No overwhelmed recruiter dreams of sorting through a massive pile of CVs, nor does a candidate who is struggling to stand out from the crowd. Recruiting without a CV offers significant means for saving time, as well as other benefits that make life easier for everyone, from candidates to Talent Acquisition and hiring managers. But without a CV, how can can you justify recruitment decisions? Allow me to turn the question around: by focusing on the CV, are we basing hiring decisions on the right criteria?
Benefits of recruiting without CVs.
Ironically, CVs are still a staple in most application processes. But sorting through them – even with an ATS – often has the effect of bottlenecking most recruiter’s workload. On the one hand, this step takes time, a precious resource that could be dedicated to more qualitative tasks. On the other hand, CVs say nothing about the expectations of a candidate, nor about their work affinities and even less about whether they will manage to blend or integrate into the company culture. Not convinced? Here are some benefits of recruiting without a CV.
It brings soft skills to the forefront.
Behavioural skills are equally part of the present performance as much as they contribute to each employee’s future development. Changing positions, a promotion with managerial responsibilities or even just a new mission: the ability to overcome these challenges depends on the implementation of soft skills: soft skills such as a taste for learning, open-mindedness, empathy or resolving complex problems. Recruiting without a CV means giving priority to these behavioural skills which are difficult to highlight on a page, because they derive from the story of a life – professional and personal.
It favours diversity.
Recruiting without a CV makes it possible to focus on each candidate’s skills and affinity for the missions on the job, as well as the conditions under which they will be carried out. Profiles that would otherwise be discriminated against on paper for various reasons (age, gender, poorly recognised training, social origin, etc.) then manage to demonstrate higher value for themselves through a CV-free method that will question them personally on their motivations and reasoning skills while detecting character traits conducive to good performance in the chosen position.
Predictive recruitment accelerates and rationalises decision making.
Predictive recruitment responds precisely to the need of basing decisions on an assessment of candidates’ potential for the present and future. We know today that soft skills are essential to perform well in a number of positions, especially management and decision-making roles. Pre-selection based on candidates’ behavioural and cognitive characteristics saves a significant amount of time compared to the traditional method of sorting CVs. In this regard, AssessFirst integrates a large amount of data points (manifested from millions of data sets) for this type of analysis (850 to be exact). This collected data is divided between three main aspects that make up each assessment testing the candidate’s potential: their cognitive ability, motivations and personality.
Additionally, predictive recruitment and psychometric testing allows for the objective review of applications, opening the door to a wider range of applicants. AssessFirst’s tool offers over 5.4 million possible configurations. In short, A.I. saves time for recruiters while helping to diversify candidate selection.
It focuses on current and future skills.
Recruiting without CVs can solve the problems of high-volume recruitment or waves of hiring that require training afterwards anyways. It’s then important to seek out affinities for learning and strong motivation for learning or for the culture of the company. CVs report on the past and the present, but cannot predict the future, and by choosing to exclude it from the recruitment process gives candidates the chance to realise their true potential.
It helps ease recruiting for temporary contracts.
In many sectors, seasonal hiring patterns require a large reinforcement to the typical workforce. In an emergency or when short on time and resources, it is all the more difficult to quickly identify the right people for the job. The story of The Body Shop who chose to recruit without CVs, is particularly telling. The company screened candidates by asking the following three questions:
- Are you authorised to work in the United States?
- Can you stand for eight hours?
- Can you lift up to 50 pounds (about 22.5 kilos)?
By focusing on something other than CVs, The Body Shop has been able to identify profiles that are suited to the daily tasks involved in their open positions. And the results are impressive: their staff turnover rate was reduced by 60% compared to the previous year and productivity in the sorting centres were up by 13%. This success inspired the cosmetics leader to recruit without CVs for other positions in their boutiques.
Recruiting without CVs follows a different kind of logic.
Recruiting without CVs requires a different approach, using levels – a bit like in a video game. If the first step previously consisted of submitting CVs and cover letters, skipping this means going directly to the heart of the matter. That is to say that we will be directly interested in skills, in a targeted manner, in relation to the position that need to be filled. For example, psychometric tests focus on detecting candidates’ potential and predicting how they will evolve over time and flourish. Part of the assessment consists of identifying soft skills as well as measuring reasoning and decision-making abilities, using artificial intelligence adapted to recruitment.
Invest in your employees’ quality of life.
Recruiting without CVs saves resources and it comes in the context of a different vision of recruitment. Are training costs expected? Is other support needed to support employees’ quality of working life (childcare, assistance in financing personal projects, leave for dependents, etc.). These criteria should be taken into account when choosing a candidate assessment solution.
Soft skills for recruiters to develop
As a recruiter, working without CVs requires using other methods for detecting potential. First of all, open-mindedness is essential in order to be able to integrate a new solution and really test it. Those who know how to demonstrate patience and perseverance will be better able to overcome setbacks, make adjustments and sustain new HR and recruitment processes. A taste for experimenting, and for entering “test and learn” mode, is also on the list of prerequisites, because the benefits of recruiting without CVs can take time to become visible.
Next, it is necessary to train and support recruitment managers with the solution. As it is not just reserved for HR, the tool must be collaborative in order to achieve maximum efficiency. Investing in recruitment training without CVs is to ensure its success over time.
Make your candidate experience sparkle by testing out CV-free recruitment! Initially, it is a good idea to restrict trying this CV-free solution to recruiting one position or on one type of contract, such as seasonal positions for example, in order to check whether it corresponds to the needs of your company. Happy experimenting!
