Art & Science of Talent Assessment at the SmartRecruiters HQ

June 26 marked another successful SmartUp here at SmartRecruiters HQ in San Francisco, this time on the topic “The Art and Science of Talent Assessment.” For the uninitiated, SmartUp is our monthly meetup focused on elevating innovation in hiring. There’s always an engaging panel or keynote, preceded and followed by food, drink and networking.

We’ve had big turnouts for all 13 of our SmartUps to date, and this last one was no exception. As usual, there was a good mix of recruiters, HR pros and startup people of all stripes. We especially like seeing startup neighbors of ours doing innovative things in other fields/industries. After all, your company doesn’t have to be in the HR space to benefit from expert advice on hiring.

This month’s panel featured Michael Tanenbaum , CEO of ConnectCubed; Michael Gladden, Head of Technology at Chequed; and Scott Marsho, Director of Assessments Distribution at Findly. Also on hand was SmartRecruiters Founder and CEO Jerome Ternynck (Oh yeah, and the famous reuben rolls from Morty’s made a brief appearance.)

In an amazing coincidence, all three of the companies represented on the panel are launch partners for SmartRecruiters’ Assessment Center, a one-stop shop for scientifically assessing the candidates in your SmartRecruiters candidate pool. That said, each panelist brought a unique perspective stemming from their respective areas of expertise: reference check, skills testing and behavioral evaluations.

Some top tweets from the day:

79% of companies considered as best in class use talent assessments. #smartup

— Laura Hong (@laura2hong) June 27, 2013

“If you’re not using an assessment you’re just not optimizing your workforce,” says @GetFindly‘s Scott Marsho. #Smartup

— SmartRecruiters (@SmartRecruiters) June 27, 2013

So far, the NSA, guys with pony tails, Ferraris, and economic workshops all made it into tonight’s #SmartUp @SmartRecruiters . Love it!

— Nik Hristov (@nikhristov) June 27, 2013

Don’t wait with reference checks to the end @Chequedmktg says. Reference check early to speed up hiring. #smartup

— Jason Hegyessy (@hegyessy) June 27, 2013

@tbaums @DavidSmooke Great job tonight. It’s now a “renaissance” of testing and assessment. A whole new ballgame, with DaVinci at bat. — AndrewKarpie (@andrewkarpie) June 27, 2013