Virtual Selection at National City Corporation

 Review

National City Corporation is one of the national largest financial holding companies which headquarter lies in Cleveland. It is establish in 1845 and it has around 32,000 employees. The company more focus on the recruiting and selection process. The National City Corporation uses “virtual job tryout “computerized simulation to hire and select the candidate for the particular job. The Virtual Job Tryout is a unique and innovative candidate evaluation system built specifically to make more accurate hiring decisions. It is two way communication exchanger that candidate have to engage highly with real, on-the-job scenarios.

The process of selecting the capable candidate through virtual assignment is one of the educational tool. Since the company using virtual assessment the employee staying at different part of the world can apply for the post. They are connected to company selection committee through interactive video conference. They have to solve certain job related assignment and the evaluation of candidate is done by capability of solving job related task. The selection process is also new experience for the company and they are getting best employee around from the world. They believe that the employee also learn unique experience. It is a just a part of selection process. When the company have diversity in the company they have different view and idea they can use their knowledge and skills to identify the best opportunity to add value in the company. The national company is using “virtual job tryout” for hiring the employee and they are having good and best employee that’s why national company has been named one of “The Top 100 Employee” by Black Collegian magazine.

Pros and Cons of Using Virtual Assessment for Employee Selection

Virtual assessment is a process of hiring and selecting the best employee in to the job. They uses a computerized simulation of specific job-related tasks known as “virtual job Tryout” to select candidate for job. Company analyze the pre determine requirement after that they will provide certain job related task to perform. The employee has to provide the solution and must explore what is best way to do. If the company manager find that the job seeker will best for them they recruit otherwise they look for other.

Pros of virtual assessment:

 Gives a clear view: The virtual job tryout assesses a variety of competencies the company considers key to job performance, including technical knowledge, troubleshooting, achieving results, building relationships and providing customer service. The applicant have to perform what they have supposed to do in the work. It is real field work and company gets clear view whether the candidate will able to perform according to expectation of company or not.

Global reach: The virtual assessment is done by using technology. The employee can apply for job from any corner of the world. The greater number of job seeker the greater the chance that one of those is the most competent applicant for the job position.
            Faster recruitment cycle: The virtual assessment can be done simultaneously to the number of employee. The certain job related task is given to the multiple number of job seeker who are located at different country and the company uses software to analyze within a minute. . Furthermore the company will get larger number of applicant and to analyze its takes less time.

Cost effective: It is very cost effective for the company to post the job in the job related website. It reaches larger number of the people around the world and take their resume through internet is very much cost effective. The assignment have to submit through online simulation program and to analyze its result, the cost is very low

Huge Information: The greater the number of the applicant the company have a larger number of information. The company can storage the CVs of the all applicant and they can contact to the candidate whenever they fell the employee is fit for the specific job.

Uniqueness: There are only small number of the company who use virtual assessment for recruiting the people. The process itself is unique and it creates positive impact on the applicant mind. The applicant will go detail on the company profile and job responsibility after that only they apply for the post.

Cons of virtual assessment:

 Difficult to know Attitude and behavior of the employee: The job seeker is given to the certain task and they submit the report. The company did not know what is the attitude and behavior of applicant towards the work. The company cannot decide properly the attitude of applicant without meeting them face to face.

Lack of cultural environment: The applicant may come from different place with different culture. The applicant may not know exactly the culture of company and vice versa. The working culture is different from company to company. And it is very difficult to know the culture of company without directly involving on the company premises and environment.

Validity of Information: The applicant send their CVs and other document through internet and there is no legal paper attach with them to ensure that submit paper is correct. Furthermore there may be information gap between applicant and company. To ensure the regular communication there must be internet available in both sides that may not be possible for all the applicant.

Selection Process Concerns and Steps

The applicant must know the nature of the job and their responsibility before applying for the job. The applicant must decide and analyze whether their expectation and company expectation will meet or not. If they felt they have all the requirement for the job then they can apply for the job. The virtual assessment is done through by internet. There are number of the employee who apply for the same post from around the world.

If I am an applicant for job through “virtual job tryout” I have some concern about the execution of the program.

Reliability: The assessment that is given to the employee across the world may not be reliable to all applicant. If the company gives same assessment to all applicant that is apply for the same post. If that is true then the company must analyze whether it is reliable to all applicant to perform task at their current situation, the assessment is done through regular time or there is any schedule for that. The applicant must know that to prepare themselves.

Biasness: The Company will obtain the huge number of applicant for the post. I have a concern to know whether I am allow to watch the result of the other applicant assessment. The company said they will recruit the best among the applicant but how can company delivery information to other applicant that they are not best for that job. If there is any mechanism to ensure there will not biasness on selection?

Employee organizational fit: The company and job candidate are connected virtually through simulation program. In that situation how can candidate or company know each other? The candidate may know about the culture and working strategy of the company through official website and regular communication. But whether the company is able to know exactly the characteristics of the employee, whether they have competencies for that position or not, if there is any system that measure other social factor behind the job.

There are some things that must not be consider for selection process A candidate should not be asked about their race, marital        status   gender, pregnancy disability sexual preference and union membership. Discrimination is occur on the selection process when selection committee select the employee based on the criteria other than qualification.

 Steps to avoid discrimination and unfair

The company must design their job task clearly. They should define what competencies is require for the specific job. According to job description they have to develop same set of question and must ask to every candidate. Their response should be recorded and must select best from those applicant.

The time and format to take interview must be same to all applicant. The selection committee must interview in predetermine form and they should not ask any personal question. The time for asking question for everyone should be fixed such that all the candidate get same time and opportunity to explore themselves.

The company must check the original certificate and reference of the candidate to ensure that the data present by the employee is correct also the company should not give priority to employee by seeing reference.

The company must set the grade set and should fill the marks obtain by the each candidate, the candidate who got high score among other they should appoint to the job.  Applicants should be evaluated on the basis of their performance at every stage of the recruitment process including any meetings, assessments or presentations to avoid unfair competition in the selection process.

Views on virtual assessment

National City Corporation uses the virtual assessment test as a part of selection process. They think that this type of assessment does more than help to select the right people. There are number of advantage of the virtual assessment that is describe above. Depending upon the employees, they would react differently to virtual assessment. Some of the employees may think that it is best way to recruit the best person in the company because the job is offer international. The candidate can apply for the job from any part of the world. It is less time consuming and candidate can apply anytime through internet. The more the candidate it’s a more chance to have best employee. It is unique experience for the candidate and it helps to build the personality and skills, knowledge of the employee because the company provide them some assessment to do which is job related. The candidate have to perform within a time and have to give quick decision, this task will certain improve their ability. So some of employee think that it is best way to select the best employee for the company

Someone may think it is not best process for recruiting the people. When the candidate does not meet the administrator directly, they will not know the exact culture and working environment of the company. The assessment is evaluated according to the result but the way how they solved that problem is not evaluated because they may be multiple number of way to solve the same problem. The candidate may not able to explore themselves and idea, skills fully through simulation. The culture plays an important role on the performance of the employee so the employee must know the culture of the company and the company must establish job person fit to obtain the best result.

Recommendations on Job Skill Selection on Virtual Job Assessments,

It is not possible to run the virtual assessment test for every type of the job. Depending upon the job characteristics and responsibility the company may run or not “virtual job tryout” simulation to find the best employee for the company. The software developer job is best suitable for online assessment because the company provide the specification about the job then candidate develop website and handle to the company. There is no any complex and environment factor, the method used to develop software is same around the world. Customer service engineer, the positions best suited to a virtual assessment have clearly defined roles and measurable result. The assessment is popular with call centers applicant and manufacturers sector that have set clear performance goals. The proposal and report writing may be skills that is best suited. The managerial skills that can be tested through the online can be done through simulation. It is best to check their writing skills, and how to develop client relationship. They have to response customer service problems. The candidate may request to write the proposal on certain thing and give some data to interpret their result. The company have to look how they present result. The company may evaluate the critical thinking of the employee by providing job related task. The communication skills plays an important role in the virtual assessment. There should be regular communication and they have to present themselves in such way that they can handle the client in the future.

Virtual assessment is not appropriate for all types of jobs. Jobs in sales, marketing, in call center and consulting seem to be suited best, the virtual assessment is not suitable for the hardware and mechanical engineering, for MBA graduate, and medical area because these work need very patient and time consuming to analyze task and also they may need to analyze critical information that isn’t be flexible to share through simulation. The work which related more numerical and scientific data that cannot be evaluated through the online. They need brief description about the work. When company announce the vacancy for the job they have to decide to use virtual assessment or not. The higher the post there are more responsibility and risk so it is not more flexible to recruit higher level of post through virtual assessment.

Recommendations

            Recommendations 1: The result and the performance sheet of the employee should be recorded and they need to delivery feedback “what candidate done and how can be it done more effectively”. It helps a candidate to improve their skills and capability of solving job related task in future. Furthermore company may save the candidate information for future purpose. If there is any vacancy that meet the candidate characteristics then the company can contact directly to employee that save time and money.

Recommendations 2: The virtual assessments is not applicable for all type of the job. Depending upon the job the company have to decide to use simulation or not. In the virtual assessment all the candidate should be given same set of task to perform in same amount of time such that they will not any biasness on evaluation.

Recommendations 3: The Company have to verify all the certificate and reference of the applicant before going in to the virtual assessment. If any candidate are unable to submit all the required information or any false statement is present then those candidate should be drop during initial screening.

Summary and Conclusions

National City Corporation was a regional bank holding company based in Cleveland, USA founded in 1845. National City uses a computerized simulation of specific job related task known as “virtual job tryout “to select candidate for job. Virtual Job Tryout creates a competitive advantage selection process by delivering a candidate experience that differentiates from competitors. In the National City Corporation, Call center candidates were given scenarios to solve customer service problems, while branch manager applicants had to demonstrate their ability to foster relationships with clients and make quick personnel decisions. The company believe that this type of selection process help to find the best employee for their company. Virtual assessment is Highly-engage with real, on-the-job scenarios, all the candidate are need to solve the job related task through simulation.   The experiences of virtual job tryout are interactive—with both video and audio conference, they believe that they are creating a dynamic testing environment that engages the candidates and it is one of the success factor of company they have best employee that is selected from virtual simulation.

References

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