Online Assessment Tool to support recruitment

A bespoke online values assessment is a unique way to capture more information about applicants prior to interview, which helps inform hiring decisions.

This tool has recently been used by a leading national health-care provider for use with domestic, house-keeping and catering staff in hospitals across the UK.

The Working Preferences Questionnaire (WPQ)

  • User-friendly, straight-forward and only takes about 10 mins to complete
  • Demonstrates a professional and considerate approach to recruitment
  • Designed to assess an applicants alignment to the organisation’s unique values
  • Provides a job preview via realistic role-based scenarios
  • Easily accessible and simple to understand to accommodate applicants for whom English is not their first language and/or may have limited experience using computer technology
  • A cost-effective method to assess high volumes of applicants at an early stage of assessment

Versatile use

The tool can be used to sift unsuitable applicants prior to interview; and/or provide personalised interview questions for the interviewer to explore an applicant’s values, behaviour and working preferences.

Design features

We complete job analysis interviews with roleholders and managers to develop each individual WPQ.

The tool is administered online, allowing paperless administration which is fast and easy for both applicant and hiring team.

Scoring is automatic, giving immediate and error-free results.

The WPQ is presented with a corporate welcome message to convey ethos and brand.

The Questionnaire

Applicants access the online questionnaire via a web link. The WPQ then invites applicants to review a number of role relevant statements and indicate which statements they agree or disagree with.

Each value area is examined a number of times by different statements, both positively and negatively worded.

There are 24 short statements. Each one details work related scenarios. The applicant evaluates their level of agreement to the actions described in the statement according to a 5 point scale. The questionnaire takes approximately 10 minutes, although there is no time limit. Full instructions are provided on the ‘home’ screen. The statements can be written to refer to one specific role or be more generic and relevant to a cluster of roles at a similar level.

The results

Once the applicant has completed the questionnaire, their results will automatically be calculated based on their responses.

Results are banded into ‘Red’ ‘Amber’ and ‘Green’ levels of performance (e.g. a red rating reflecting a poor score in relation to the organisational value criteria). Each rating per value generates a statement of explanatory feedback in a easy to view report format.

Interview questions

Red and amber ratings in any of the value areas automatically generate up to three additional interview questions (with supplementary or ‘probing’ questions for each main question). A green rating against any value indicates a satisfactory match between the applicant’s attitudes/ behaviours and values, and therefore doesn’t create any further interview questions.

“Better quality candidates result in improved performance, an increase in team cohesion and better retention”