The Undercover Recruiter

How to Use Smarterer for Personal Branding

Online skills tests platform Smarterer describe themselves as a “simple, fun, and authentic way” for people “to show what they know”. Allowing users to take tests and assessments on a variety of subjects and skill areas, Smarterer score correct answers and rank the users. These scores can then be shared on their profiles and on social networks and other websites. It is an extremely useful tool for branding yourself throughout the internet, but it has to be done well or you will just be another profile on the website. Here is how to truly make the most of a brilliant personal branding opportunity.

Signing up and getting started

When signing up, users are given three options, to sign in using their Facebook account, LinkedIn account or Twitter account. For all three, the user needs to give Smarterer permission to post onto their account (ie onto the News Feed on Facebook and LinkedIn, and tweet via Twitter), for when users gain a great score in a test and want to share it with their friends. There is also the option to create an account with e-mail address and password, but if you want to link all your accounts together, using one of the other three options is easiest (it pulls all existing information from your account anyway, such as Name and Location, and saves the time spent filling it in manually).

Once signed up, you will have an ‘incomplete profile’, and Smarterer will give you options to increase your percentage of completion (I added my location, company name and website to reach 85%). This is an extremely important task to do – make sure that your profile is 100% complete. Input any necessary details, such as websites and location to make the most of using Smarterer the correct way, and so any recruiters who may stumble across your profile have all the necessary details about you right infront of them. It also gives your personal brand a more complete look, something which can work well with the test scores.

Tests – the basics

Smarterer revoles around tests. There are tests for every subject – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, social media, Foursquare – but you shouldn’t be completing every single test. It’s crucial to pick and choose the top 5 or 10 which you feel you could do really well in – your ‘specialities’ as such. Imagine it as similar to a ‘Skills & Expertise’ section on LinkedIn or a CV.

Each test holds a number of questions, each with a difficulty rating - VE (Very Easy) / E (Easy) / M (Moderate) / H (Hard) / VH (Very Hard). Each rating holds a score, and when a user correctly answers a question that score is added to their total for that test. An incorrect answer will take away those points from the total, however users can save their score by leaving the test at any point.

Once you’ve reached a certain score, you are upgraded to a new level of expertise. It doesn’t take many questions to be upgraded - on the Facebook test, it took me 2 correct answer to reach the ‘Familiar’ level, 3 to reach ‘Proficient’ and it wasn’t long before I was ‘Expert’. I am now a ‘Master’ of Facebook, and Smarterer describes this as “You’re top tier! Only 2.5% of Smarterer users earn the Master level, and you’re one of them.” Be careful though – too many incorrect answers and you can be downgraded a level!

Pick your tests wisely

It is crucial to pick and choose your tests wisely. Don’t complete every test to the ‘Expert’ and ‘Master’ levels because others will think you’re showing off or had help with the answers. Pick tests that will correlate with past jobs or future job opportunities you may want – don’t complete all the social network tests to Master level if you’re looking for a high position office job.

Smarterer have a very useful tool where users can select which test results are viewable on their profiles. When deciding which results to make public, ensure there are a range of tests and skills shown on your profile. Don’t show every single result, but have a few basic skills in the ‘Proficient’ section, and one or two in the ‘Familiar’ section. You will want a recruiter to look at your profile and see a wide range of skills at different levels – no-one will be perfect at everything, and some people will have a good enough level in the necessary skill sets. Additionally, make sure there is one or two speciality skills that other may not have or may not be good in. For example, if you’re a great recruiter, reach ‘Expert’ level in the ‘Recruitment’ test and put that on your profile!

There is a final option of promoting your scores – on your blog or website using the Smarterer box or on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The possibilites are endless – these tests are recognised as a fair way of showing your skills – why not use the results?

Conclusions

Smarterer is still in the beta process – but it is a brilliant resource for personal branding!
Make sure your profile is complete – even write a bio to gain it 100% completion. Add any necessary location information or websites which may help recruiters find you.
Pick your tests wisely – don’t complete all the tests which show you spend too much time on Facebook or Twitter and nothing else.
Have a range of tests and skill levels – have a few test scores at lower levels, and a few at ‘Expert’ – you don’t want to be showing off, but you want to use your variety well.
Share your profile, put your skills on your CV, and invite friends via Facebook and Twitter.

I really enjoyed testing out Smarterer and think it is a fantastic idea and website. Have you given it a go? What’s your best score and in which subject?

Laurence Hebberd

Laurence Hebberd is Community Manager for Link Humans in London. He also runs the Link Humans Twitter feed - @LinkHumans.

Filed Under: Career Management, Personal Branding Tagged With: Facebook, LinkedIn, Smarterer, Test, tests, Twitter

How To Use Emotional Intelligence in Recruitment

emotional intelligence eq in recruitment

At a recent conference, I attended a session led by Rob Gee, a leading management consultant who specialises in leadership, motivation, internal structures and training programmes. He is passionate about business psychology, and specifically how our understanding of it can help us develop individually in the work place – on a personal basis and a company level.

One of the key areas he explored was emotional intelligence, what we understand by this term and specifically how we can implement our knowledge of it in the workplace.

Emotional intelligence – a definition

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Much in line with the nature vs. nurture debate, some researchers suggest that it can be learnt and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic.

Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading experts on emotional intelligence since 1990. In their influential article “Emotional Intelligence,” they defined emotional intelligence as, “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (1990).

How can we use this to improve our recruitment processes?

As recruiters, we know that successfully landing a job is not purely based upon a candidate’s qualifications or IQ score. In addition to experience, what employers want is the right personality type, who will be able to fit comfortably in with the team.

When we interview candidates, we go through a number of active thought processes. Without realising it, we are measuring their responses, mannerisms and how well they put themselves across. What we are really doing is assessing their emotional intelligence. It’s that quality, honesty and ability to build rapport that is so often the key to them standing out from the other applicants – and this is the type of employee who ultimately helps the client to improve their staff retention and keep costs down.

What’s important is how we implement our understanding of emotional intelligence to improve how we increase the quality of our hires; whether we are looking for a new graduate recruitment consultant or we are sourcing the perfect candidate.

Get the description right

Firstly, when taking down a job description, focusing on the core behaviours is a vital element to sourcing the best person for the job. When discussing the requirements of a vacancy from a client, think about what qualities they are looking for in an employee.

A bad job description will describe only specific qualifications required, and the responsibilities of the role. Whilst these might imply the core behaviours the candidate needs to demonstrate in interview, a much better specification touches on the person’s softer skills – a more successful specification might include:

Adaptable
Able to influence key stakeholders
Strong communication
Able to negotiate
Problem-solving
Articulate
Team player
Self-motivated

An important part of any job description is an insight into the company culture – does the organisation have a strong social side? Is it a competitive environment? All these unique elements will suit different sets of emotional behaviours – and as the recruiter it is up to you to match the right type of personality to the organisation, as well as taking their experience into consideration. This approach will result in successful placements and promote stronger relationships with your clients.

Psychometric testing

To further test a person’s emotional intelligence, psychometric testing (such as the Thomas International Personal Profile Analysis, or PPA) is becoming more and more common amongst recruiters and employers as a means to understanding the applicant’s personality traits. To offer this service to your clients shows your commitment as a recruiter to fully profiling candidates and finding the right person for the job.

In a sales-based business, such as recruitment, you can also undertake this testing to assist your internal employment drive – identifying the individuals most suited to this type of profession, what motivates them and how well they cope under pressure. In an industry which typically has a high staff turnover, retaining the top talent has to be a priority in order for you to differentiate from your competitors.

Trust your instinct…

In the interview stage, you are likely to gauge how emotionally intelligent someone is by their body language and how they articulate themselves. Don’t underestimate your gut feeling – if someone is saying all the right things, but for some reason you doubt their integrity or their confidence in themselves, it is worth thinking about whether they will give the same impression to the hiring manager. A wise move is to take an extra reference here, that clearly attests to their character in the workplace.

Melissa Mead is a Marketing Assistant at Sellick Partnership, a specialist legal and financial recruitment agency, and is based in the Manchester office. The agency also has offices in Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Derby and Stoke.

photo by: Victor1558

Guest Blogger

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Filed Under: Hiring, Psychology, Recruitment Tagged With: emotional intellgence, eq, Psychology, Recruiter, recruitment, screening, Test

How Do You Know if the Job is Worth Applying For?

Making a job application is a time consuming activity these days. To stand out in this employers market when there’s lots of competition requires research, time and commitment. So deciding whether to apply for a role is a serious consideration. Usually people looking for a promotion or a new role examine the person specifications and consider whether they meet it. But it is hard to tell and really hard to know if you meet it well enough for it to be worth the effort of applying. Often coachees will ask me: should I apply for this? Others will come with a vacancy and go: I am going to apply for this, what do you think?

Being realistic about your own prospects of success is quite difficult. People who are out of work may consider that they have nothing to lose in casting their net widely and having a punt. (This rather ignores the depression that can set in with the law of diminishing returns) So if they fancy the role they will have a go. When I’m coaching people my work is to support them and not to pour cold water on their ambition: although there will be times when I do counsel and more focussed or targeted approach.

So I was really interested to read about the Kruger-Dunning effect, in 1999 they hypothesized that the more people know the less confident they are , whereas the less people know the more they overestimate their abilities.

For a given skill, incompetent people will:

tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve.

Having gone on studying this cognitive bias they have deduced (2008) that poor performers do not learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve. They lack the skill and experience to enable them to know what they don’t know.

The caveat of this is that they were testing humour, grammar and logic rather than the ability to solve complex problems or lead organisations. But it is an interesting principle: we don’t know what we don’t know.

So how can people make sensible decisions about whether to apply for a role?

There is a lot of subjective judgement about your own abilities, but you can reduce your margin of error. What is that Dunning and Kruger say: you can’t know what you don’t know, and the people who over-estimate their abilities don’t listen to feedback. So get on with your research, find out what this job is really about, what skills it really needs and then ask yourself the following questions.

Look at the objective criteria: do I have the right qualifications, right experience? Go back to the advert. Person specifications may be corporate and fairly generic but the advert will have been briefed by the line manager and focus on the absolute key things required. The advert can help you identify the deal breaker criteria.
Look at the person specification and ask yourself ‘if I were recruiting for this role what would my ideal candidate be doing now?’ Does this describe you?
Ask ‘if I were recruiting for this role and could not have my ideal candidate, which of these criteria would I be willing to give up?’
Given that you now know what the ideal person looks like and what they are doing now, does such a person exist? Are there lots of them? What have I got that would be really useful that this ideal person may not have?
Ask if you are 80% of the way there towards meeting this specification? If the answer to that is yes then it may be worth the punt…This is where the real subjectivity kicks in: but pay attention to the numbers in the job description and the significance of the experience they are asking for. If it is a fundraising job, running a Race for Life may not be want they want… yes you worked hard but just how much will they be expecting you to raise? that will give you some clues.
Treat the writing of the application as a test. If it flows easily and you are finding that you have the right examples and it is easy to feel confident then you are probably in the right area. If you are struggling and not sure that your examples are of the same depth and breadth as the tasks in the job… then that struggle is an indication to you.

If the job is being handled by one of the reputable search firms then talk to the consultant, they should be able to give you a steer about what the employer is really looking for and what experience and skills they are really interested in. But wait until you have done some research and are in a position to talk to the consultant from a position of knowing how well you match the role. Similarly talk to the line manager if that is on offer, but be prepared to listen more than talk. The line manager or consultant will ask if they want to know more about you. In general do not treat this as a first interview if it is a public sector job: the preliminary screening takes place once you’ve applied.

When people ask me whether they should apply for a role I get them to work out the answer for themselves. Sometimes I need to encourage people.. the overly cautious will worry that they are not a full match and that there will always be someone better and more suitable than them. They need some encouragement. At the end of the day those recruiting will tell you whether you are suitable but if you don’t go to the party you can’t win the prize.

So find out what you don’t know about the job and then find out what you know and what you don’t know about yourself. Bear in mind the Dunning and Kruger research and come to a balanced view of yourself and your fit. Oh, and say a prayer because some luck will always help speed your application.

photo by: Jerry Bunkers

Mary Hope

Mary Hope is the founder of Mary Hope Career Success, she works with executives and managers to support them get paid more, promoted faster and feel more satisfied. She has 30 years experience of HR, training and headhunting both private and public sectors, is a published author and career coach. Follow Mary on Twitter @maryhopecareers

Filed Under: Career Management, Job Search, Psychology Tagged With: Apply, Applying, Study, Test