How does matching in technology work?

Matching technology works by evaluating candidates across multiple competencies using a variety of assessments. The assessments are designed to target skills you’ve identified as being predictive of success in your company and the position you’re hiring for. The results of individual assessments are generally aggregated and tallied to create a single final number ranging up to 100. During hiring, you can use this number to quickly identify which candidates are qualified for the job and which lack skills crucial to the position.

Read more: 5 Steps to Connecting with High-Quality Candidates on Indeed

6 Benefits of using technology matching in recruitment

There are many benefits of using technology matching in recruitment. Below, we’ve outlined six primary benefits in detail.

1. Faster candidate screening

When using job matching technology, gone are the days of tedious manual screening of each candidate. Instead, you can skip that part and begin scheduling interviews based on which candidates scored highest on your chosen competencies. This can be especially beneficial for companies that usually receive hundreds of applications for a given position.

2. Better pre-employment evaluations

Anyone can say they’re adept at a specific skill or program, but job matching allows you to double-check these self-reported qualifications. When using matching technology, you also don’t have to rely on education or experience to determine the best option.

For example, you may need to hire a bilingual customer service representative for your company. You can conduct assessments that test people’s second language fluency, customer service skills and proficiency in the programs used at your company. After the evaluations, you may find that only ten applicants out of 50 are actually as skilled in these three areas as they claimed to be on their resume.

3. Could lead to hiring better performers

Job matching technology can help predict the applicants that will perform well within a specific position. Although it’s never guaranteed that possessing certain skills means a person will also be a diligent worker, it does potentially increase the chances of hiring better performers. When someone is well matched to their job, they generally tend to be more productive.

4. Leads to stronger, more consistent hiring decisions

Using the same assessments for all applicants means hiring decisions may be more consistent. You can also feel more confident choosing your final candidate when you know they possess vital skills or qualities. Pairing job-matching technology with a standardized interview process can lead to even stronger, more consistent hiring decisions.

5. Reduces bias in the recruitment and hiring processes

Since you’re choosing candidates to interview based solely on their proficiencies, you reduce the risk of intentional or unintentional biases that may exist in many companies’ current hiring processes. For example, some people may automatically shy away from a resume with less experience or a less prestigious college education. Yet these candidates may be equally skilled (or even more so) as their colleagues who went to better schools.

A secondary way that bias is reduced using job matching is that it eliminates the ability to pick candidates solely on how well you and them “clicked.” This has been a practice used for a long time to assess whether a candidate was a good “culture fit.” However, modern hiring managers are finding this is an outdated process and are turning to find people who are a “culture add.” If your company has begun to shift its hiring practices to look for culture add versus fit, job matching can assist in these efforts, too.

6. It’s easier and faster

Simply put, incorporating job-matching technology into your recruitment and hiring processes makes everything easier and faster. Matching technology allows you to save time, reduce tedious tasks and quickly identify qualified candidates.

How can you make the most out of job-matching technology?

To help your recruitment process become the most efficient, you’ll want to follow a few best practices when using job-matching technology. These include:

• Pick a number: There’s a good chance you’ll have several high-scoring candidates for a given position. Scores within a few numbers of each other may not necessarily indicate a given candidate is better than another, so it can be challenging to decide which to interview and which to politely decline. In this situation, the best option is to pick a number of high-scoring candidates to interview. For example, you may choose to interview the top 20 or 30 highest-scoring candidates.
• Set a timeframe: Job matching technology helps significantly reduce the time between posting a position and making a hire. However, allowing a job to sit open for too long can lead to setbacks. You can solve this by setting a timeframe to continue accepting applications, such as one month. After that period, you can pull your job posting and begin scheduling interviews based on assessment results so your hiring process doesn’t suffer any unintentional bottlenecks.
• Conduct a thorough job analysis: Before setting your assessments, you’ll need to conduct a comprehensive job analysis of what qualities or skills are indicative of success in the position (or your company). Generally, a job analysis is done through interviews with high-performing employees and job shadowing . To be most efficient, you’ll want to conduct interviews of high-performing employees from various groups of people and thinking.
• Include performance data and current success benchmarks: When determining the correct assessments, consider pairing your job analysis with the current success benchmarks and performance data used for existing employees. Ask yourself what tasks are frequently done in this role and how you determine whether current employees have been successful in these efforts. Also, consider what skills or abilities facilitate the successful completion of those frequent tasks.

Matching technology in recruitment helps streamline your recruitment process by reducing the time you spend manually scanning resumes. It also increases recruitment efficiency by identifying candidates with high chances of success in the positions you need to fill.

Frequently asked questions about matching technology in recruitment

Is job-matching technology a type of artificial intelligence (AI)?

Job matching technology is a type of AI that requires human input to function. During this process, you must input parameters identifying the most important skills or qualities in the role. Then, the candidate may take assessments geared toward those skills and qualities. Finally, artificial intelligence scores the assessments and aggregates all the scores to create a single score. Other matching technologies, like Indeed’s matched candidates, use factors like your job description and candidate rating feedback to present you with candidates who could be a fit for your role.

Are there any downsides to using technology for matching in recruitment?

If you identify the wrong skills, matching technology may not be as efficient as possible. Additionally, failing to highlight a range of appropriate skills for a position can lead to unintentional biases in your recruitment efforts.