PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGES IN ADAPTING DIGITAL COGNITIVE TESTS IN PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Recruiting today is no longer what it used to be. Digital transformation has deeply changed the company, and particularly the recruitment process. The challenges linked to this transformation are two-fold: practical and scientific. Indeed, the world of human resources needs new tools to detect potentials. Research must meet this need by adapting, modernizing and scientifically validating the tools. To predict job performance, cognitive and soft skills, often referred to as 21st century skills , are now central to recruitment, talent development and career management. The objective of our study was to create digital versions of cognitive tests, based on reliable and well-known theoretical foundations. We want to present in detail the conception and construct validity of two of our online tests: the first one inspired by the Stroop effect (Stroop, 1935), the second one based on corsi blocks (Corsi, 1972). We hypothesise that the tests we created are positively correlated to the original ones. 91 participants were interviewed, aged between 18 and 58 (average = 34.57 years old, SD = 10.91). The proportion of women was 76.6% (n = 69), compared to 24.4% of men (n = 22). They all answered the original tests first, face-to-face, and a few months later, the digital ones we had created. We observed positive correlations between the two series of results. These very encouraging results will be clarified and discussed. These two new versions shed light on the candidates attention and memory abilities that should be enriched during an interview focused on soft skills. In fact, the highest predictability is guaranteed by a method which necessarily combines cognitive evaluations and with other types of assessments, such as personality tests (Güler, Bayrak & Ocaks, 2019). This is why it is important to continue research efforts on the adaptation of digital cognitive tests in a professional environment.