Designing Digitally
08/11/2017
Wouldn’t it be nice to see a prospective employee in action before deciding to hire them? Seeing them perform tasks that they would be expected to carry out in the course of their jobs could provide employers with a lot of insight.
A business is only as strong as the employees by whom it is represented. There are times when a proposed employee presents themselves well in an interview but their actual day-to-day work is less than stellar. Elearning simulations have the capability to prevent a large number of these hiring mistakes by allowing employers to observe prospective hires in an actual situation.
Elearning simulations have the power to change the face of recruiting new employees. The weight is far too significant to be ignored:
The impact on cost. Businesses have to be concerned about their bottom lines. It is estimated that a hire that doesn’t work out costs the business five times the prospect’s annual salary. Why does it have such a big impact? Revenue is lost in the form of productivity and time spent supervising employees who aren’t performing up to the necessary standard, just to name a couple.
No-risk assessment. It’s not a great idea to have employees honing their skills on actual customers. Simulations allow a person to go through an actual scenario without the risk of costing the company a valuable customer. It provides the employer with an accurate picture of how skillful the prospective employee actually is, in a situation that is true to real-life but doesn’t carry real-life consequences.
Discern reaction to constructive criticism. One important advantage that simulations bring to the hiring process is the ability to observe how a potential employee reacts to criticism. Take the opportunity to go over the results of the simulation activity with the prospective hire, being sure to bring attention to the areas needing improvement. How do they respond to correction? It can be a very telling exercise!
Use recording to determine suitability. There are actually a number of reasons that recording a simulation is a good idea. It can help an interviewing team be objective in their assessment of an interviewee. Sometimes, a potential hire can sound perfect throughout their verbal interview, but don’t have the skills to actually do the job when it comes right down to it. Simulations are indispensable for pointing these discrepancies out. Another useful aspect of recording a simulation is for future training purposes. The videos can be used to demonstrate desirable behaviors, as well as those that need improvement.
What it all boils down to is that elearning simulations give employers a chance to see how a prospective new employee performs before actually hiring them. While the idea is revolutionary, it seems that few companies have actually jumped on the bandwagon. To look at it in terms of a glass-half-full scenario, a company that utilizes simulations for their recruitment process has a distinct advantage over the majority of their competition.