“In today’s competitive recruitment landscape, HR teams are under increasing pressure to juggle high numbers of open roles, elevated staff turnover, along with organisational diversity goals,” says Jo Lawrence, Director at the Occupational Psychology Centre (OPC). “As HR teams are under more time and resource pressures, advanced HR tools are no longer just helpful—they’re essential to managing these demands while streamlining recruitment processes.”
To support HR teams, the OPC provide bespoke digital solutions. With over three decades of experience in safety-critical industries like rail, wider transport and engineering, the OPC collaborates with clients worldwide. They deliver tailormade assessment recommendations that enhance team performance, identify top talent, and help develop a safer workplace culture.
Supporting High-Volume Recruitment Projects
The OPC specialises in safety-critical role recruitment – managing large-scale projects as well as smaller niche, senior manager and leadership talent acquisition. They understand the importance of identifying employees with the best skills and attitudes, helping to keep themselves and others safe in high-risk environments. With the post-pandemic shift towards digital hiring, the OPC provides customised pre-screening tools to address recruiter’s challenges. These tools may include some of these sections:
- Non-negotiable questions that are pre-requisite for the role e.g. “Are you happy to work shifts?”.
- Job preference questions assess candidates’ alignment with job demands.
- Role-specific questions help evaluate a candidate’s understanding of the role.
- Mini-situational judgement questions simulate real-life job scenarios.
- Organisational knowledge explores the candidate’s knowledge of the company.
The OPC tailors pre-screening questionnaires to fit each role, streamlining recruitment efficiently and creating an accurate shortlist of best-fit candidates. This digital pre-selection process saves time, reduces bias, and ensures fairness by focusing only on a candidate’s responses, without considering age, gender, or qualifications.
Jo Lawrence, explains, “These pre-selection tools can be tailored for each client and customisable for specific roles. Our validation research shows that performance on these pre-selection questionnaires can also predict success in later stages of the recruitment process.”
Online Psychometric Assessment Tools
With a smaller talent pool, finding the best-fit candidates is essential. OPC Assessment offers over 60 assessment tools, available both digitally and on paper. Many have been specifically designed for safety-critical roles. The range includes:
- Ability Tests: Measure key skills and abilities. For example, the Core Skills Diagrammatic Reasoning Test (CoreD) evaluates visual problem-solving skills, crucial for engineers.
- Personality Questionnaires: Identifies a candidate’s preferred behavioural styles, i.e. the Safe Personality Questionnaire (SAFEPQ) assesses attitudes around cautiousness and rule focus.
- Situational Judgement Tests (SJT): Evaluate candidates through job-related scenarios, the Magnificent 7 Situational Judgment Test (M7SJT) can be used to assess for competencies like motivation and risk management.
- Other Exercises: E.g., Role plays, Group exercises etc.
OPC psychologists work with HR teams to review job descriptions and recommend role-specific assessment tools; whether for rail and bus employees, leadership roles and support staff, apprenticeship or graduate programmes. Once selected, recruiters can either choose our Bureau Service, where we handle the entire process. Or they can pursue a Test User: Occupational, Ability (TUO-A) qualification to administer psychometric tests independently.
So, how can the OPC help…
- They create tailormade recruitment solutions that enhance and simplify your recruitment process.
- Their bespoke pre-screening solutions deliver an accurate shortlist of top talent that saves HR teams time and resources.
- OPC Assessment’s user-friendly testing platform, Candela™ streamlines candidate communications and tracking, providing real-time updates and actionable reports.
- Their validation studies ensure clients are using the most effective psychometric assessment tools giving HR teams evidence and confidence.
Jo Lawrence, Director at the OPC, summed up, “As talent acquisition becomes more complex, we’re committed to providing innovative solutions that simplify recruitment projects. We help clients make informed, evidence-based hiring decisions, ensuring they select top talent while keeping the process fair and efficient.”
You can read the full article in MEM#527 here
If you think the OPC can help streamline your recruitment process, get in touch with the friendly team.
T: +44 (0)1923 234646
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