As a quick refresher: artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science focused on creating intelligent machines (or ‘robots’!) that can think and behave just like humans. Using machine learning, we can now train machines to learn from data: they can identify trends and patterns, and make predictions based on these.

Obviously, the time-saving potential of AI in recruitment settings is huge: consider how much time recruiters can save by leveraging artificial intelligence to perform tasks such as screening resumes, compiling candidate shortlists, reviewing video interviews, scheduling interviews, and even answering candidate queries in real-time. We certainly believe in the capacity for artificial intelligence to free up recruiters’ time by automating repetitive, administrative tasks, and enabling them to focus on the more ‘human’ elements of their roles.

However, given that AI claims to train machines to “think and behave just like humans” (and being a psychometric business), we were interested to test the cognitive ability of a popular AI tool, to see exactly how its intelligence stacked up against that of real breathing, walking, living humans.

Putting AI to the test..(literally)

We kindly asked a leading AI (‘word2vec’) algorithm to take one of our Verbal Reasoning assessments, using natural language processing. Natural language processing (NLP) involves converting language data into a form that computers can understand.

The Verbal Reasoning assessment was one of our most commonly used tests: a mid-level assessment covering a range of verbal reasoning aptitude areas, such as vocabulary, similarities, and verbal analogies. It is typically used for professional and managerial roles.

The Results?

The AI tool scored in the 19th percentile, which is classified as Below Average. In other words, it performed better than 19 percent of the general population on this assessment.

Which leads us to the question: do we really want to give AI tools free rein to make unsupervised decisions about people?

We maintain the belief that the value of AI (as it stands currently) lies in supplementing, not replacing, human capability. But we also want to know what you think – get in touch with us at hello@testgrid.com

As a quick refresher: artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science focused on creating intelligent machines (or ‘robots’!) that can think and behave just like humans. Using machine learning, we can now train machines to learn from data: they can identify trends and patterns, and make predictions based on these.

Obviously, the time-saving potential of AI in recruitment settings is huge: consider how much time recruiters can save by leveraging artificial intelligence to perform tasks such as screening resumes, compiling candidate shortlists, reviewing video interviews, scheduling interviews, and even answering candidate queries in real-time. We certainly believe in the capacity for artificial intelligence to free up recruiters’ time by automating repetitive, administrative tasks, and enabling them to focus on the more ‘human’ elements of their roles.

However, given that AI claims to train machines to “think and behave just like humans” (and being a psychometric business), we were interested to test the cognitive ability of a popular AI tool, to see exactly how its intelligence stacked up against that of real breathing, walking, living humans.

Putting AI to the test..(literally)

We kindly asked a leading AI (‘word2vec’) algorithm to take one of our Verbal Reasoning assessments, using natural language processing. Natural language processing (NLP) involves converting language data into a form that computers can understand.

The Verbal Reasoning assessment was one of our most commonly used tests: a mid-level assessment covering a range of verbal reasoning aptitude areas, such as vocabulary, similarities, and verbal analogies. It is typically used for professional and managerial roles.

The Results?

The AI tool scored in the 19th percentile, which is classified as Below Average. In other words, it performed better than 19 percent of the general population on this assessment.

Which leads us to the question: do we really want to give AI tools free rein to make unsupervised decisions about people?

We maintain the belief that the value of AI (as it stands currently) lies in supplementing, not replacing, human capability. But we also want to know what you think – get in touch with us at hello@testgrid.com

How to spot frauds?

Why is fraud such a big deal? In Australia alone, the estimated cost of fraud amounts to $8.5 billion annually. Sadly, 60% of fraud cases take over 3 years to detect, 61% of fraud cases result in no recovery, and a whopping half of Australian businesses experience economic crime.

So, what can we do about it?

Background Checking and Online Reference Checking

Background checks delve into an applicant’s history to verify areas such as work rights, educational qualifications, disclosable criminal records, driving records, and suitability to work with children. In other words: verifying whether this applicant IS who they say they are.

Reference checks can provide a comprehensive picture of the applicant’s likely performance in your organisation, based on their performance in previous roles.

Traditionally completed over the phone, moving to online reference checking offers the following efficiencies:

Improved response rate (as referees can complete it at their convenience, outside of business hours if needed)

Automated reminders to complete

Time savings for recruiters (as there is no need to chase up referees or spend time on the phone)

Reduced time to hire

Secure platform enables identity verification of referees (on the phone, we cannot tell whether the referee is who they say they are – or just a friend of the applicant! See Hamish and Andy hilariously demonstrating this critical flaw of phone reference checking…!)

Improved quality of responses (in writing)

Numerous checks can be collated in one place (single dashboard)

Removes the impact of unconscious bias (questioning style over the phone, and interpretation of responses)

Why are these checks important?

Given that 50% of Australian businesses experience economic crime, combating fraud needs to be a top priority. Background and reference checks can reduce liability (of businesses as well as of recruiters), protect your brand, and help to provide a safe workplace.

In the past 12 months alone, we have seen numerous high-profile cases of deception in the media: a politician falsifying his university qualifications and military award, medical professionals with bogus qualifications, and cases where charities have been defrauded of funds.

In Summary

The most common discrepancies uncovered in background checks are falsified employment records, falsified educational credentials, and failure to disclose criminal histories. Depending on the particular check(s) required, conducting background and/or online reference checks can cost less than $100 – and in some cases less than $50. This is a small price to pay for peace of mind that your applicant has provided you with honest and accurate information about themselves.

Your background and reference checks can be completed in the same, self-service portal, can provide automated email and SMS communications to candidates, and can also integrate into your ATS.

For more information on background checks or online reference checks, contact us today!

Put yourself in a grad’s shoes: you’ve been waiting for this moment for years. You’ve finally started your dream graduate position. You’ve invested in a new work wardrobe, adjusted to the 9-5 life and just started to feel comfortable within your team – and BAM! A global pandemic hits. Your whole office is working from home, you still don’t really feel like you know what you’re doing, which isn’t helping with your diminishing motivation and the temptation of Netflix… You’re not too sure how to take initiative with tasks, and secretly feel afraid to bring this up with your manager: what if there isn’t any work for me? Will I be made redundant in my first year out of uni?!

Hi Graduate Employers! If you haven’t met us at an AAGE event before: here’s a little bit about us. We’re Testgrid – Australia’s market-leading provider of psychometric assessment. Our point of difference is that we’re not a test publisher, but providers of a platform with access to 2500+ assessments from a range of publishers. We take an agnostic approach to psychometric assessment: one size certainly does not fit all, and each role and organisation might require a different assessment – so we give you access to them all.

What About Development?

With the name Testgrid, some people are unaware of the other aspects of our business: including development solutions. That’s what we want to talk to you about today. If we step into the shoes of a recently-employed graduate, it’s easy to understand the thoughts running through their minds at the moment. To help counteract this unmotivated and fearful mindset, it’s important to take evidence-based steps to maintain engagement of graduates working from home. From reviewing the literature, extensive research has shown key predictors of successful remote working, including things like clear communication and collaboration, self-motivation and organisation, ability to embrace change, and a sense of meaning and purpose in one’s work. You can read more about graduate engagement and the latest challenges graduate recruiters are facing in our latest 2021/22 Graduate Recruitment Trends Ebook. On the back of this information, Testgrid has created a unique competency framework that can help identify strengths and gaps in key skills for remote working.

Our Tips For Engaging Remote-Working Grads

Foster Meaning and Purpose

Recently-employed grads may struggle to understand the wider impact their work is having on the organisation. Extra direction is paramount in this climate, as well as crystal-clear communication. Research into Millennials has shown they commonly need to see the value and relevance of their work, which can be cloudy when working remotely. Go out of your way to give an extra bit of praise and direction – even if it feels cheesy! In these work conditions, new grads haven’t had the opportunity to see the outcomes of their work, so may need a reminder.

Direct Grads On Their Path of Development

Remote working provides the perfect opportunity for professional development and upskilling, and what does research show Millennials love? Development opportunities. Take this time to invest in your future workforce and make the most of their time. Development gives individuals intrinsic motivation – a natural sense of satisfaction from personal growth. This will make grads feel valued and motivate them to excel in your company long-term. Alongside our variety of assessments, we offer a range of development and engagement programs for your graduates. In the form of online workshops, these assist not only with graduates’ personal and team development but also to foster meaning and connection with their work and your company in a time of social distance.

What Should A Remote-Working Grad Engagement Program Look Like?

1. Assessments

Begin with a behavioural/personality or emotional intelligence assessment, for example:

DiSC

HBDI

Saville Wave Professional Styles

Saville Wave Work Roles Reporting (for a teamwork-focused approach)

Genos Emotional Intelligence Inventory

Genos Emotional Intelligence 360

Testgrid Remote Working Competency Framework

2. Debriefs

Zoom/telephone debrief with a Psychologist (1 hour)

Structured discussion of assessment results to equip grads with self-awareness of strengths, development areas and relevant strategies.

3. Online Workshops (via Zoom or similar)

To identify the most important areas for development and engagement of your specific grad cohort, analyse the group data to determine themes. Appropriate activities can then be selected to ensure grads engage in a workshop that is as well-suited to their development areas as possible. Activities and assessments can be customised based on your organisation’s desired engagement and development outcomes. To learn more about the trends you can expect to see in graduate recruitment and how to tackle them, read out latest guide here, or Contact us to to see how we can help you prepare for the new inevitable challenges ahead.

It is official, Gen Z is the newest cohort to join the working ranks. Born between 1997 and 2012, this generation is just leaving university and is already making changes to the way we hire and recruit. Meeting them on their own terms could mean successfully attracting and retaining the newest generation of workers. It is important to know the differences between Millennials and Gen Z. While they are both young, technologically inclined, and generally skeptical of the world around them, millennials grew up during an economic boom and graduated into a recession, Gen Z grew up in the recession watching their parents and friends struggle. This has shaped the outlooks of both generations in a distinct way. It’s important for any business looking to recruit these generations to recognise that they are, in fact, different generations, with different experiences, outlooks, desires, and expectations. Treating them the same, as a broad pool of “young people”, will significantly dampen the effectiveness of recruiting efforts.

Some key differences:

• Millennials have an inherent optimism, while Gen Z candidates tend to be more pragmatic and realistic.
• Millennials tend to be more collaborative, while Gen Z candidates feel more self-reliant and independent.
• Millennials saw the rise of social media and are more forthcoming with personal information, while Gen Z candidates saw how this has been abused and tend to be more private.

With Gen Z expected to make up a thrird of the working population by 2030, it is a good time as ever for companies to implement ongoing graduate recruitment strategies to ensure this highly needed talent is continuously brought into the organisation, ensuring their long-term competitiveness, innovation, and growth. Such a strategy requires companies to think about a standardised process that facilitates fair, consistent, and efficient hiring. Now is the time to start experimenting with recruitment messaging through various channels, from in-person meetings to bite-sized social media content via the platforms regularly used by Gen Z, like TikTok and Instagram. It’s important to keep in mind that strategies need to be developed and evolve over time, they can’t change overnight, which is why it’s a great time to start testing now and be prepared to weather failure before finding success.

Gen Z is motivated by purpose and meaningful work

Older generations often want careers for their own benefit; to support their families, to save up for luxury purchases, and so on. Younger generations, by contrast, tend to have higher-level goals in mind. They don’t just want to support themselves, they want to make the world around them a better place, both for their local communities and for the world as a whole.

You can utilise this as part of your recruitment and outreach messaging. Think about your role in your community and both nationally and globally. Determine ways that your company is making the world a better place, and emphasise that by working for your company, these young candidates will be helping to make that dream a reality.

The importance of work-life balance and remote work

Offering flexibility with remote work is more than just a temporary Covid induced necessity. It is a hugely beneficial perk that can attract both younger millennials and Gen Z candidates. Millennials love the flexibility it gives them, though they will often continue to attend in-office shifts for collaboration and in-person interaction. Gen Z will love the independence it gives them, as a chance to work at their own pace and prove their value on their own terms.

Diversity is a crucial component

77% of Gen Z  said levels of diversity affect their decision to work at an organisation. Employers seem to finally be understanding that recruiting for diversity is more than a trendy buzzword and that it actually helps organisations to be more innovative, profitable, and generally more successful. Still, however, putting theory into practice seems to be a big hurdle, which isn’t surprising when you consider that it is in every human being’s nature to be (unintentionally) biased. Technology can offer graduate recruiters new possibilities to eliminate bias in their recruitment process as far as possible.

The traditional CV contains a lot of information that can lead to bias, such as gender, age, educational background, address, etc. In comes blind recruitment, which allows for anonymisation of this data in a quest towards a fairer process. 

Clear development path and career progression

Millennials have experienced a decade of working in an environment where job security is scarce and the chances of retirement feel slim to none. Gen Z is entering the workforce with the same feeling, which is why nearly half of the entire working generation works in the gig economy or as a freelancer. Almost half (46%) of Generation Z workers are freelancers, a number that is only projected to grow in the next five years.

As a recruiter, if you can offer job security, upward mobility, a defined career path, and the promise of retirement, you can become very attractive to members of these generations. This means more than just promises; if a candidate works for you for a year with no sign of potential improvement, they’ll be highly likely to start looking for alternatives.

It’s time to get tech-savvy

91% of Gen Z said tech sophistication would impact their interest in working at an organisation. To successfully recruit this generation, you need to know their technology. This extends to every part of the process, from making sure your job application process is mobile-friendly to utilising modern tech in your workplace. Nothing turns off a young candidate more than learning that they’ll be required to use software older than they are. Hence the way you attract and engage with Gen Z should be as digitally native as they are. Video is becoming the default way to communicate online and digital natives expect videos everywhere they go when they are online. What better way to show candidates that you are completely up to date and on-trend, than presenting your vacancies with a video or getting to know them via video interview?

Streamline your process

Gen Z candidates move very quickly and expect an offer within 2 weeks of their first interview. it’s important that your company is agile enough to recruit, analyse, and extend offers as quickly as possible. There are a lot of different ways you can work to streamline the recruiting process.  It might mean using a modern, high-quality applicant tracking system, psychometric testing, and video interviews. It also means making sure your HR department is fast to respond and make decisions. Remember; the longer it takes between an interview and a job offer – or an application and interview – the more likely it is for a candidate to look elsewhere. Cut down on time-to-hire and provide frequent updates throughout the hiring process to provide a positive candidate experience and keep the candidates engaged.

In Summary

Gen Z is highly individual. They will be very resistant to the idea that they can be hired for a role and then be moulded to fit that role. They are who they are, and they aren’t likely to change for a job they only figure will stick around for a year or two. They will want to pick a role that suits them or shapes their role to better fit who they are. Resisting that kind of matching will make it much, much harder to recruit and retain Gen Z candidates. Gen Z is the next big wave in young employees, and they bring with them a new paradigm in work and in recruiting. Now is the time to adapt to that paradigm.

Contact us to learn more about the challenges of the recruiting Gen Z and how we can help you prepare for the new generation.

You may have read the recent article by Forbes talking about the Great Resignation, where employees in the United States are fleeing the ship to pursue opportunities with other companies, taking the leap by going freelance or changing careers entirely now that they are coming out of lockdown.

Over 3.5 million US employees have been quitting their job month on month since January with resignations peaking in July at just shy of 4 million. The chart below was recently shared by Nick Bunker, an economist at Glassdoor who wrote on Twitter that openings had reached pre-pandemic levels across all major industry sectors.

The graph below shows the industries that are most affected in the US.

What’s Causing this Exodus?

Lockdown was (or still is depending on where you are in Australia) many things for people. It was a time of great struggle with 1 in 5 Australians reporting high levels of psychological distress and more fortunate people were able to get through lockdown fairly unscathed, perhaps picking up a few new hobbies along the way.

But for many, lockdown was a period of reflection and a time to evaluate career choices and consider a different path. This has resulted in many people deciding to change things up and make the move – once out of lockdown of course.

Why are People Leaving?

Looking at the data surrounding the Great Resignation in the US, the stats are fairly clear on the reasons employees are moving on and what they are looking for from their new employer.

38% would leave their job due to a lack of growth and 26% are leaving due to a lack of training and development opportunities. 56% want employers to offer more career development opportunities in 2022.

An it’s not just the currently employed. 90% of new talent also said when searching for a new job that it’s very important a company offers a strong training and upskilling program. This was even higher for tech-specific workers, where 97% of these employees echoed this notion.

Remote work is still in demand, it is not in the top three demands for workers in 2022. 35% of respondents said they want remote work options from their existing employers (tech workers were lower with 20%). This trailed other areas like health and wellness (61%), training and development (56%) and CSR efforts like diversity and sustainability. This could potentially be partly contributed to the fact that remote work still has its fair of challenges. 38% (and 60% of tech respondents) claimed they need better support from their employer with remote solutions, including reliable connectivity. 33% worry they’ll have fewer opportunities for training and reskilling, or that they’ll disappear completely with the rise remote work. Check out this report by amdocs for further info.

When is it Hitting Australia?

Our research has shown that Australia will most likely see similar month-on-month exoduses to the US. Predictions state that with lockdowns ending and vaccine targets being reached, Australia will likely be really feeling the effects at the beginning of 2022 and continue throughout the year.

However, many would argue that the phenomenon has already begun with 1 in 4 (25%) Australians job hunting according to a Gartner survey of more than 1,500 Australians. Hays’ 2021 salary guide puts this number even higher, with nearly 40% of Australians seeking a different job this financial year.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, Hays Australia managing director Nick Deligiannis stated; “There are signs that there could be a ‘Great Resignation’ in Australia soon, too. The pandemic has been a rude intrusion to many Australians’ career plans. They have put their career plans on hold to help their organisation through the crisis and recover. Now, they are focused on their career again and are prioritising advancement. But while career progression is valued, just 16% of employees expect to receive a promotion in the next 12 months.”

The reason for this shift is not just down to employees evaluating what they want from their career. The reasons behind this shift includes lack of promotion opportunities, followed by non-competitive salaries, and poor management style or even toxic workplace cultures. Our recent Employee Engagement Guide covers a number of these topics and how to manage them.

Many employees simply do not like how they have been treated by their employers during the pandemic. Whether this is the lack of support, building work pressures while tackling home schooling or that their employer failed to provide any career opportunities during lockdown.

What can you do to prepare?

One thing for sure is that the Great Resignation is coming our way. We can’t prevent it, but we can prepare and perhaps slow down the effects within our businesses.

Employee Engagement & Retention

In our recent Employee Engagement Guide, we breakdown the Employee Engagement drivers and understand what an employee is looking for and what an organisation should provide employees.

It’s important when we define employee engagement that we understand the drivers that make up an engaged employee and an employer that is ready to attract and retain engaged employees.

The drivers below have been split into Employee and Employer alignment.  The Employee drivers show what employees are looking for and the Employer drivers demonstrate what an employer should provide the employee. Culture sits in the middle, as all these drivers contribute to creating a positive culture.

Ensure you cover each of these to ensure you whether the Great Resignation, while attracting top talent. Download the eBook that this model appears in to learn more. 

Candidate Experience

With the Great Resignation creating so many vacancies and with so much talent available, your business may never be more exposed to so many candidates at once again. Now is the time to ensure your Candidate Experience (CX) is up to scratch.

This article from Workable shares some simple tips for improving candidate experience that you can implement now to ensure you put your best foot forward. These are:

• Make sure you’re hiring to fill a real need
• Write clear job descriptions
• Make it easy for candidates to apply to your jobs
• Follow-up early and often
• Communicate with (and thank) candidates during each step of the hiring process
• Give candidates information about what to expect at in-person interviews
• Give candidates your full attention at interviews
• Tell candidates if you’re no longer considering them, as soon as you can
• If you want to keep certain candidates in mind for future openings, keep track of them
• Be open to giving (and receiving) feedback

Our recent eBook; Discover How to Keep Candidates Happy and Engaged provides more insight into the tools and tactics you can use to boost candidate experience and attract the best talent.

In addition, for the candidates whose resumes you would like to keep on file for future opportunities, check out Livehire. There is no better way to provide a positive candidate experience to those candidates you wish to reengage with later than by following up on that promise and contacting them regarding upcoming roles.

Career Progression, Learning Opportunities and Upskilling will be Key

We mentioned this in our Engagement drivers but in this instance these 2 factors will make or break most employees’ decision to stay or go. It is crucial that you understand what your employees have been deliberating on during lockdown. Perhaps book a catch-up session, sort of like a lockdown debrief, to understand how their career goals have changed.

At the same time, it is important to give your staff freedom once back at work to make the right decision for them. Find out what they need, do your best to accommodate those needs and then let them make their decision.

Embrace the Hybrid Model

More than half of Australian working professionals would take a pay cut if it meant they could work from home 100% of the time. Many others simply want the option to work from home when they choose or on agreed days per week.

Our research has found that most employees prefer to work from home and 78% stated in a recent Capterra survey that they are more productive working from home. This is compounded in a survey conducted by Hays, that looked at 2500 working professionals and uncovered that 61% believed hybrid working was the most productive model.

On a recent edition of the HR Exchange podcast, former VP of Talent at LinkedIn Steve Cadigan noted that people are so used to working from home and having dinner with family every night that it is just going to be too difficult to go back to sitting in traffic to go into the office every day.

In addition, our customers tell us that candidates are requesting a hybrid model as part of their package, so if you aren’t willing to adopt it then you will lose talent to other companies that do.

In Summary 

The Great Resignation will not be all bad. A high volume of resignations means larger pools of talent will become available. It will be crucial that you have systems in place that attract the right people and provide the best Candidate Experience, so it will pay to be ready for the increased volume of candidates.

The great resignation is a great opportunity for organisations to get up to scratch with the market and launch streamlined processes that add great talent to your pipeline.

Contact us to learn more about the impact of the Great Resignation and how we can help you prepare.

We are excited to announce that our native integration with Vieple video interviewing is now live. The partnership combines Testgrid’s candidate profiling capability with the simplicity of Vieple’s video screening service and comes after a long relationship, where the technology has consistently reduced time to hire and increased the quality of clients for our customers.

Vieple is an award-winning one-way video interviewing solution that launched in 2012 and has been providing an excellent CX that simplifies the hiring process for businesses of all sizes. Rather than conduct multiple phone interviews that take an average of 30 minutes to complete, Vieple allows hiring managers to screen 10 candidates in that time by setting questions and allowing candidates to record their responses. Hiring managers can then scan the responses and advance the appropriate candidates.

Hiring managers can ask as few or as many questions as they require from candidates and have access to Vieple’s bank of competency, motivational and job fit questions. With the integration, video interviewing slots into our customers’ existing processes and once candidates are finished, you can view and rate their responses ensuring you choose the right person for the next stage.

The benefits that come with this integration and the performance statistics surrounding Vieple are staggering

• With Vieple you can conduct ten video interviews in the same amount of time as one phone interview (30minutes)
• 60% of HR managers use or have used video interviewing in the hiring process
• Video interviewing decreases time to hire by 80%
• Video screening improves candidate experience by 40%
• Video interviewing reduces recruitment costs by 60%
• Video interviewing increases the quality of hires by 47%

Testgrid is proud to be supporting Australian organisations during these troubling times and this integration will help us continue to grow our customers’ businesses and empower success through their people.

If you would like to learn how you can add Vieple to you process then simply contact us or email hello@testgrid.com.

We collaborate with world’s largest provider of online invigilation services

Testgrid is pleased to announce our partnership with ProctorU, a Meazure Learning company. ProctorU is a platform that provides a full suite of secure online proctoring and identity management solutions for companies, professional credentialing organisations, and academic institutions across the globe.

The partnership means that Testgrid can monitor your candidates as they sit their assessments to avoid fraudulent activity, such as candidates using a proxy or cheating.

“We are pleased to partner with Testgrid to help their clients safely and securely deliver employment assessments online”, said Carl Theobald, CEO of Meazure Learning. “Working together, we will bring the most secure online testing solution to the Australian market, providing individuals the opportunity to accelerate their careers from the safety and comfort of their own home.”

The integrated process between Testgrid and ProctorU is easy to set up and ensures a smooth candidate experience. Candidates simply sign up to complete their assessment as normal and their dedicated proctor will guide them through the process, providing maximum security to Testgrid’s customers.

The benefits of the partnership include:

• Verification of candidates
• Physical environment checks
• Cheating detection and prevention
• Live communication with the candidate
• Live proctoring
• Screen monitoring
• Customisable rules and procedures
• Guided candidate experience

ProctorU is the world’s most experienced provider of online invigilation services and adding this feature to Testgrid’s technology stack provides a higher level of service to their customers.

Our Managing Director, Gerard Ward said “We understand the challenges our customers are facing in not being able to hold in-person assessment centres for their volume hiring. This new service ensures the integrity of their processes, while enhancing the candidate experience. Testgrid’s assessments are often utilised in specialist roles or positions where security is paramount. This partnership allows these assessments to be carefully monitored, something that is particularly important during the pandemic, as so many organisations are being forced to hire remotely.”

If you would like to learn how you can set up proctoring for your business then simply contact us or email hello@testgrid.com or download the brochure below.

How Covid-19 affected graduates cognitive ability.

It is no surprise to learn that the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively affected people from all walks of life and left many feeling greater anxiety, financial worry, and loneliness. Stay-at-home orders have not only decimated our livelihoods, we are now also beginning to see to the lingering effects on our society.

In October 2020, shortly after the second Covid wave in Australia, rates of life satisfaction dropped sharply in Victoria, and rates of anxiety and worry significantly increased Australia-wide. Australians in the 18-24 age range experienced the largest increase in psychological distress. Mental health conditions have long been known to impact cognitive functioning, with depression and anxiety reducing the body’s ability to cope with day-to-day tasks, brain capacity is reduced and people struggle to function at their best (Lukasik et al., 2019; Shilyansky et al., 2016).

Research has found that the dominant emotion many have been experiencing throughout this pandemic is called Languishing. Known as the neglected middle child of mental health, it can completely dull motivation and focus. It’s not quite burnout, nor depression. It is a state of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.

Download our Graduate Recruitment Guide >>

Prolonged time in a socially impoverished environment is detrimental to key aspects of cognitive function. Recent research suggests that the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic led to worse performance in terms of cognitive functioning, including fluid intelligence, working memory, and cognitive control (Bogliacino et al., 2021).

Additionally, social isolation had a detrimental effect on cognitive abilities, such as executive functioning and memory (Bzdok & Dunbar, 2020). Adults experiencing cognitive decline show riskier decision-making in comparison to healthy controls (Smart & Krawitz, 2015); age-related decline in cognitive processing may lead to decision-making deficits as adults age (Beitz et al., 2014). Even relatively short-term social isolation—specifically, reduced social contact with those outside the household—has a negative impact on cognitive abilities/executive functions. 

Download our Graduate Recruitment Guide >>

This year, Our Psychology team identified a trend in the graduate recruitment space when several organisations attracted candidate pools with lower cognitive ability assessment scores than previous years. Consequently, we embarked on an investigation to determine if these appearances were backed by data by utilising TRIO Essentials to measure graduates’ cognitive ability and compared their psychometric assessment results pre and post-pandemic. So, with these feelings of ‘languishing’, and mental health difficulties persisting in 2021, is there a significant reduction in graduates’ cognitive capacity and psychometric test scores? If so, how can recruitment processes be optimised to suit this ‘new normal’?. To learn more about the study and how you can adjust your process to support graduates, download our Languishing Whitepaper here and stay one step ahead of the inevitable graduate recruitment changes ahead.

Download our Graduate Recruitment Guide >>

If there is one thing that we can be certain of, it’s that the recruitment landscape is constantly changing and evolving. The pandemic has forced organisations to face challenges they weren’t yet prepared to. We have analysed the emerging recruitment direction, and it is evident that technology will shape most of next year’s recruitment trends, just like it did this year. In an ever-evolving and tech-driven world, recruiters will inevitably rely on virtual support to successfully manage recruitment processes.

In an industry landscape that’s moving at breakneck speed, it’s easy to be anxious about technology and the role it will play in an uncertain future. These trends point to a future of work that’s tech-enabled and automated, but that also uplifts the human aspects of Human Resources. Download the complete guide to 21/22 Recruitment Trends here and stay one step ahead of the inevitable recruitment changes ahead.