One did it with a new acquisition.
MindX, a game-based assessments company based in London, has been acquired by HireVue, best known as one of the oldest video interviewing solutions. The announcement was made last week.
“The MindX game-based assessments are a perfect complement to HireVue’s video-based pre-hire assessments solution, as they add the ability to measure fluid IQ, reasoning, and problem-solving to the ability of HireVue Assessments to evaluate job-specific knowledge, communication and social intelligence,” commented Kevin Parker, chairman and CEO at HireVue. “We’re excited to deliver even more robust and validated tools to our customers worldwide so they can discover, hire and grow more of the best talent, faster in today’s competitive hiring market.”
MindX takes elements of psychometrics, big data, and machine learning to measure cognitive abilities and traits, which it believes are the best predictors of job performance. The company’s scoring system uses machine learning algorithms to provide insights into a candidate’s ability to solve problems, designed to help employers identify high-potential employees. The marriage promises to deliver MindX’s capability to incorporate game-based assessments into HireVue’s candidate screening processes.
“The MindX team has been working rigorously to enable companies to hire the best talent for the job using cognitive science in combination with technology,” said Clemens Aichholzer, founder and CEO at MindX. “We’re thrilled to be teaming up with HireVue at a time of rapid global expansion. HireVue and MindX share a common vision of using sound science and a data-driven approach to ensure that both recruiting and career development are fairer, more effective, and more engaging for candidates and companies alike.”
The other is is doing it with an old acquisition.
Meet Indeed Assessments, a platform from Indeed that promises to help employers automate the screening process so they can make “faster, more informed candidate evaluations.” This news is a result of Indeed’s acquisition of Interviewed in 2017 and allows employers to screen candidates for skills specifically related to their open jobs rather than relying on just a resume. Indeed Assessments also promises to reduce bias in the hiring process.
“Resumes are not enough — they offer just one dimension of a candidate’s experience and are time consuming for hiring managers and recruiters to sift through,” said Raj Mukherjee, SVP of product at Indeed. “Assessments also helps to democratize hiring by giving job seekers an equal opportunity to showcase their qualifications when applying for jobs, so that they are able to find the right opportunities faster and easier.”
It lets employers screen candidates for skills related to a variety of roles and industries, including technology, sales, and customer service. The assessments have been designed by psychologists and can be added to an employer’s Indeed job posting or sent directly to candidates.
Employers can choose from over 50 pre-built assessments or can custom-build their own to fit their individual hiring needs. Assessments is currently available to U.S. employers to use for free in 2018 and can also be integrated with a number of applicant tracking systems, such as Jobvite, Taleo, and Greenhouse.
Both companies provide press releases complete with buzzwords like AI and automation. However, both solutions feel like tiptoeing. Unlike the stuff Google is dropping recently, these announcements are akin to peashooters in comparison. That said, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. The employment process is historically allergic to progress, and these inch-by-inch enhancements might be just what the industry ordered. I think Indeed’s solution is particularly impactful in the SMB market.
