In an interaction with ETHRWorld, Sujatha Kumaraswamy, CEO, MeritTrac Services, said, “The success of any organisation depends on the alignment of its people to the strategic goals of the firm, on agility and how quickly we can pivot and respond to dynamic market changes, technological advancements, and changing consumer behaviour. Ultimately, it’s the customer experience that determines the success of any product, service, or business.”
In the light of the pandemic and the subsequent emergence of work from home culture, organisations are increasingly interested to re-evaluate their current recruitment processes and identify areas of improvement to make their hiring models more robust and suited to the current working environment.
In an interaction with ETHRWorld, Sujatha Kumaraswamy, CEO, MeritTrac Services, said, “AI-based recruiting is finding inroads towards pre-screening candidates objectively and selecting the most meritocratic set of candidates for the final interview. These results can be relied upon to predict future behaviour and performance of each candidate.” Edited excerpts:
Please share your experience in incubating and running new businesses and functions in the Education, Assessment, IT Services, BPO and Financial Services industries. What are the key learnings?
Cross-functional exposure to handling teams as well as execution is extremely important for everyone. It helps build perspective where one can align their functions to the larger objectives of the organisation. Over the last two decades, I have had a hands-on and insightful experience in managing global, large-scale teams in new business development, strategy, P&L management, business operations and transformation, customer experience, governance, risk management and compliance. All of this has greatly shaped my understanding of leading a business in its entirety. The success of any organisation depends on the alignment of its people to the strategic goals of the firm, on agility and how quickly we can pivot and respond to dynamic market changes, technological advancements, and changing consumer behaviour. Ultimately, it’s the customer experience that determines the success of any product, service, or business.
Since you have experience in managing global, large-scale teams, how are you planning to use it while implementing your business goals as the new CEO of MeritTrac?
MeritTrac has served clients across corporate, institutional, and government sectors to assess and evaluate over 50 million candidates till date. The ability to manage and execute things at scale is very critical here due to the very nature of projects we deliver. Owing majorly to our international clientele, there are regular global benchmarking exercises that we carry out with our R&D arm to ensure that our platforms and assessment frameworks are aligned to globally accepted best-in-class methodologies. We ensure there is enough flexibility in the system for tailor-made solutions depending on the unique need of each client.
The end-to-end delivery of these high-stake projects entails a smooth functioning of a well-oiled machinery with all parts working efficiently as well as effectively. Our core strength continues to be in innovation through our platforms, our in-house content expertise and flawless execution, supported by an enthusiastic team to help our clients at every step. It is only then that we can provide our clients with the benefits of optimized time and cost of assessing, hiring and onboarding.
With the traditional hiring process staying at bay due to the pandemic, how is MeritTrac Services keeping its recruitment process relevant and effective?
Over the last few months, we have seen increasing interest from our clients to re-evaluate their current recruitment processes and identify areas of improvement to make their hiring models more robust and suited to the current working environment. The focus is on replicating the in-person hiring experience to an online environment while constantly evolving tools and assessment methodologies to ensure selection of the right hires.
We have redesigned solutions across the spectrum. Cognitive assessments help in determining the job-fit basis the skills required to perform the jobs effectively and maintain the desired productivity levels. The ease of administering these assessments is phenomenal with the ability to render on any mobile device. Behavioural assessments are highly customized as different roles demand a different set of skills and aptitude. We have evolved robust frameworks in this space that can be completely administered online and remotely.
Online psychometric tests are gaining importance in remote working. These help you get insight into the personality traits of the prospect and ensure a cultural fit in the organisation. Others like language communication assessments, including verbal ability, proficiency, listening, writing for workforce development, and our coding and speech assessments and other simulation assessments are used by clients extensively during recruitment, as well as to benchmark the employees to have an agile, updated and productive workforce.
What are scientific assessment tools and why is it essential for organisations to include the same in the hiring process? How do they help companies to hire and develop talent?
By leveraging validated and reliable psychometric frameworks, such as Big Five Personality, Holland’s Career Interest, Blake Mouton’s Managerial Grid and Herzberg’s Motivation Model, organisations gain an unbiased understanding of an individual’s behaviour and social skills. The high validity and reliability scores help to identify the right-fit candidates with high emotional quotient (EQ), the right work ethics, and the right attitude. As employees spend increasing time working remotely, it becomes imperative to measure productivity and fit with as much transparency as possible.
Remote hiring has mandated the use of technology to eliminate hiring biases with advanced tools and platforms. Skilling assessments – both quantitative and qualitative – provide highly objective reports and scores. By masking all irrelevant details, selection is largely based on the performance on the assessments. AI-based recruiting is finding inroads towards pre-screening candidates objectively and selecting the most meritocratic set of candidates for the final interview. These results can be relied upon to predict future behaviour and performance of each candidate.
There are a range of tools available today to monitor and measure employee progress and performance on a regular basis. Factoring behavioural assessment tests into the hiring process can help organisations better understand the temperament of a candidate through a series of scientifically designed questions and scenarios. MeritTrac’s suite of personality and behavioural assessment tests help organisations evaluate employees on various factors such as workplace thinking style, willingness to learn, leadership capabilities, generic personality, sales situational personality, and customer service orientation.
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