US-20260127551-A1 - Candidate Evaluation System Using a Consensus Reference

US20260127551A1US 20260127551 A1US20260127551 A1US 20260127551A1US-20260127551-A1

Abstract

An apparatus for assisting in the evaluation of candidates identifies important traits and characteristics for particular jobs using multiple sources of job-related information. A rating ranking identifying the most important traits and characteristics may then be used for evaluation of candidate materials for the particular job.

Inventors

Marc Fogel
Georgia Galanopoulos
Stuart Olsten
William Rose

Assignees

TALENT SELECT AI

Dates

Publication Date: 20260507
Application Date: 20241105

Claims (11)

1 . An apparatus for evaluating candidates for a target position comprising: an input for receiving information describing qualifications for a given job from multiple different sources including at least one text job description; a text processor processing the at least one text job description to provide numeric scores for predefined traits and competencies related to the at least one text job description; a threshold processor receiving numeric scores for the predefined competency and traits derived from the multiple different sources to identify a subset of the predefined traits and competencies for the given job most related to the given job; and a candidate evaluation module receiving the subset of the predefined traits and competencies for the given job and candidate information to evaluate the candidates against the subset of the predefined traits and competencies.
2 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the threshold processor assesses a reliability of a primary source and weights the primary source in producing the numeric score according to its assessed reliability and wherein the primary source is a questionnaire collating system receiving input from multiple individuals to rank the given job with respect to the predefined traits and competencies and the reliability is assessed by a similarity in the rankings among the multiple individuals.
3 . The apparatus of claim 2 wherein the assessed reliability is from predefined traits and competencies indicated to be essential by at least one of the multiple different sources.
4 . The apparatus of claim 3 wherein some of the predefined traits and competencies are indicated to be undesirable and where in the subset of predefined traits and characteristics includes essential traits and characteristics only if they are identified as such by multiple different sources and includes undesirable traits and characteristics if they are identified by even one of the multiple individuals.
5 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the text processor includes a dictionary of terms linked to the traits and competencies and analyzes text from at least one source of the multiple different sources using the dictionary to establish a numeric score for the at least one source.
6 . The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the at least one source is a recruitment job description prepared by an institution seeking a candidate for the given job.
7 . The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the at least one source is a government-produced standard job description.
8 . The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the at least one source is the O*NET database.
9 . The apparatus of claim 1 further including a questionnaire collating system receiving input from multiple individuals to rate the given job with respect to the predefined traits and competencies to provide numeric scores and at least one of the different sources providing numeric scores to the threshold processor is the questionnaire collating system.
10 . The apparatus of claim 9 where the questionnaire collating system provides a server serving a questionnaire to multiple computer terminals associated with different individuals.
11 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the threshold processor further includes an experience weight input receiving information about successful candidates and their associated traits and competencies to adjust weights attached to each of the traits and competencies serving to scale the numeric rankings of these traits and competencies.

Description

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT NA CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION NA BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to systems and methods for evaluating candidates for employment and the like and, in particular, to a system that provides a consensus-based reference for evaluating candidates to provide improved candidate ranking with reduced risk of bias. The recruitment of employees or similar candidates is important for businesses and institutions. Such recruitment efforts normally focus on objective skills, for example, typing ability and other types of domain knowledge, as well as so-called traits and competencies reflecting a candidate's personality, for example, with respect to agreeableness or conscientiousness. Traits and competencies are particularly difficult for a human recruiter to assess and quantify; however, systems to assist in this process have been developed. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/236,784 entitled: “System and Method For Evaluating Candidates, Such as Candidates for Employment or University Admission, or Employees or Other Approved Candidates”, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/157,543 entitled: “Position-Resolved, Broad Engagement, Candidate Matching System”, assigned to the assignee of the present application and hereby incorporated by reference, describe systems and methods that can review written or transcribed interview material and assess individuals with respect to multiple different categories of traits and competencies. Assessing an individual's traits and competencies raises the problem of how to determine the necessary traits and competencies required for a particular position. Accurately determining the necessary traits and competencies for a position is particularly important to the extent that there may be a tendency to determine that all positive traits are important for the job, and in this process “water down” the value of focusing on what is truly most critical for job success. For example, while it may be helpful for a retail salesperson to be skilled at seeking new ideas and solving problems creatively, their ability to support and show respect to customers is more important for success on the job. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a consensus-based system for producing a quantitative description of desirable traits and competencies for a given job. This quantitative description can be provided to a candidate evaluation system, for example, as described above, or be used by a human recruiter in assessing candidates. By combining multiple independent sources describing a particular job, including both descriptions developed from within the organization and by external third parties, a more reliable and bias resistant set of metrics for a given position can be developed. In one example, the invention provides an apparatus for evaluating candidates for a target position having an input for receiving information describing qualifications for a given job from multiple different sources including at least one text job description. A text processor processing the at least one text job description provides numeric scores for predefined traits and competencies related to the at least one text job description. Numeric scores from multiple different sources are then received by a threshold processor to identify a subset of the predefined traits and competencies for the given job most related to the given job. This subset is provided to a candidate evaluation module together with candidate information to evaluate the candidates against the subset of the predefined traits and competencies. It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to provide a systematic way of identifying traits and competencies strongly associated with the given job position to guide candidate assessment systems. The threshold processor may normalize the numeric scores within each of the different sources and combine them statistically to produce a ranking to select the subset of the traits and competencies for the given job from the highest ranked traits and competencies. It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to facilitate the integration of job-related information from different sources by compensating for source-dependent biases. The threshold processor may statistically combine numeric scores from each of the different sources as a function of the number of different sources reporting scores for each of the traits and competencies. It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to compensate for missing scores from particular sources in the combination process. The apparatus may include a variance analyzer for identifying predetermined traits and competencies from the different sources that have numeric scores that differ from a statistical combination of the numeric scores and provide an indication to an operator that the identified numeric scores req