The Scorecard: How to use it in your recruitment?

The scorecard is a very interesting tool for recruiters, allowing them to structure recruitment using assessment questions prepared in advance. It helps you to evaluate candidates objectively and equally, making it easier to find the ideal profile for your company.

If you’re a recruiter, you know that it’s not always easy to judge many applications effectively. CVs and interviews come thick and fast, and it can be difficult to sort out the right profiles and ask the right questions, without being influenced by cognitive biases. Setting up scorecards is essential to save time and target the right profiles.

Want to know more about scorecards in recruitment? Intuition Software explains everything you need to know about it: definition, challenges and methodology :

What is a score card?

The scorecard is a recruitment tool that makes the assessment of candidates more objective and effective. This is a reference document for identifying the challenges of a position and the expectations a company has of a candidate, in order to determine the skills required for the position and the best candidate.

The score card is made up of three parts, which provide a framework for the interviews:

• The mission: this expresses the main objective of the position in question. For example, a communications officer in a tourist office might have to manage and draw up a communications plan and adapt it accordingly.

• Results: these are the expected actions and challenges of the position measured using 5 to 8 quantifiable objectives on which candidates can base themselves. For example, you may need to know how to welcome customers, manage computer software, draw up a communication plan, manage several social networks at once, create eye-catching visuals, etc.

• Skills: these are the skills required for the position, which the ideal candidate must possess. These can be hard skills (such as knowing how to manage social networks), soft skills (being a good team player) or mad skills (being involved in community work), proving your ability to do the job.

The scorecard is a method, developed by Geoff Smart and Randy Street in 2008 in their book “Who: The A Method for Hiring “, which, like the recruitment software, optimising the recruitment process within a company.

What are the different types of scorecards?

There are different types of scorecards used in different areas of a company. As the scorecard has a specific role in recruitment, it is important not to confuse it with other types of scorecard:

• The Scorecard in recruitment: this scorecard optimises and facilitates the recruitment process within a company.

• The Balanced Scorecard is an internationally recognised performance methodology based on four key elements: customers, finance, internal processes and organisational development.

• The KPI scorecard: this is based on performance indicators to monitor a company’s progress in terms of productivity, efficiency and profitability.

• The Project scorecard: this is used solely for monitoring projects and measures progress, quality and compliance with objectives.

Why use a scorecard in recruitment?

Using a scorecard can be essential in recruitment, as it allows you to frame interviews in advance, thereby saving time and optimising the process. The score card helps you to focus on the essential questions that will enable you to target the right candidates for the job, assessing them fairly and objectively.

Scorecards help you to remain impartial during the recruitment process, and to avoid being influenced by behavioural biases that can mislead you. What’s more, it offers significant advantages in terms of performance for both candidates and the company.

The challenges of a scorecard in recruitment

The scorecard used in recruitment meets a number of challenges to improve the process for recruiters:

• Defining your recruitment needs: the score card allows you to precisely target a company’s recruitment needs, and draw up a complete assessment of the position you are looking for.

• More objective recruitment : By using the same criteria to assess all candidates’ CVs, the recruitment process is more objective and avoids behavioural bias (a candidate’s degree, for example, may cause a bias in a recruiter who has had the same degree).

• An egalitarian and consistent process: once the scorecard question grid has been drawn up, it remains unchanged, enabling all candidates to be assessed in the same way throughout the process. The interview is structured so that the recruiter knows what questions to ask to assess the skills required.

• A constructive evaluation grid: the recruiter fills in this grid during the interview, and can compare the different responses from the candidates, before selecting the most suitable profile. What’s more, the recruitment scorecard can tell candidates what they should look out for when they apply for a job, giving them advice on how to improve their CV or profile.

The advantages of a score card

The scorecard has a number of interesting advantages for a company’s performance:

• A positive image for the company: the score card reinforces the positive image of the company, because the candidate experience is improved during the recruitment process. The issues addressed by the recruitment scorecard – a more objective, egalitarian and constructive process – help to enhance your company’s employer brand.

• An efficient process and a successful recruitment : by asking the right questions and following the score card process, the company can find the ideal candidate more easily, guaranteeing a smoother decision-making process.

• An interesting tool for the annual appraisal: during the annual appraisal, the scorecard can help you to build the discussion around the expected performance for the job and the performance achieved by the employee.

How can you set up a scorecard for your recruitment?

To implement a scorecard in your recruitment, you need to know the best practices to follow in order to ensure the success of your project.

Best practices for making a score card

A few best practices will help you build your score card effectively:

1. First think about the real need for recruitment: you need to draw up a framework beforehand to find out what your company’s real recruitment needs are in order to obtain a suitable scorecard.

2. Optimise score card evaluation: use simple questions and scoring methods from 1 to 5, for example, to evaluate candidates clearly and simply. Everything needs to be clear, but sympathetic, to ensure successful recruitment.

3. Take notes: even if the questions asked must be kept simple, you must not forget to take notes during your discussions, in order to facilitate decision-making and maximise information gathering.

4. Contain the debate: an interview can quickly get out of hand and you can lose sight of your scorecard. To avoid this, remember to regularly refocus the debate on the essential points when it strays from them.

5. Make a scorecard for each recruitment: the mission, skills and expected results will not be the same depending on the position, so you need to create a new scorecard for each recruitment.

In addition to scorecards, it’s essential to have tools that allow you to objectively assess candidates’ behavioral skills. Solutions like Yuzu, which use video games to make the assessment process more engaging, can enrich your recruitment process by providing an in-depth analysis of soft skills, ensuring a more complete and accurate assessment throughout the recruitment process.

The scorecard is an effective tool for framing your recruitment process. This document gives you the opportunity to target your needs and objectively assess the profiles for a particular position. Thanks to Intuition Software, you’ll know everything you need to know about the score card to find your next rare pearl.