6 tools for busy HR professionals

Jennifer Manning
hands holding a tablet interacting with it

More and , giving candidates the opportunity to apply for jobs from anywhere in the country and across the world. In turn, this wider net has enabled HR professionals to bring in giant pools of qualified candidates – and of course, more great hires.

But with more job applications coming in, HR professionals know they need to work faster and more efficiently. And the right HR tools can help teams save time and standardize hiring across the board – especially when assessing candidates’ English skills or personality traits from afar.

Need help choosing the best HR software? We’ve got you covered. Here are 6 tools for busy HR professionals – including a number of HR tests for measuring sought-after soft skills:

1. Versant by app

How it helps you: Test candidates’ English language abilities with AI

Need a fair way to test candidates’ English skills? Versant by app is an HR test that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to score language assessments instantly. Made by app, the world’s leading education company, the tool tests candidates’ speaking, listening, reading and writing skills to help HR professionals evaluate how easily someone can handle different workplace tasks – like speaking with customers over the phone or writing clear emails to co-workers.

Versant by app also provides an Intelligibility Index score, which objectively measures how well someone pronounces words or expresses their thoughts – both things that are important for effective workplace communication, but easily overlooked.

The test is available 24/7, with no appointment required, in more than 100 countries around the world.

Learn more about how Versant by app works

2. Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal

How it helps you: Measure important critical thinking skills

The Watson-Glaser test is a popular critical thinking assessment. In fact, it’s been around for more than a century, helping organizations and institutions measure the decision-making and rational thinking skills of employees, job applicants, and students alike.

The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal tool makes it easy to administer the test on a larger scale. The assessment is timed (it takes 30 minutes) and includes a large bank of questions to help make sure no one ends up writing the same test. The scores are also given as a percentile, based around the following three criteria: whether someone can recognize assumptions, evaluate arguments and draw conclusions.

Overall, it’s a great tool to use with current employees wanting to move up in the organization. But best of all? It can help HR professionals screen out candidates whose critical thinking skills aren’t up to par – and save time interviewing people who might be qualified on paper, but not necessarily in practice.

3. Golden Personality Profiler

How it helps you: Assess a candidate’s personality type and how it will affect their behavior at work.

is one of the most in-depth personality assessments on the market. It allows HR professionals to understand what makes an individual unique. In turn, this leads to greater self-acceptance among employees and the ability to value differences in others—key factors impacting team performance.

So, how does it work? Powered by Jung’s Theory of Type as well as the Five-Factor Model of personality, Golden identifies the most detailed aspects of an individual’s personality. The program presents findings in a clear and concise report to make it easy to understand.

Of course, this is all good information to have in mind. But how can personality tests be helpful for HR? Not only does this test help predict how well candidates will perform at work, but it also helps to quickly identify a team’s strengths and resources and its potential weaknesses and blind spots. Furthermore, this tool can help HR professionals hire people who will match, or help shape, the company culture.

4. Acsendo

How it helps you: Run assessments and improve employee performance

For many workplaces, it can be difficult to keep morale up. Many people have reported feeling overwhelmed, isolated and unproductive working from home. , on the other hand, can help HR professionals push employee engagement and measure how everyone’s performing.

Within the tool, HR teams can run company assessments to measure employee satisfaction and how they view their work environment, among other things.

It also enables HR to see if workers’ objectives align with company-wide goals, for example, and helps teams create development plans for employees. Even more, Acscendo advertises that their platform only takes a few days for teams to implement.

5. Odoo

How it helps you: Manage employees and recruit from one place

is a pretty popular HR platform; they say they have more than 5 million users worldwide. The tool lets users keep track of things like employee leaves, hours worked, expenses and evaluations all in one place – as well as recruit and manage new job applications, for example.

We also like that they’re open source and that more than 20,000 developers contribute to it globally.

6. Raven’s

How it helps you: Assess the skills needed for leadership positions and reduce bias

Raven’s is another HR test to assess an employee’s soft skills. But it takes into special account the unique skills needed for leadership or management positions. These skills include abstract reasoning, complex problem-solving, and observation skills, among others.

HR professionals get a report with the results. It shows how the candidate compares to others in the same role. The test isn’t influenced by language differences, and overall, it gives HR professionals a better understanding of who’s actually best for the job.

Explore our post on 'How to recruit more effectively: leveraging language assessment AI'

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  • A older techer sat with students, in particular looking at a laptop with one of the students

    Teacher technology adoption: What’s age got to do with it?

    Por Jennifer Williams
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    Educators, by design, are innovators. Living and working in a constant state of beta, teachers bring to the classroom a natural desire to explore and better understand new practices and methodologies to support students in their search for knowledge.

    Guided by an internal drive to make the world a better place and powered by the rewards of working daily with the youth that can create that positive change, teachers collectively are part of a profession different from any other. Within one classroom on any single day, a teacher can become a scientist, a historian, an inventor, or a scholar. Over time, whether in a one-room schoolhouse a century ago or in a technology enhanced classroom of the digital age, these defining characteristics of “teacher” have seemed to stay constant.

    Bridging the generational and digital divide

    Today, as citizens of our digital and global world, we are in an extraordinary time where divides are closing and collaboration becomes standard – where differences are truly celebrated and associations are surpassing separations in society.As educators, this change reflects what we have consistently asserted in our classrooms.

    Yet, terms like 'generational gap” and “digital divide” suggest a significant separation between us as teachers and our students. In truth, teachers and students are increasingly using asharedlanguage of innovation and exploration. Rather than sticking to notions of a technology-based generational divide, many are transcending the labels of “digital immigrants” and “digital natives”.

    This is further reinforced by current research demonstrating that technology adoption in education has less to do with age and instead is based more on exposure and experience (Bennett & Maton, 2010; Bullen, Morgan, & Qayyum, 2011; Guo, Dobson, & Petrina, 2008; Helsper & Eynon, 2010). As opposed to a focus on divides, this new evidence offers supportive pathways of possibilities to bring together older and younger generations in the process of learning in our world through exploration and wonder.

    Embracing skill development

    Moving attention away from a fixed age factor to emphasizing a continuum of proficiency based on exposure and experience enables teachers of all ages to identify as part of this digital age of education. Though digital technologies are fixtures in the daily lives of many (if not most) of our students, the ways students use technologies are not always consistent.

    Students of today – like students of previous generations – continue to need the guidance of teachers in finding ways to take and apply their understanding of technology to effectively convey perspectives with the world, influence the opinions of others, and contextualize and synthesize information in meaningful ways.

    Timeless lessons from teachers

    Teachers as innovators – young and old, tech-savvy and tech-novice – have extraordinary gifts to bring to their students, who are also navigating through digital environments. Though there are countless lessons teachers bring to students, here are several timeless ones that transcend any generation of teaching. Teachers guide students to use advanced technologies so that they can be...

    Critical consumers

    Today, students in our classrooms are bombarded with information at nearly every moment in time. With basic searches for information often leading students in multiple directions, research at every level has now become a highly complex and sophisticated process. The result is that we now see learning practices shifting from finding answers to discovering more questions.

    Teachers can guide students to evaluate and consume information critically. By promoting transparency and sharing, they help learners consider context and sources, reason with evidence and build knowledge.

    Creators of rich content

    As classrooms advance as blended learning environments, seamless integration of technologies and innovative teaching practices offers students opportunities to transform from passive learners to active content creators. With countless digital tools available for content creation, students can seek guidance from teachers on matching the best tool to a particular communicative purpose.

    Teachers who are skillful in creating synthesized messages can show students ways to comprehend and compose with combinations of digital technologies. Less in the role of directing lessons, the teacher becomes a catalyst for learning, inspiring students to work creatively and collaboratively to solve problems and respond to instructional lessons as producers of information.

    Centered on relationships

    A defining quality of a master teacher is the ability to create a positive learning community built on empathy and understanding. The focus on relationships in these classrooms models the continued importance of valuing alliances and friendships.

    Soft skills, such as joy, honesty, trust and respect, become even more essential as our students continue to interact in a highly networked and diverse world. Balance, too, becomes a critical area for discussion as students look to divide attention, time and social-emotional reserves between onscreen and in-person experiences.

    Within responsive classrooms and digital learning spaces that keep emphasis on the formation of relationships, teachers can offer opportunities for students to develop through collaboration, teamwork, solidarity and conflict resolution.

    Resilient in endeavors

    Our students are looking out onto a world where anything is possible. Digital age technologies are empowering students to believe: “if you can dream it, you can do it”. The impossible is within reach, and a mindset of grit and determination moves sparked ideas to a place of accomplishment and excellence.

    Through the creation of learner-driven classrooms centered on the student, teachers can help guide students to narrow their interests and ultimately find their passions. With relevance and authentic purpose, teachers can connect students in the process of learning through design thinking and trial and error – shifting the outlook from fear of failure to resilience and 'stick-to-itiveness' to advance learning to a place of discovery and invention.

    And it is this mindset – a position of inquiry and exploration – held by students and teachers, young and old, that can show that great will come from risk. We all just need to be ready to try.