delphi analytics — a free hiring tool based on psychometrics
having to find the best people from a huge talent pool as an interim manager, i found myself asking for personality scores via email over and over again. eventually, we built the software that we could not find elsewhere.
the landing page leads to a webapp which can be used by two types of users: applicants and hiring managers.
because i dislike software that makes you log in multiple times (e.g. upwork requiring a separate email for employer vs. freelancer accounts), we chose a more elegant layout: everyone gets to see the home, questions, profile and settings pages. hiring managers, however, also have the dashboard unlocked.
questions
most people come to delphi analytics because a job they want to apply for features a link. upon signing up, they see the specific questionnaire that the hiring manager of this job has created. they can answer the questions on the common 5-point scale. once completed, we even show them their own scores (but not how those relate to what the role requires).
because hiring is not just about personality, you can add a few open-ended questions to gather additional information (e.g. github links, free text answers).
note that we only ask questions that this user has not answered yet. if the user already applied for a similar position (with you or another company), chances are high, they only have to fill in the free text questions and the personality questions that were not included in their previously answered sets.
your profile
after completing at least one questionnaire, we show the results in this diagram. as users complete more questionnaires, the aggregate of these answers are shown.
note that this accrues your replies to all the questionnaires you answer on the platform.
dashboard
the hiring manager’s dashboard revolves around sets of questions. we recommend creating a new set for every position as they likely require different skills and personality traits. but you can also use them to keep track of the flow of candidates.
in the top left of the dashboard is a dropdown with all your sets. in this example we have selected the set for designers.
in the middle at the top, you can click to copy the link to the questions for the applicants.
there are three tabs to manage the list of applicants:
- new: shows all the new candidates that filled out the form
- all: shows all candidates that ever filled out the form
- archived: once you click on the ‘archive’ button, candidates end up here. you can use this for those you filtered out, or the ones you have processed. we kept this tool lean so you can use it the way you want. clicking on the ‘archive’ button of archived candidates unarchives them.
the columns of this set’s dashboard:
- #: the relative position this candidate has in your ranking based on their compatibility with the open position. note that this is consistent across tabs (the 3rd contact in the above screenshot is the 7th best candidate for this position/set).
- photo: downloaded automatically if they logged in with linkedin or google
- name
- result: percentage score on how close the candidate resembles the ideal candidate. this is what all lists are ranked on.
- status update button (click to archive / unarchive)
in the top right you can create a new set. scroll down to see what that looks like.
but first, let’s take a look at the profiles.
candidate’s profiles
candidates profiles look different than your own profiles (see above). while your own profile scores your personality from high to low, the candidate’s profiles also need to show how and where the candidate differs from the ideal candidate.
in the above screenshot you see a graphical interpretation of maria’s (the candidate) strengths and weaknesses, their basic (contact) information as well as the free text answers. if you add all MBTI-related categories to your set, we also show you their myers-briggs personality type in the bottom left.
in the diagram, the blue line marks the ideal candidate scores in this set (of questions), while purple is this specific candidate. as you can see, you can choose the ideal score to be high (e.g. imagination), low (e.g. greed avoidance) or in the middle (emotionality).
in the ‘match’ tab, you can see how close maria matches the ideal candidate (i.e. maria’s greed avoidance score is 75%, while this particular hiring manager looks for someone with a low score — hence her match is 25%).
you can also click on each score and see a short definition of the trait
in the ‘traits’ tab, you can see maria’s raw scores.
create new sets
here is the holy grail of the software: the ability to create your own set of questions. we recommend taking 3 major things into account:
- the requirements of the individual role and its tasks and outcomes
- compatibility with superiors and colleagues (both in the sense of being similar enough to get along — or different enough to balance each other’s weaknesses out)
- compatibility with the organisation’s culture (a customer support rep at caesar’s palace might have different requirements than a customer support rep at microsoft)
because roles are unique, you get to choose from over 50 different categories. and in the easiest mode, you just move the toggle button from ‘offline’ (i.e. not used) to however the ideal candidate would rank in this trait.
if you want more customization or are unsure what the exact definitions of each category are, just click on the little arrow and this menu unfolds:
we have a different amount of questions for each category in our database. by default we ask 4, but feel free to change this number. if you go higher than the number of questions available, we just ask the ones we have.
you can also specify the weight with which this category is counted towards the total score. the default is 1. so if you want a category to count twice as much just specify this with a 2.
the more questions you ask, the more certain you can be that the resulting score is accurate. the higher the weight, the more the score counts towards the total score. it is recommended to ask more questions in categories that you want to weight more heavily.
please also keep in mind the total number of questions. the number of questions you can ask without significant dropoffs depends on the attractiveness of the role and where in the recruitment process you deploy the tool (i.e. is it the first hurdle — or one of the last?).
once you are done specifying the name of the set and its custom questions, slug (i.e. what the URL will look like) and the categories, hit create. this will take you to this set’s dashboard where you can copy the URL and start inviting candidates.
if you have questions visit us at www.delphi-analytics.de or drop me an email at jan@delphi-analytics.de
