PDRI Releases Virtual Interview Tool on its Palladium Assessment Platform to Enable Structured Interviews

The new tool helps organizations follow research-driven best practices to transform interviews from a freeform subjective exercise into a valuable predictor of candidate performance

ARLINGTON, Va., May 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PDRI by Pearson (FTSE: PSON.L), a workforce assessment provider that transforms evidence-based insights into talent management solutions, today announced the launch of a virtual interview tool for its Palladium assessment platform.

Interviews are ubiquitous in hiring processes, but most are unstructured, and research shows that unstructured interviews have low validity and a great potential for bias. And although there are hundreds of solutions for online interviews already on the market, most have simply replicated ad-hoc and unstructured offline processes. With a large-scale analysis of many different research papers (also known as a meta-analysis) confirming the excellent predictive power of well-constructed interview processes¹, PDRI recognized the need to bring industrial and organizational (IO) psychology best practices to the market in a software solution.

Additionally, at a time when applicants are using generative AI to prepare for interviews in a way that they may not consider to be cheating, companies need to take additional steps to properly capture the predictive power of this method. For example, research has consistently shown that best practice requires the use of effective probing, evaluating responses using behaviorally anchored rating scales, and multiple raters who work to draw a consensus on their ratings. These measures help interviewers elicit complete information from candidates, accurately score candidate responses, and make unbiased hiring decisions. PDRI's new interview tool makes these best practices simple to follow.

The virtual interview tool
PDRI's virtual interview tool provides the structure required for effective interviewing, whether they are conducted live or whether the candidate provides written or recorded answers to prepared questions. Through its use, hiring organizations can save time and valuable resources, create a positive applicant experience, unearth unique insights, and ensure selection decisions are made in a fair and unbiased manner. The tool provides an extensive library of consistent sets of structured interview questions that have helped both Forbes Global 2000 companies and some of the world's largest government agencies successfully hire candidates for hundreds of jobs.

Additional features include:

• Individual or panel interview
• Best practice interview guides
• Consensus functionality
• Section 508 (a U.S. Federal regulation governing IT accessibility), FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act which defines security guidelines and standards for government information), FedRAMP (the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, which provides a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies used by federal agencies) and privacy compliance

Palladium, an assessment platform that provides an exceptional experience
PDRI's assessment delivery platform, Palladium, is a fully integrated, online system that makes it simple to configure a seamless assessment experience for candidates, with a comprehensive and easy-to-use set of management tools for companies. The platform includes an administrator web portal for test and candidate management and reporting, a candidate scheduling web portal, and a sophisticated web-based assessment engine. It offers new, modern user interfaces for an enhanced candidate and administrator experience and can administer any type of assessment, from multiple choice to sophisticated interactive simulations to interviews. The platform was designed for easy end-to-end customization and to meet the most stringent security standards.

"It's hard to believe that it's been 16 years since Scott Highhouse identified 'Stubborn Reliance on Intuition and Subjectivity in Employee Selection" as an impediment to better selection with the unstructured interview as a prime example of that problem," said Elaine Pulakos, Ph.D. and CEO of PDRI by Pearson. "We have also long known structured interviews are among the best predictors of job performance available. PDRI's new interview tool helps organizations make accurate and unbiased talent decisions and saves time and valuable resources."

PDRI's virtual interview tool is now available to private sector and government clients as a standalone offering or part of a seamless larger assessment experience. For more information, please visit https://pdri.com/pd-interview-tool/.

About PDRI by Pearson
Since 1975, PDRI has built a global reputation of excellence by designing, developing and implementing high-quality, innovative talent management solutions that adhere to the highest principles of professional practice. PDRI's suite of integrated talent management solutions helps government and commercial clients hire, train, develop, manage and motivate high-performance organizations.

PDRI is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pearson. For more information visit http://www.pdri.com.

¹ Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2022). Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection: Addressing systematic overcorrection for restriction of range. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040–2068. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000994

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SOURCE PDRI