially when it comes to hiring for leadership-related roles because this post-pandemic world definitely requires emotionally intelligent leaders and employees to understand and empathize with each other, stay calm under a stressful environment like these times, resolve conflicts in a healthy manner, coordinate well to move enthusiastically towards the organizational goals.

3.) Self-Motivation: Motivation is a drive that makes an individual initiate and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Self-Motivation is where the person has an intrinsic drive to do things and has the ability to motivate oneself. Amy Quinn, A Mental Health Counsellor writes about how Covid-19 has changed our motivation levels. People are dealing with uncertainty in every area of their life and they can easily fall into the cycle of losing motivation, which in turn can affect the productivity of the organization. Also in such situations, providing supervision becomes a huge task for employers. This is where self-motivated employees prove to be an asset as they take initiative and ownership of their work, achieving goals with little or no supervision.

4.) Resilience: Resilience is one’s ability to bounce back from adverse situations quickly. This post-pandemic world has moved our lives upside down. In times like these, hiring employees that are adapting and evolving despite being exposed to the pandemic stressors will be advantageous for the organization. In a survey conducted by Lever, 47% of recruiters are looking for resilience as a new skill while hiring in post-covid times. The employees with resilience can act as torchbearers for other employees, to inspire and motivate them as well.

5.) Communication Skills: Communication Skills includes the ability to listen and understand others, communicate one’s feelings, put forward new ideas and express oneself. Hiring employees who deliver messages clearly and also pick up on cues to understand properly has become the primary need in the post-pandemic world. In a recent survey by GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey, it was reported that strong communication skills are among the top skills employers are looking for after COVID times. Communication Skills have always been an important part of recruiting practices but with remote working, it has become a necessity to hire employees who pick up on not just visual and social cues of communication but also auditory cues since companies are relying on connecting and communicating via video and telephonic calls.

6.) Openness to Learning: It means that the individual is open to accept new information, learn new skills, accept new ideas, and has a genuine curiosity towards life. The Future of Jobs Report 2018 by the Centre for the New Economy and Society, found that, by 2022, around 54% of all employees will require upskilling and out of those, about 35% are expected to require additional training; and skills such as active learning and learning strategies will grow in prominence by 2022. It is important to hire candidates who can update their work skills with changing times. Studies have also linked openness to learning with leadership qualities and self-confidence which are additional benefits that come along with this soft skill.

7.) Creativity: Creativity means one’s ability to imagine, generate new ideas, and devise an action plan to turn them into reality. The 2021 Workplace Learning Report, cited Creativity as one of the top 10 most important skills to look for this year. In an unpredictable external environment where budgets are tightened, individuals pertaining to this soft skill — can come up with creative ideas and solutions with constrained deadlines despite limited resources. Therefore, contrary to the popular belief that restrictions stop creativity, people actually come up with more creative ideas and solutions in times of restrictions.

8.) Work Ethics: Someone with strong work ethics carries a belief that hard work is intrinsically rewarding. The person stands strong on his/her moral ground at the workplace, is determined towards work, and performs one’s duty in a disciplined manner. Studies have linked strong work ethics with not just excellent work performance but also with other organizational outcomes and higher job satisfaction. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, it was found that 68.9% of employers listed work ethic as an important attribute while hiring. When COVID-19 hit businesses, we learned the importance of having a strong foundation at the workplace. Therefore, companies are now looking for employees that have strong work ethics so as to provide their businesses with a stronger foundation for an unforeseeable future.

9.) Critical Thinking: Critical Thinking is one’s ability to think rationally and clearly; understand logical connections between different ideas and openness to introspect one’s beliefs and values. According to the Monster Future of Work: 2021 Global Outlook survey, recruiters have listed critical thinking as one of the crucial skills to look for in new hires. In times when everything is changing at such a speedy rate, it is important to hire employees who understand better, think clearer to formulate rational ideas for the business. Another important benefit is when employees think critically, they are more self-reflective and are open towards feedback and improving themselves.

10.) Problem Solving: Problem-Solving is an individual’s ability to understand the problem at hand, devise an action plan, execute the plan, and evaluate its effectiveness. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the industry and new challenges are coming into the picture. Companies are hiring employees that function with a problem-solving approach so as to help bring solutions to the unfamiliar problems they are facing that are unique to the post-covid times. In a report by the World Economic Survey, it was mentioned that complex problem-solving is one of the key human skills that will be high in demand by employers by 2022. Also, people who have problem-solving skills modulate their approach according to the situations which will serve as an additional strength to the business.

Now when there is a shift in functioning after this pandemic like changes in working style, the medium of communication, approach, etc., it is important that we start reforming our hiring practices to get the best output.

Hiring employees that possess these soft skills is not some quick tool for success, but it will definitely give companies a competitive advantage in the long run – giving a very secure and strong base for functioning, especially in times of unprecedented situations. So the next time an unexpected disaster like this hits our businesses, we are able to fight back better!

-Somya Verma Team PMaps – Psychologist

Ten Soft-Skills favoured by the Recruiters for hiring!!

In ‘The 2020 State of Recruiting Report’ by Lever, it was found that around 62% of recruiters agreed that they will be needing to hire workers with skills that weren’t prioritized in the hiring process before this pandemic to fit this unpredictable business environment.

These soft skills can act as an enabler for the recruiters to hire employees with better cultural fitment thus making a positive and powerful impact on the company’s growth in the coming times. Here are the top ten soft-skills that the recruiters are looking for while hiring employees in the post-pandemic world:

1.) Adaptability and Flexibility: Adaptability means one’s ability to adjust to unexpected changes, and Flexibility is one’s ability to stay in the present moment and behave according to the changes in the situation. There is a continued shift in the market in the post-pandemic world which changed the skills needed by employers as well.

A survey done by The Talent Professionals found that adaptability will be the #1 recruiter skill for 2021. Another article published in Forbes writes, “Flexibility is going to be key in 2021”. We are moving to the virtual world, not just technologically, but also socially. The meetings are now conducted online, and people are using online platforms for collaboration work. Hiring employees that are flexible and quickly adapt to these changes will save a lot of time and resources for the company.

2.) Emotional Intelligence: Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to understand and manage emotions. Yolanda LauForbes, Forbes Councils Member, listed emotional intelligence as one of the top soft skills in demand for future hiring practices. Emotional Intelligence is essential especially when it comes to hiring for leadership-related roles because this post-pandemic world definitely requires emotionally intelligent leaders and employees to understand and empathize with each other, stay calm under a stressful environment like these times, resolve conflicts in a healthy manner, coordinate well to move enthusiastically towards the organizational goals.

3.) Self-Motivation: Motivation is a drive that makes an individual initiate and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Self-Motivation is where the person has an intrinsic drive to do things and has the ability to motivate oneself. Amy Quinn, A Mental Health Counsellor writes about how Covid-19 has changed our motivation levels. People are dealing with uncertainty in every area of their life and they can easily fall into the cycle of losing motivation, which in turn can affect the productivity of the organization. Also in such situations, providing supervision becomes a huge task for employers. This is where self-motivated employees prove to be an asset as they take initiative and ownership of their work, achieving goals with little or no supervision.

4.) Resilience: Resilience is one’s ability to bounce back from adverse situations quickly. This post-pandemic world has moved our lives upside down. In times like these, hiring employees that are adapting and evolving despite being exposed to the pandemic stressors will be advantageous for the organization. In a survey conducted by Lever, 47% of recruiters are looking for resilience as a new skill while hiring in post-covid times. The employees with resilience can act as torchbearers for other employees, to inspire and motivate them as well.

5.) Communication Skills: Communication Skills includes the ability to listen and understand others, communicate one’s feelings, put forward new ideas and express oneself. Hiring employees who deliver messages clearly and also pick up on cues to understand properly has become the primary need in the post-pandemic world. In a recent survey by GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey, it was reported that strong communication skills are among the top skills employers are looking for after COVID times. Communication Skills have always been an important part of recruiting practices but with remote working, it has become a necessity to hire employees who pick up on not just visual and social cues of communication but also auditory cues since companies are relying on connecting and communicating via video and telephonic calls.

6.) Openness to Learning: It means that the individual is open to accept new information, learn new skills, accept new ideas, and has a genuine curiosity towards life. The Future of Jobs Report 2018 by the Centre for the New Economy and Society, found that, by 2022, around 54% of all employees will require upskilling and out of those, about 35% are expected to require additional training; and skills such as active learning and learning strategies will grow in prominence by 2022. It is important to hire candidates who can update their work skills with changing times. Studies have also linked openness to learning with leadership qualities and self-confidence which are additional benefits that come along with this soft skill.

7.) Creativity: Creativity means one’s ability to imagine, generate new ideas, and devise an action plan to turn them into reality. The 2021 Workplace Learning Report, cited Creativity as one of the top 10 most important skills to look for this year. In an unpredictable external environment where budgets are tightened, individuals pertaining to this soft skill — can come up with creative ideas and solutions with constrained deadlines despite limited resources. Therefore, contrary to the popular belief that restrictions stop creativity, people actually come up with more creative ideas and solutions in times of restrictions.

8.) Work Ethics: Someone with strong work ethics carries a belief that hard work is intrinsically rewarding. The person stands strong on his/her moral ground at the workplace, is determined towards work, and performs one’s duty in a disciplined manner. Studies have linked strong work ethics with not just excellent work performance but also with other organizational outcomes and higher job satisfaction. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, it was found that 68.9% of employers listed work ethic as an important attribute while hiring. When COVID-19 hit businesses, we learned the importance of having a strong foundation at the workplace. Therefore, companies are now looking for employees that have strong work ethics so as to provide their businesses with a stronger foundation for an unforeseeable future.

9.) Critical Thinking: Critical Thinking is one’s ability to think rationally and clearly; understand logical connections between different ideas and openness to introspect one’s beliefs and values. According to the Monster Future of Work: 2021 Global Outlook survey, recruiters have listed critical thinking as one of the crucial skills to look for in new hires. In times when everything is changing at such a speedy rate, it is important to hire employees who understand better, think clearer to formulate rational ideas for the business. Another important benefit is when employees think critically, they are more self-reflective and are open towards feedback and improving themselves.

10.) Problem Solving: Problem-Solving is an individual’s ability to understand the problem at hand, devise an action plan, execute the plan, and evaluate its effectiveness. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the industry and new challenges are coming into the picture. Companies are hiring employees that function with a problem-solving approach so as to help bring solutions to the unfamiliar problems they are facing that are unique to the post-covid times. In a report by the World Economic Survey, it was mentioned that complex problem-solving is one of the key human skills that will be high in demand by employers by 2022. Also, people who have problem-solving skills modulate their approach according to the situations which will serve as an additional strength to the business.

Now when there is a shift in functioning after this pandemic like changes in working style, the medium of communication, approach, etc., it is important that we start reforming our hiring practices to get the best output.

Hiring employees that possess these soft skills is not some quick tool for success, but it will definitely give companies a competitive advantage in the long run – giving a very secure and strong base for functioning, especially in times of unprecedented situations. So the next time an unexpected disaster like this hits our businesses, we are able to fight back better!

Debunking the Myth of Work Life Balance

Do you think achieving a perfect work-life balance is a pipe dream?

In the last two decades, there have been many changes in our workplaces as well as in our personal life. Initially, people believed that only married people struggled to manage their job and family as they also had to look after their home responsibilities. However in the current scenario, be it a married or unmarried, with kids or no kids, each and every individual in today’s world struggle to balance her/his work with their personal life needs. This struggle was also noticed by the organizations, that led to an acknowledgment of having work-life balance policies in the workplace. The terminology “work-life balance” is nothing but the maintenance of a balance between responsibilities at work and at home.

Work-life programs are a trend in corporations now. A lot of research and literature review have been done on the concept of work-life balance. The prolonged boasting of this concept has indirectly portrayed Work-Life Balance as the pursuit of ultimate career growth. A recent study conducted by Monster.com stated that about 60% of Indian working professionals rated their current work-life-balance as “average to terrible”. Sadly, only 22% of Indian working professionals define their work-life balance by taking time off regularly. This may be because many of the professionals may not be aware that small actions such as taking time off can contribute to work-life balance.

Almost every other organization tries their best to compete with other organizations by keeping up with various policies that are in trend. Whereas in the case of us as social animals, we try to compare ourselves with others. Most of us try to take the literate meaning of work-life balance, expecting a perfect balance between work and life. For instance, some individuals would struggle to keep up with one hobby while managing work whereas some individuals would somehow seem to manage multiple hobbies. Similarly, we see some people who perceive their life as utter chaos, while we may also encounter some people who seem to have it all together, including the so-called “work-life balance”. If you ask these people their mantra, they will tell you they haven’t figured it all either. So, to answer the earlier question, it’s not really a pipe dream.

Does that indicate that a lot of people have misconceptions about the term “Work-Life Balance”?

We believe that people have actually not understood the term work-life balance. It is usually assumed that work is always dull and life is all about fun. It indirectly creates a division between work and life. However, in reality, both work and life are important components of our lives.

This misconception of ‘work being dull and life being full of fun’ gives false expectations to the employees, by letting them think that work is always uninteresting, but still expect good monetary benefit. Such an attitude hampers employee productivity and gives them a pathway to excuse the work. Many such other misconceptions have been raised due to people’s unrealistic expectations from their organization.

So, then how do we approach this realistic work-life balance? We have some suggestions.

Many of us aim at being a successful person at the earliest. To achieve the same, there will be times where the individuals will need to work more than usual or take some more time off. In such a scenario, people will surely experience the absence of ‘work-life balance’ to achieve higher goals in life. But at the same time, they shall also enjoy their investment of time and efforts. And, that’s completely fine. It doesn’t indicate that these individuals are failing to attain Work-Life Balance.

We need to understand that our main aim is to live a well- rounded and an integrated life to achieve a more realistic balance. However, achieving this realistic work-life balance is only possible if you:

Set boundaries for yourselves, while you are working and not working. Prioritizing your work or life-needs efficiently may save you a lot of time, thereby being the biggest contributor to work-life balance. If you make deliberate choices about what you want from your professional as well as personal life and how you want to spend your time, it can help you to lead a mentally healthy life.

Keep your mind present at work, while you are at work. Even with having either strict work hour policies or flexible work hours, as long as you focus on your current environment, work productivity won’t get hampered. It is all about the thought process in terms of how you think about the time you spend in the office and outside the workplace.

Pursue any hobby that you love on a regular basis. Because, if you do not have any hobbies, it becomes obvious that you will dedicate your time to work. Similarly, don’t spend time in the activities that are in trend, rather put efforts in the activities that you really love.

Hence, don’t let the term work-life balance define your life but your actions. Ultimately, it is on you how to smartly integrate your work and life at different levels. Additionally, even though there are various work-life balance policies, they won’t work unless and until you make it applicable in your own way.

Remember “No one is too busy in the world, it’s all about priorities.”

-Chaitali Joshi (Team PMaps)

To know more, you can reach us at- [email protected]

Still Struggling with Debt Recovery?

Recovering Money has always been the most sensitive subject in the Financial Sector. These days we observe a lot of strain in banking and financial services. Most of the BFSI and NBFCs are struggling to balance their money flow to keep themselves in the good list of RBIs. Last financial year – 2018, India experienced about 11.2% jump in gross NPA (Non-Performing Asset) which makes about Rs 10.39 trillion as per the RBI’s stats. Non-Performing Asset refers to the loans given to the lenders that fail to repay or default affecting the cash flow in the economy. The uptrend in NPA has been mainly due to two factors – ineffective recovery tribunal and rise in willful defaulters.

The two terms – Non-Performing Asset and Receivables Turnover Ratio always showcase the inverse relationship in the economy. The rise in NPA and decrease in Receivables Turnover Ratio becomes an alarming state for any company when it comes to survival in such a competitive financial market. To talk about Receivables Turnover Ratio, it is an accounting measure used to quantify a firm’s effectiveness in collecting its receivables or money owed by the customers. So, who manages this ratio? It completely relies on the effectiveness of the ‘Debt Collectors’ that company hire. The hiring may happen through a one to one interview or with the help of a recruiter. But then what all parameters do we consider while hiring a ‘Debt Collector’?

Many a time we presume a Debt collector should be someone who can be aggressive to scare people for their debts and even pressurize them to pay their dues on time. But, does such kind of hired help these BFSI & NBFC companies to meet their recovery goals? Not always what I feel. Looking into the past, the reason for defaulters globally have changed from ‘lack of money’ to ‘attitude to payback’. So, will only a forceful attitude towards defaulters help debt collectors achieve their goals of recovers?

The second type of defaulters, that is, people with an attitude issue to pay back their dues smartly affect the reputation of the company by claiming false complaints of harassment. This makes the recovery process more complicated and even mislay of customers due to traitorous publicity. Retaining customers has become more crucial nowadays even if they are one of the defaulters. But then is it really serving the purpose of hiring a debt collector for the recovery process?

In this world of fraudulence, it has become a challenge for companies to balance their Receivables Turnover and Customer Retention Ratio. You may lose a customer if the debt collectors behave aggressively with them or lose your money for being submissive to retain them thereby maintaining the reputation of your company. Being on either side, it is going to be your loss!

So, what kind of candidate would be appropriate for this role that would not only recover the dues unpaid but will also maintain a good rapport with the customer hence retaining them from diversifying to your competitors. Nor aggressive nor passive – the best fit for the role of debt collection is a person who ascertains what they want and states the same in an assertive manner.

An ‘Assertive’ person is one who communicates her/his expectations in hand to others in a non-aggressive way. An assertive debt collector can speak up and raise voice in demanding situations such as defaulting customers, delayed payments, or aggressive customers, without hesitation or their reluctance. Let’s understand this through an example. Say we have two people who opted for a loan from an NBFC firm. As per records, both fall in defaulters and have been assigned to a debt collector. After studying the case, s/he realizes that one person purposely defaulted whereas others were unable to make timely payments due to some medical emergency in her/his family. In such a situation, an aggressive person would opt for a common forceful approach for both the individuals. But an assertive person shall take the circumstances into consideration and modulate tone to convey the required message. S/He may also showcase required consideration to people who genuinely could not pay and may help in the process, creating a good rapport with the customer.

Now, the last question that must be popping up in your head could be – How can one identify whether the candidate that walks in for job opportunity is ‘Assertive’ enough to meet the company’s goals?

PMaps is an analytic-driven psychometric assessment firm where we psychologist along with data-science people develops all-embracing algorithms for different job roles. Our tools help organizations to assess their candidates and understand their fitment for a specific job role. Our scientifically validated ‘PMaps Collection Assessment’ assess candidates on different parameters like behaviour, ability, and skill. The behavioural section along with other required behavioural parameters assess individuals on ‘Assertiveness’ scale. The real-time-based reports in a second after completion of assessment provides you a comprehensive report about the individual making your decision – Scientific, Measurable and Reliable for the company. We at PMaps assist organizations to take quick reliable decisions and save their hiring time and cost.

To know more about our offerings, you may reach us at – [email protected]

Data Analytics: Dawn of Success

Our quest for data analytics started by wondering how can a software detect person’s age and health conditions even after 10-15 years!!

Gradually we started discovering new facts and noticeable factors related to it and was actually amazed to see what wonders data can do if brought under process by certain methodologies. For many of the world’s renowned organizations, these data sets are helpful to draw deep inferences and make long term as well as short term strategic plan and take decisions accordingly.

It has been observed that Data Analytics is a set of procedure for examining various data points to draw various conclusions and observations on a set of information. These observations are then helpful to draw certain conclusions with the aid of specialized systems and software like SQL, R-Language, SAS, Excel, SPSS, Minitab, Hadoop and many more by various scientific models, theories and hypotheses.

Interestingly, all these tools, techniques and technologies are being used widely in this century in almost all the commercial organizations and industries to make informed decisions more accurately for business decisions.

It is amply clear through various research and studies that various efforts and initiatives for data analytics have always resulted in potential increase in revenues, improvement in operational efficiency, optimization in marketing campaigns, track on customer service efforts, emerging market trends and gaining competitive edge over competitors. In short, a one-stop for knowing and strategizing all the necessary factors that ultimately contribute in boosting business performance in real time.

Of course, we get different outputs through differing ways and various means, and different approach by undertaking different methodologies. While Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is to unearth various trends, patterns and relationships between data points, Data Mining is used for similar purposes but on larger data set. Confirmatory Data Analysis (CDA) is popular for its ease that enables application of various statistical techniques for determination of hypothesis. Text Mining has extended its reach on analyzing e-mails, documents and other text-based content as well. For beginners in this industry Quantitative Analysis is to quantify variables to compare and measure them statistically whereas Qualitative Analysis serves to interpret for understanding non-numeric data like text, images, video and audio with common themes and various view points. When Descriptive Analytics has helped organizations to picturize the true events of present and past situations, Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics has unearthed these capabilities through its ability to predict future of these events along with probabilities of events like Seismic detection, Cardiac Attack Detector, Google App and Age Detector. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have changed the ongoings of Military and National Security Services by making use of automated algorithms. These days scientists have gone ahead through Big Data Analytics to perform data mining, predictive and prescriptive analysis on semi-structured and unstructured data as well.

A well organized approach is undertaken in various organizations to obtain desired result:

We are staying in a century of technological advancements and achievements. Data analytics is the food for the emerging new phase in technology. Many marketing, advertising, E-commerce companies undertake clickstream analysis to identify website visitors, page viewing trends and patters, potential buyers for various products and services, etc. Health Industry examines patient data for effectiveness of treatment of cancer, diabetes and other diseases. Financial Organizations, Credit cards and Banks analyse spending and withdrawal trends and patterns based on geographies and other parameters to detect fraud and identity theft. Marketing Companies through CRM Analytics segment their customers, marketing campaigns and various parameters for organizational growth. Mobile companies forecast churning customers to prevent business from rivals, increase service levels and boost customer relationships.

To sum up it is well understood that Data Analytics allows you to take more informed decisions that helps to strategize your operational efficiencies, working effectiveness, improve quality and develop cost competitive new technologies and products to measure value, time and effort.

PMaps Assessment helps corporates in achieving these dreams and to have a competitive position in the market. PMaps has expertise on HR Analytics, Predictive Analytics and Descriptive Analytics. Our research-driven, consulting approach enables our clients with customized service and customized products designs through our deep analysis on cultural understanding.

Happiness Survey – Where efficiency leads to effectiveness

How many of us have really wondered what drives the altitude of an organization? The question could be addressed through various perspectives. For some it may be market penetration, process efficiency, cash flow cycle, meeting targets, brand image, employee count or company size. Measuring company success on these methodologies

are true with an assumption that the internal and external affecting factors are well balanced.

Employees are always the face of a company. A happy and charming face with a gentle and empathetic voice when face customers always tends to extend the association of customer with a company. These attributes cannot be bought by artificial ways within your employees when they face customers but must have natural flavour to make customers feel special and will give them a feeling that their needs are valued. Hence, for a company it is necessary to measure factors that govern these attributes. It is important for a company to know the productivity of various departments, their attrition rate and their happiness indices. Thus, giving a clear picture of various departments and the corresponding low index value that is dealt accordingly.

Happiness survey measures the happiness and satisfaction levels of all the linked departments in the form of numeric count called “Happiness Index”. The overall performance and distress of employees can be measured and observed through single window on real-time basis. This gives a clear picture to the top management about organizational culture, all the existing working levels and also notes the department which is affecting the functioning of other linked departments due to its own low index value.

The survey can be conducted either on a monthly basis, quarterly basis or annually depending on the revenue cycle and the type of industry, while the questions are designed keeping in mind both psychometric and technical considerations. Few minutes of employees and another couple of minutes of the top management on a survey of some 40-45 questions gives us in black and white the perceptions of the company in real-time.

For measuring efficiency of workforce and business domains, these simple survey questions are designed with real-time scenarios, flourish with psychometric flavour enable top management to examine integration, performance and organization’s health to penetrate deeper, thereby helping to lift-up brand image, reach, performance and revenue.

PMaps Pre-Assess: Where you can screen the freshers

“Knock!! Knock!! It’s a golden opportunity for you!!”

Want to hire some fresh candidates suitable for your job requirements? Are you under a pressure of bulk freshers hiring? So, here is the answer!! PMaps Pre-Assess plays an important role to grab this golden opportunity for organizations because it gives elaborative information on behavioral traits, individuality and intellectual ability of candidates. This assessment gives some useful insight into the candidate’s mental and behavioral ability & the training required for the individual candidates to improve their effectiveness on the job floor.

Hiring is a costly investment for any company, and the HR department wants to make sure that, they are making the right decision to see plenty of return on their investment. PMaps Pre-Assess psychometric assessment acts as an important platform for such organizations where a candidate’s orientation and mindset can be well mapped with the hiring requirement of the organization.

There are number of candidates at the start of a recruitment drive. In this case, psychometric testing can help to drastically reduce the hiring workload of organization’s, as it helps to quickly identify suitable applicants who have the potential to perform well in the later recruitment stages.

Organizations look for employees with strong principles, who are honest about themselves and their work. They seek out employees in whom they can put their trust, i.e. the ones who can accomplish tasks without compromising the company’s standards and have the required skills & aptitude for the mentioned job role. So, PMaps Pre-Assess helps any organization to map inherent skills and talent to see whether the selected candidate is appropriate for a job or not.

PMaps Pre-Assess screens candidate on the primary level during recruitment or hiring to check the suitability of a candidate to be fit for any job profile. This implies that the psychometric assessment can help to provide more realistic and current view of a candidate’s abilities than a formal certificate of education. It provides with a rapid and precise way of screening and understanding the congruity of the candidate to succeed in the required job role. On this fact, psychometric testing could help to gauge the future performance of a candidate and improves employee retention by making successful hiring decisions.

The psychometric Pre-Assess is like level playing field because it gives a fair way of assessing different candidate’s strengths regardless of educational background. For campus placement programs also, Pre-Assess is influential in developing a strong workforce in the organization and giving potential candidates a chance to validate their skills and intellectual capabilities.

PMaps Pre-Assess elaborates an individual’s ability to perform mental actions or process acquired knowledge at a workplace. It helps organizations to figure out what kind of behavioral patterns may be exhibited by the candidate and identify her/his personal strengths and weaknesses. This general factor explains most differences among individuals in performance on diverse mental cognitive tasks. This is true regardless of what specific ability a test is meant to assess or of the test’s manifest content (whether words, numbers or figures) and regardless of the way the test is administered (in written or oral form, to an individual or to a group). Assessments about the sequence, pattern and logical thinking help in identifying employees in the hiring process are of utmost importance for any organization because it assures employment suitability to attain expected job performance.

PMaps Pre-Assess also measures the extent to which a person can deal with a stressful situation, confidently. This assessment also indicates, how the different emotions of the candidate affect their work performance. So predominantly this assessment gives an overview of how dutiful the individual will be in the workplace and work-related situations. This assessment gives a futuristic view of a candidate based on their skills in goal-setting, organization, and self-discipline. All these factors may apply for jobs that allow for methodical planning and little amounts of risk.

On this note, for an applicant who fits with the job description and appears to the hiring process, PMaps Pre-Assess can help to determine whether this candidate can work more effectively and move along with the organization which gives a major lookout on inaugurating new arrivals in corporates.

Predict Sales Performance – PMaps

Abstract: We have recently conducted a research on “Sales Hiring” with the view to predicting sales executive on job performance through scientific assessment. The research indicated a positive relationship between PMaps Sales Orientation Assessment™ scores and actual Sales Performance with a magnitude of .63 (coefficient of correlation i.e. r= 0.63; Chi value=11; p-value <.05). In simple term, it means all participants who scored high in PMaps Sales Assessment™ have performed better in a sales role. We later designed predictive algorithm for a client for predicting likely sales performance of candidate at the time of pre-hiring stage.

Brief: PMaps is India’s leading Analytics-driven Hiring Assessment company specializing in job-fitment services. A leading Life Insurance player in India approached PMaps for a Sales Assessment product that can measure Sales Attitude and Aptitude of candidates and predict their Sales Performance. PMaps first made some of their existing Sales Executives to appear for PMaps Sales Assessment ™ in order to measure their demographics, behavior, aptitude & skill dimensions. Test was conducted on multiple devices & in multiple languages on pan India basis to understand broad competencies driving the superior sales performance.

Norm group of participants: N= 166; N is evenly distributed in sales performance (refer chart A) 38% (N) with 3-7 yrs. of experience; 65% participants were graduates; 50% participants were from 18-23 yrs. age group.

Chart-A:

After the test, PMaps asked the client to provide the performance rating of participants for last one year on seven rating scale where 1 = Low performer & 7 = Best Performer. Through correlation & validation studies, PMaps then established significant test of association between PMaps test scores & the participant’s Actual Sales Performance (refer-Chart B).

PMaps predictive model fared better in predicting performance of both High & Low Sales Performers as exhibited in Chart C. Our predictive model has predicted more than 63% of variance in actual sales performance (represented as Area Under Curve i.e. .63)

Chart-B:

Prasad Jadhav (Team PMaps)

Interview or Assessment – Only Fittest will survive

There are often debates on the value of Psychometric testing for hiring over unstructured interviews. Based on 85 years of research findings, Schmidt and Hunter presented the validity of

measures predicting job performance and validity of paired combinations as below:

**r- relation between assessment score and Job Performance.

As depicted above, all types of psychometric based assessment or interview technique, say Mental Ability, Work sample test & Behavioral interviews fare better compared to Unstructured interviews in terms of predicting work performance. Ironically employers continue to take interviews stressing on candidate’s education background & past experience. Though relation with work performance for each of above three techniques says Interview, Experience & Education, is far below than scientific psychometric assessment tools.

Despite poor validity, hiring based on these subjective have also resulted in attrition due to cultural misfit, creating huge money drainage for the companies.

Therefore, employers have now started focusing on Psychometric Assessments for their superior work performance relation & for their inherent ability to give a holistic view whether the candidate can be a right job fit, trainable or a miss-fit.

Many leading companies today have started taking this initiative to have a more objective test at their pre-hiring stage. The psychometric assessment will help employers not only to gauge the future performance of the candidates but also to improve employee retention by making better hiring decisions.

PMaps, being India’s leading Psychometric Assessment firm has successfully helped various companies across multiple sectors like ITES, BFSI, IT, Pharmaceuticals, Telecom, E-Commerce and many more, for hiring the right candidate in terms of behavioral fitment for various roles.

To know more, visit our website at https://pmapstest.com/

Do you hire engineers based on IQ alone??

Most of us have the perception that the more intelligent an engineer is, the better they will perform.

But it is really so? And is it always so?

No, a big no.

The most successful tech professionals stand out because of supreme emotional intelligence and not necessarily IQ alone.

In the previous decades, an engineer could work alone in her/his independent cubicle and contribute individually based on their technical skills. Only the cognitive abilities of the engineer would contribute to her/his success.

Now the scenario has completely changed, with engineers working from a remote location, communicating with clients and team members located across the globe and convincing them on a given viewpoints. Also, an engineer is challenged by the pool of engineers who will be as smart as they are- in such cases the employee’s cognitive abilities may be rendered ineffective.

Hence, emotional and social intelligence, which intuits how well you manage yourself and work with others, is a must skill set required in all, engineers included. High scores in emotional and social intelligence make one an exceptional team member and help them to emerge as a leader. It sets the stars apart from the dust.

When we measured work performance of engineers working at some of our clients from the IT industry, we found out that higher emotional intelligence was the only factor out of all the others that predicted superior work performance. Other factors being IQ, personality traits, and various other abilities.

We at PMaps, call emotional intelligence as emotional control which is an individual’s capability in control of display of emotions. The assessment ascertains whether the display or expression of the feeling/emotion is situationally appropriate or not.

PMaps, being India’s leading Psychometric Assessment firm has successfully helped various companies across multiple sectors like ITES, BFSI, IT, Pharmaceuticals, Telecom, E-Commerce and much more, for hiring the right candidate in terms of behavioral fitment for various roles.

To know more about our assessment offering and measure emotional Intelligence suite, do write back at [email protected]

HR initiative in next 12 months – PMaps

One of the top Human Resource Consultancy firm did a snap survey with Human Resource professionals asking them, “If you are not limited by resources (budget or people), which HR Technology project would you tackle this year?”

Around a hundred HR professional from India’s top listed companies responded to it.

Top two initiative came out to be: HR Analytics and Performance Management.

HR Analytics is being marked as the most valuable HR initiative in next 12 months. HR analytics allow professionals in the human resource function to identify current capabilities and competencies within organizations, detect any gaps and be proactive in the supply and demand of talent to support the business needs. HR analytics enable companies to quantify the return on human capital and improve human resource policies.

Second most valuable initiative in the next 12 months came out to be Performance Management. HR managers would like to utilize performance management technology to assess employees’ performance and identify employees who need additional training to reach their potential. No wonder HR Psychometric professionals are keen in measuring the returns of performance improvement plans and, an efficient performance management technology will surely serve the purpose.

PMaps is one of India’s leading analytics-based psychometric assessment firm, which specializes in pre and post hiring assessments for measuring and for improving returns on human capital through rational application of behavioral and data sciences.

For knowing more about us, do write to us at [email protected]

Monday blues, Friday distractions

“I know you are tired, but come this way”, is how every Monday greets us.

After the mini vacation over the weekend with angelic Saturday and Sunday, the Monday blues sink in. It is associated with a set of negative emotions that many people go through at the first working day of the week. Disinterest, stress, lack of concentration and energy, laziness and extra cups of coffee to keep eyes wide open, kind of sums up the entire Monday.

“One bad fruit spoils the bunch”, is how the vibe at office is affected as well and the work productivity declines in totality. Lost in thoughts and no real participation in work, week starts moving ahead slow. Up comes Tuesday to be Monday #2 and then Wednesday that breaks the Monday shell. Every day seems to have more than 24 hours and the week stretches on with the upcoming weekend being that one bright spot on the horizon which pushes you on. At last you get into the groove, and work hard through Thursday, putting in the extra effort to greet Friday, making sure no one will call you on when you are having fun. Today you can dress down, and say hello to a day of distraction; a day to tie thing down, plan for the weekend, for the fun time with angelic Saturday and Sunday!

Thank God it’s Friday – time to get thinking about the weekend getaway with your buddies, daydreaming about the gig you are going to attend and the sandy beaches that await your arrival. The pre-outing and pre-party plan deciding day! The day the office does not follow a dress code and clients are busy doing their own nothing thing, too. A week is seven days but days become longer with Monday being the longest and Friday becoming the shortest, defying logic. It is a paradox of our work-life balance that the balance is always tilted in favor of the work days and never the other way around to favour the holidays. It is so difficult to take a break, and when you do get a break it is always sweet but short, too short for wo/mankind, alway

One may search on the Internet various quotes to be motivated on Fridays and find ways to cut down the blues, but if a large number of employees tend to do the same always, having fluctuating performance, it becomes necessary to take care of such employees who may turn to be a burden for the organization. Organizations come up with different activities to keep employees active but none know how many are taking those activities positively. The actual behavior, attitude and perception of a person is very difficult to judge, especially, of a person with many mood swings. It is a must that organizations give an assessment that determines the behavior and traits of employees; one of the many such provided by our company, PMaps which will help to understand more about your people working in the organization.

But I still wonder why there are Mondays! There could be just a blank day that could be used to wash away the blues. In any case, Thank God For Friday! Not because I can daydream but so that I could return on Monday to begin my work with a fresh start.

-Rashi

ORIGIN OF TESTS AND TESTING

Tests are as old as humanity. These tests primarily have resulted out of four questions that have haunted us ever since homosapiens inhabited the Earth. The first question in this regard is whether one is guilty or not? For this purpose a test was designed wherein the suspected liar is led into a dark tent. Inside there is a donkey, whose tail has been coated in lamp oil. The man is told to pull on the donkey’s tail. If he is liar, the man is told, pulling the donkey’s tail will cause it to scream. The man is left alone with the animal and after a while brought back out of the tent. It doesn’t matter if the donkey screamed or not, the evidence is on the man’s hands. If they are clean it proves his guilt as he didn’t touch the donkey’s tail, and according to the inventors of this test, you can tell a liar by his fear of being found out.

Next question is to judge the candidate’s ability the test of which has its origin in the Agricultural Revolution that dates back to 12,000 years ago when this question gained prominence. We know from early documentation of initiation rites, trails of courage and inauguration ceremonies that joining a community often involved passing a test. The idea of judging humans based on merit rather than heredity originated in China. Around AD 600, the Sui dynasty established the imperial examinations, for recruiting bureaucrats- a mixture of army physical, rote learning and little puzzles. For example, in the final exam, candidates had to drink strong liquor and then compose a poem.

A major question that has perturbed mankind is about their individuality. The question ‘who am I’ some anthropologists believe, can be attributed to Scientific Revolution that dates back 500 years ago. First attempt at describing person based on her/his personality was made in ancient Greece. It is recorded that when you were both literally and figuratively at your wit’s end in Ancient Greece, you would consult an oracle. The most famous and popular oracle was the one in Delphi- despite or because of the fact that instead of giving clear answer, he would recite enigmatic verses that usually only made sense once the future had come to pass. Over the entrance of temple of Delphi where the oracle lived, there was an inscription: “Know Yourself”.

In the recent past the question that tests have dealt with is ‘how good am I’ which started around the Industrial Revolution. During Scientific Revolution and the onset of Information Revolution, our obsession with analysing ourselves is not just restricted to our personalities or careers, but is increasingly also extending to our physical performance. Self-tracking from calories’ consumption, to blood pressure, to the number of steps we take a day is an indication of how we humans obsessively want to know “How good we are?”

In short, human is nothing more than a constantly self-evaluating and judging species. We constantly aim to evaluate the world around us and question the need of our own existence. We also like to constantly pass judgement on everything and everyone around us, like the book we bought from the market, the service in any hotel, the candidate on talent show or the posts of our friends on various social media sites. And we immediately publish our “Score” in the form of an online comment. Data being the dictator of the modern world, coupled with our genetic inclination towards measurability, tests or assessments have become the real oracle of our modern world.

-Saurabh Rana