Recruitment is about much more than filling a position with the right person. In fact, when recruiting, we are searching for the person who would add the most value to the company. We're not only talking only about the desired skills, knowledge, experience or personality, but also - the main factor - is harmony. The ideal candidate will fit into the company's life and culture, but at the same time, the company should fit into the candidate’s life and culture.
As we’ve seen in recent years, many workers don't hesitate to leave their workplaces (often after very short durations) for new places where they can upgrade their salaries and work benefits. These shifts occur after completing long and promising recruitment processes in which much time, effort and money had been invested. For this reason, recruitment processes should focus on finding the person who harmonizes with company – where both parties are interested in starting a mutual journey in which both can, and will, benefit.
The ensuing problem is twofold – 1) how can we identify the ideal candidate and 2) when finding appropriate candidates - how can we know that they are right for the company and that the company is right for them?
Job description or job analysis is the traditional way of publicizing what a job role includes and what characteristics are needed to do the job successfully. However, beyond the dry and technical features such as "academic degree", "5+ years of experience" and "team player" – how can we know if these are the MOST important characteristics? And more importantly, how are all these variables assembled together to describe our “best” employee candidate? In other words, would you consider a candidate with fewer years of experience if the candidate had a higher academic degree, or if the candidate claims s/he is a quick learner?
A simulation in such a setting can be a game-changer. Imagine your company simulates "a regular day in the office", including C-suite meetings, team meetings, customer services, and daily email and chat-based interactions between workers. Analyzing the simulated actions, interactions and reactions can provide valuable insights into how people cooperate and collaborate, how responsibilities are delegated and executed, and how informal leadership arises.
Simulations offer the ability to review your daily routine from an external perspective, enabling a deeper understanding of your organizational culture and DNA. This, in turn, leads to a more accurate understanding of the ideal candidate who is best suited to harmonize with your company. After such a simulation, you’ll be able to create an "avatar" of the ideal candidate which objectively and subjectively suites the candidate’s team as well as your entire organization.
Job candidates will be able to simulate this "day in the office" and experience the company's atmosphere, culture, and job requirements, and can even provide outputs – be it writing a code, handling a furious customer, or navigating through forms or other red-tape materials.
After a few of these simulations, the company will be able to examine each candidate's results, compare between them, and choose the candidate that not only seems most suitable but actually is most suitable.
Such a recruitment process leverages real people’s actual soft and hard skills, making the process more successful and cost-effective than traditional recruitment processes. It saves the organization endless hours of interviews, wasted funds when the recruitment fails, and appropriately connects people and organizations.
