How's that hire working out?

The decisions HR departments and hiring managers make are key in determining the success of a company. They're also not easy.

• A mis-hire doesn't just fail to take the company forwards — they wrench it backward and consume valuable resources.
• Even with a rigorous traditional interview process, you often don't get a true understanding of who a candidate is until months after the decision.
• Candidates tell you what they think you want to hear — not what you want to know.

You can often get a good grasp of and verify a candidate's hard skills. But companies often don't know how a candidate's soft skills fit with their team until much later — and soft skills make all the difference.

How can you reduce mis-hires and identify more reliable high-performers?

46%

of hires are considered failed by the 18 month mark

89%

of the cited reasons? Soft skills.

Impression Management

"the psychological term for the mental effort we put towards trying to impress by filtering, adjusting and exaggerating the things we say and do"

The Soft Skills Problem

You've seen the resumes. You've conducted the interviews. Everyone says they're a great communicator. A problem-solver. A team-player. But you've seen (or heard) about how that plays out in the workplace. Because with every candidate, you're contending with impression management.

• Well-rehearsed interview anecdotes can sound good, but are they representative of actual day-to-day behavior?
• Personality tests might appear to bring some rigor to the process, but you rely on self-reported answers to transparent questions.
• You risk losing track of an actual perfect hire by them fading into the noise of an ineffective hiring process 

AlignVR's Recruitment process Revolution

This is where our advanced virtual reality HR tool comes in.

​We've developed a series of virtual reality challenges, tasks, and tests that suppress the conscious and subconscious tendency for candidates to engage in impression management — allowing HR departments and hiring managers a unique, unfiltered peek inside candidates' actual personalities.

Verification

• Observe how the resume claims align with actions
• See how people interact in real-time, unfiltered
• Confirm key behaviors without impression management

Evaluation

• Identify where the soft skill gaps lie
• Compare how different candidates work together to solve problems
• Spot undesired traits at the interview stage

 Insight

• Understand a candidate's true strengths and weaknesses
• Peek through to their authentic personality
• Make better decisions based on real data

The Reinvented Interview Scenario for HR Departments

With the AlignVR hiring tool, groups of four candidates put on a VR headset. While HR staff observe, they walk around a virtual environment and interact with objects using two handheld controllers.

The scenarios are unlike anything they will be familiar with — which along with the technology, creates an immersive experience that encourages them to focus on the tasks they see.

​Cut off from the interview environment, this cognitive load suppresses that layer of impression management and their true soft skills emerge.

And it's not just Recruitment...

You can also put this technology to use with team building and coaching sessions for your existing staff. Foster better and more productive relationships by exploring how they worked together on unexpected and novel challenges!

Candidate Claims Put to the Test

This is just a sample of the kinds of claims you can watch for during an AlignVR session:

"Strong communication skills"

Did they talk through the problem with others? Did they keep information to themselves? Did they communicate what they were doing? How often did they speak?

"Team player"

Did they contribute to the solution? Did they collaborate or hamper progress? Were others comfortable working with them?

"Adaptability"

How well did they solve problems? Did they try different approaches or fail to adapt? Did they experiment, or sit back and watch?

"Creative problem solver"

Did they successfully work with the rules of the scenario? Were they curious about the environment? Did they take to the challenge or did they get distracted?

"Self-starter"

Did the candidate take the initiative or wait for direction? Did they work to gather and share information? How much did they accomplish, and did they clash with others?

Make the most informed hiring decision

Follow up on your observations in a post-session interview. You've seen their soft skills in action — with this new context, you're better positioned to ask the right questions

Who are the natural leaders? The competitors? Who butted heads? Who took direction well? Who contributed — and who didn't?

Hiring managers are surprised by the amazing wealth of information produced by AlignVR's sessions. You'll see behaviors that might otherwise take months to identify right there in front of you.

And on top of all this? The response to the VR sessions from candidates is overwhelmingly positive. They report being more interested in the company than they were before the VR session, with the experience standing out in their job search.

Build better teams. Make better hires.

With AlignVR, your HR department gets in step with the latest in recruitment technology — and finally gets a clear picture of the soft skills you need to hire for.

You find more incredible, high-performing team members — and identify more mis-hires before they become a problem. You've left the long-broken unreliable tests and techniques of the past behind and taken a bold step into a better future.

Contact us today. Let's talk about how we can get you set up with the latest in recruitment innovation.