How to structure practical cases for your interviews

Traditional job interviews make it possible to gather information about the candidate and his motivation. However, they are limited in the sense that they do not show the real skills of a candidate on a given problem. This is the whole point of practical cases. Practical cases are real challenges that offer a global view of the strengths and weaknesses of different profiles. But you still need to know how to structure them so that they reveal and highlight the key competencies for the position in question.

That is what we are going to see in this article.

The interest of integrating practical cases into your processes

Conducting interviews obviously makes it possible to gather key information about the various candidates. But they do not show the capacity of different profiles to meet challenges.

Complementary to traditional interviews, practical cases are used to verify the validity of the skills sold on CVs and cover letters.

To do this, structuring a practical case must be based on several objectives, namely:

• assess the candidate's ability to express themselves logically and to use tools
• Evaluate your hard skills
• Evaluate your soft skills
• assess your management skills
• report on the candidate's strategic vision and the relevance of his remarks

The practical cases are not all structured in the same way because their form depends on the skills to be evaluated and the different positions to be filled. Developers and salespeople are not evaluated in the same way. Some practical cases thus present strategic tests while others are more like an IQ test.

Likewise, the practical cases do not all take place in the same way. Some may take place during an individual interview. Others can be done by the candidates on their side. Finally, some may also take place during group interviews. The key is to adapt the practical cases to your needs in order to assess the key elements for the position in question.

Set up the right use case according to your business needs

It is important to avoid offering generic practical cases at the risk of failing to assess relevant skills during this exercise.

So prepare your practical cases according to your business needs:

• If you are looking to recruit a community manager, offer to write a Facebook or LinkedIn post, for example.
• If you're hiring a front-end developer, suggest an exercise that requires using CSS
• If you are looking to recruit salespeople, organize role plays or group interviews to measure the adaptability and distribution of candidates.

Structuring your practical cases requires paying attention to the skills you want to assess. Be careful not to suggest exercises that are unsuitable for the different profiles you encounter.

Beyond the nature of the proposed practical case, also be careful to submit it at the right time during your recruitment process. It is not recommended to offer practical cases before the first interviews. This will in fact prevent you from losing the candidate who would have difficulty understanding the instructions. And it will allow you to directly observe the candidate exploiting his abilities during the exercise.

How to organize your practical cases

In order for your candidates to be able to give their best, it is important to create a framework that is favorable to them.
To do this, we recommend that you:

1. to prepare a schedule so that the different profiles can be organized according to a specific deadline
2. to communicate around the practical case. Specify the points you will assess. This improves the candidate experience in addition to allowing you to be transparent.
3. to promote benevolence. Applying and taking a practical case study remain stressful elements in the life of candidates. To do this, make sure to create a warm environment that encourages exchanges.

Now that you know how to organize a case study, let's look at the different types of cases that exist. The challenge is to ensure that they are adapted to the profile you want to recruit.

Some examples of practical cases to structure

The case study

This is the most popular use case. It's about finding the solution to a problem based on a given brief. The idea here is to assess the candidate's ability to solve a question based on their knowledge and research. The challenge is therefore to see if the various profiles are able to provide the most appropriate solutions while being able to justify their choices.

Case studies serve as a way to assess the level of marketing profiles, whether they are “analytics” or “content manager”.

For an “analytics” profile, you can present your advertising campaigns and ask him for an analysis and the actions to be taken to improve the results. This will allow you to assess their ability to provide a relevant strategy.

For a “content manager” profile, you can ask the candidate if he is able to create an editorial strategy from scratch, what angles of attack he would prefer and what platforms he would choose. The idea would be to assess their ability to understand the challenges of your target audience and the key information that would be of value for them.

Situation

A key and decisive practical case in recruitment processes, role-playing allows you to assess the ability of your candidates to adapt. By providing a script and information, profiles are evaluated in their ability to make relevant decisions. This type of test is tough because talents are put to the test for sometimes several hours.

Situation is the most common practical case for evaluating commercial profiles.

To structure this practical case, give your candidate enough information in advance so that he can absorb the situation. Then start the role-play and assess the candidate's ability to capture customer benefits, ask the right questions, and deliver a solid sales pitch.

Market research

This exercise is ideal for measuring the composure of candidates as it requires a significant capacity for concentration. This type of practical case requires profiles to produce a reflection within a given period of time. The most common questions are those related to estimating the size of a market and the possible number of sales that can be made in it.

The technical test

A preferred exercise for a developer profile, the technical test alone or in peer-programming allows you to assess your candidate's code level. Include a business challenge in your technical test so that profiles can understand the challenge of the test. This type of practical case allows you to evaluate:

• Talent's ability to collaborate
• its level of technical expertise in computer science
• his ability to understand the challenges of your business

The limits of practical cases

As you can see, structuring practical cases for your interviews requires a minimum of organization. And the success of a practical case depends on the preparation time.

To properly build your practical cases, identify the elements you want to assess carefully so that the various tests do not take too long. Indeed, the candidate must also be taken into account: a cumbersome recruitment process can deter talent from applying. So be sure to ensure the right balance so that the candidate experience remains as pleasant as possible.