Predictive Talent Assessment

Spark Hire's Predictive Talent Assessment FAQs

• How does Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment software work?

  Here’s how Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment works:

  1. Choose a profile that aligns with the role you’re assessing candidates. Each profile is mapped to specific competencies needed for someone to be successful in that position.
  2. Invite your candidates to complete the predictive talent assessment questions.
  3. Candidates will answer multiple-choice questions from any device in under 20 minutes.
  4. Reports about each candidate are generated and delivered to you within Spark Hire.

  The reports will provide key insights, allowing you to make objective, data-driven decisions about which candidates should advance in your hiring process.

• Can you customize predictive talent assessments for specific roles or industries?

  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment can be customized, allowing you to create job profiles based on the specific behaviors and skills needed for success in each role. Profiles are job-specific, not industry-specific.

  We currently offer 40+ predefined job profiles to help you get started and can provide competency mapping to create new profiles specific to your open roles, ensuring the assessment matches the exact characteristics that predict success for your role.

  A this time, there is no cost for us to perform a standard competency mapping for you, but it is based on Spark Hire’s capacity. In the future, we aim to deliver a solution via the platform to perform competency mapping and/or offer professional services.

• What reports and analytics are currently available with Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment?

  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment offers three reports to give you a comprehensive view of a candidate’s potential, namely:

  • Hiring Report (to help you hire): Available in 2 languages, the Hiring Report gives an overview of a candidate’s overall fit for the role based on key competencies, benchmarks, and predicted job performance. This report helps hiring teams quickly identify top-qualified candidates and supports a more data-driven selection process.
  • Coaching Report (to help you develop): Available in 2 languages, the Coaching Report is designed to support a new hire’s onboarding and development. It provides detailed information on the person’s strengths, areas for improvement, and tailored coaching recommendations. This report helps managers create personalized development plans from day one, ensuring the new hire gets the support they need to succeed and grow in their role.
  • Individual Report (Optionally, to share with candidates): Available in over 20 languages, the Individual Report is not role-specific and focuses on the candidate’s motivations and behaviors/habits, providing insight into how they would typically approach common work situations. The report can be shared directly with the candidate, providing transparency in the hiring process.

   

  Data projected for 2025: Additional analytics features will be introduced in 2025, offering deeper insights into the talent assessment funnel, such as candidate conversion rates and drop-offs as well as tracking capabilities that will provide valuable data to optimize hiring strategies and monitor assessment outcomes.

• What does all of the information in Spark Hire’s Reports mean?

  Fit for Role: A numerical percentile score reflecting the candidate’s alignment with key competencies, based on benchmarked “Predictive Profile” scores. Results will show one of the following options:

  • Not a natural fit
  • Possible fit
  • Good fit

  Each Fit for Role competency measured under the predictive profile will have one of the following values:

  • Not a Natural Strength
  • Area for Development
  • Emerging Strength
  • Clear Strength

  Workplace Motivation: This percentile score reflects a candidate’s alignment with three motivations — Advocate, Belong, and Contribute — helping to identify candidates likely to positively represent, connect with, and contribute to the organization’s success. Results will show one of the following:

  • High
  • Moderate
  • Low

  Again, the workplace motivation competencies (or predictive competencies) result will show one of the following:

  • Not a Natural Strength
  • Area for Development
  • Emerging Strength
  • Clear Strength

  When you see a percentile in the report, this is how the candidate compares to our benchmark data.

• What research has been done to validate Spark Hire's Predictive Talent Assessment?

  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment is based on 50+ years of research and has been validated through 400+ studies to ensure it will always provide accurate, reliable results. Using the IPIP and the 5-Factor Model, our assessment has been rigorously tested to correlate with job success metrics such as performance, retention, and engagement.

  So, what is the IPIP? The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) is a collection of public-domain personality tests and an incredibly useful resource for researchers to develop advanced personality measures.

  What is the 5-Factor Model? The 5-Factor Model of Personality, also known as the Big Five, is a widely accepted framework for understanding human personality, providing a comprehensive view of individual personality differences.

• How is Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment different from other assessments?

  Our Predictive Talent Assessment stands out for a few core reasons:

  • Job-specific: An objective assessment based on the top competencies needed for a certain role
  • Not time-based: Candidates can start, pause, and finish at any time which provides a less stressful experience and enables them to put proper thought into each question
  • Easy to understand reports: There’s no additional training needed to interpret our reports so you’re able to derive fast and actionable feedback

  These key differentiators with Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment ensure you run a faster and more accurate hiring process while ensuring a positive candidate experience.

  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment vs. Personality Tests
  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment focuses on measuring behavioral competencies and the potential for job performance, rather than personality traits. It evaluates specific behaviors that are predictive of success in a particular job role, such as strategic thinking, and the ability to build relationships.

  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment vs. Cognitive or IQ Tests
  While cognitive assessments can effectively identify individuals with strong intellectual abilities, they have limitations. They do not account for non-cognitive factors such as emotional intelligence, creativity, interpersonal skills, and cultural fit which are also crucial for job success. Additionally, over-reliance on cognitive scores can inadvertently disadvantage candidates from diverse backgrounds who may have different learning styles or educational experiences.

  Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment vs. Skill Tests
  Skill tests are beneficial for understanding if a candidate has the hard skills required to do the job. In some cases, we recommend using the Predictive Talent Assessment along with a skill test, but if you’re deciding when to use one vs. the other, ask yourself, “Are interpersonal behaviors more important as a qualifying factor than a specific skill as required to be successful in the role?”

• What are the key benefits and ROI that Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment drives?

  An independent study done by Aberdeen Group & CSO Insights found that organizations using Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment achieved:

  • 46% faster time-to-hire: Speed up decision-making using data-driven insights which help you prioritize candidates, remove subjectivity, and reduce the need for additional stakeholder interviews.
  • 23% boost in team productivity: By assessing candidates on the competencies that are important to the job, you’ll hire people who are better equipped to excel from day one, boosting overall team productivity by 23% compared to teams that did not use Spark Hire’s talent assessment.
  • 20% boost in revenue: Predicting organizational fit means you’re hiring candidates who not only perform well but also stay longer. This reduces costly turnover and ensures a more stable workforce.

• How does the candidate experience work?

  Candidates receive a branded email with a link to complete the assessment. Before starting the assessment, they’ll be provided with simple and clear instructions. Upon proceeding, they’ll answer a series of multiple-choice questions which should take under 20 minutes to complete.

  Here are some key things to note:

  • The assessment can be taken from any device.
  • Candidates can stop in the middle of the assessment and pick up where they left off.
  • All assessments have a deadline, which you set, so candidates must complete it before the specified timeline.
  • Candidates will receive automated reminders about their assessment deadline.

  With Spark Hire, Candidates have 24/7 support, meaning our support team is available at all hours to assist with technical issues, making the assessment experience smooth and accessible. Candidates are also provided with clear instructions in our help center to complete the assessment confidently.

• How does Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment technology comply with applicable data privacy and protection laws and regulations?

  Spark Hire complies with the GDPR and other applicable data privacy and online protection laws and regulations. The company’s organizational and technical controls for information security are validated as part of an annual SOC 2 audit.

• How does Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment ensure fairness and eliminate potential cheating?

  Adverse impact occurs when an assessment disproportionately affects certain groups. When creating predictive profiles, Spark Hire prioritizes minimizing adverse impact and focuses on making sure the assessments are fair and don’t favor one group over another.

  For this, Spark Hire conducts an adverse impact analysis to check for any potential bias. 

  Specifically, we use the 4/5 rule, which means that the selection rate for any group must be at least 80% of the highest rate. If a profile shows an adverse impact, we adjust the assessment to make it fairer or conduct a validity study to demonstrate that the assessment profile is predicting job-relevant performance.

  Further, the content of the questions is not overtly related to the competencies they measure, it is difficult, if not impossible, to know how to manipulate the results. The scoring algorithm performs a check on the response pattern to determine if the test-taker is answering questions in a socially desirable manner.

• How do I start using the Predictive Talent Assessment within Spark Hire?

  If you are already a customer and have the talent assessment included in your plan, you can start inviting candidates immediately.

  If you don’t have the predictive talent assessment included in your plan or are not yet a Spark Hire customer, please contact us so we can discuss your options.

• What does onboarding, training, and implementation look like for the Predictive Talent Assessment?

  Getting started is quick and easy.

  As a new customer, your dedicated Onboarding Specialist will take you through a 30-day implementation including multiple training sessions to ensure your strategy with the talent assessment is aligned with best practices.

  From a functional standpoint, you can start inviting candidates to complete the predictive talent assessment based on one of our existing profiles the same day that you sign up.

  There’s very little setup necessary from you or your team. Rather, the majority of your time during implementation will simply be spent figuring out how you’re going to integrate Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment into your hiring process, which we will help you with.

  As an existing customer starting to use the Predictive Talent Assessment for the first time, your Customer Success Manager can do a training session to help you think through how this will fit into your strategy. However, using Spark Hire’s Predictive Talent Assessment is quite simple and mirrors a lot of the same workflows you’re already used to as a video interview customer.

• Is there a free trial for the Predictive Talent Assessment?

  We do not offer a free trial for new customers, but our talent assessment technology is available on the monthly version of our Growth plan, which enables you to try it out without making a long-term commitment. 

• Why should I upgrade my existing plan to include the Predictive Talent Assessment?

  The Predictive Talent Assessment is available on Spark Hire’s Growth and Enterprise plans.

  Upgrading to the Growth plan not only provides you with the Predictive Talent Assessment, but you also gain access to other valuable features such as:

  • Custom scorecards
  • Advanced questionnaire
  • Higher allocation of automated reference checks

• How does this work in Spark Hire’s Applicant Tracking System, Recruit?

  We estimate that our Predictive Talent Assessment will be fully integrated into our Applicant Tracking System in early 2025.

  The workflow will be very similar to using one-way video interviews from within the ATS with the main difference being that instead of associating a question set with a one-way interview step in the hiring workflow, you’ll associate a profile with a talent assessment step in the workflow.

  When the Predictive Talent Assessment is completed by your candidate, you’ll have one-click access to the report and a hiring team member will be prompted to decide as to whether or not the candidate will be advanced to the next step.

Interested in learning more?