WO2015022637A1

WO2015022637A1 - Method and system for candidate response evaluation for job fitment

Info

Publication number: WO2015022637A1
Application number: PCT/IB2014/063874
Authority: WO
Inventors: Varun Aggarwal; Himanshu Aggarwal; Vinay SHASHIDHAR
Original assignee: Varun Aggarwal
Priority date: 2013-08-12
Filing date: 2014-08-12
Publication date: 2015-02-19

Abstract

A computer implemented system and method for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting is disclosed. The system includes a test response module to receive a candidate speech response; an evaluation module to generate candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters; an analytics module for generating a job fitment recommendation based on the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion; and a reporting module for generating and communicating a candidate report and an employer report based on the job fitment recommendation.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CANDIDATE RESPONSE EVALUATION FOR JOB

FITMENT

This is a complete specification of the provisional application number 2384/DEL/2013 filed on Aug 12 2013 with the Indian Patent Office. FIELD OF THE INVENTION AND USE OF INVENTION

[0001] The invention relates generally to the field of candidate matching for different job profiles that require spoken language command and more specifically to a method and system for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting.

PRIOR ART AND PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED [0002] There are several business and industry sectors such as Information technology and Information technology enabled services (IT & ITeS), Banking, Hospitality, Retail, and many more industry verticals today that require job profiles that involve spoken language proficiency for international tele-calling, domestic tele-calling, sales, customer service, direct sales, B2B selling, consumer selling, channel sales, consultant, operations, voice profiles, collections profile or any profile where spoken language is an essential requirement for the job.

[0003] Traditionally these sectors rely on interview processes that limit their reach to candidates due to time constraint and resource constraints- need for venue, office space and interviewers. In addition, these processes are subjective and therefore lead to wide variations in selection of the candidates that hurts both the candidates and the business processes for the organizations, as there is often a mis-match between the candidate performance and the job requirement.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

[0004] There is a need to provide an optimized and systematic solution for evaluation of candidates for spoken English that overcomes the above limitations of reach, resource constraint and standardization of selection and screening process for the candidates.

[0005] It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a system and method for candidate response evaluation for job fitment reporting. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0006] In one aspect, a computer implemented system for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting is described. The system includes a test response module configured to receive a candidate speech response; an evaluation module to generate candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters; an analytics module for generating a job fitment recommendation based on the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion; and a reporting module for generating and communicating a candidate report and an employer report based on the job fitment recommendation . [0007] In another aspect, a computer network implemented method for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting is provided. The method comprises steps for receiving a candidate speech response, generating candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters, and generating a job fitment recommendation based on the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion. The method then includes a step for generating and communicating a candidate report and an employer report based on job fitment recommendation.

DRAWINGS

[0008] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals represent corresponding parts throughout the drawings, wherein:

[0009] FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic representation of a computer implemented system for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting; and

[0010] FIG. 2 is a flowchart representation of exemplary steps for a computer implemented method used by system of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0011] As used herein and in the claims, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include the plural reference unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. [0012] The term "interface" as used herein means hardware and/or software enabling an operation on a computer system or a computer network.

[0013] The term "module or component" for the purpose of this invention means program code that enables a computer system to implement the actions described in conjunction therewith using any solution.

[0014] A "candidate" here refers to an individual who is applying to an employer to get assessed and admitted for a job role. It may also be noted that the candidate in one use case could also refer to an existing employee whom the employer might want to screen for different roles within the organization or might be used while evaluating his/her performance.

[0015] In one embodiment, a computer implemented system 10 for generating a job fitment recommendation based on candidate response is provided. The system 10 comprises a test response module 12 configured to receive a candidate speech response. The candidate speech response in exemplary implementations may include one or more utterances of the candidate recorded, via an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) over a communication interface such as a phone or a computer based interface, in response to read speech or by speech repeated after listening or by speech spoken impromptu given a prompt or speech spoken out of free will. In some other exemplary implementations the candidate speech response could also include any other input like answers given to MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)/Non MCQ based question by providing an input through an input device, like key input etc., via phone or by answering the given MCQ/Non MCQ based question, by providing a mouse/keyboard/any other input device, via a computer.

[0016] The above mentioned candidate speech response is used in the system and method of the invention to provide job fitment (JF) of the candidate with respect to different job profiles in different sectors as explained below.

[0017] The system 10 includes an evaluation module 14 to generate candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters. The job fitment parameters in the context of the invention include pronunciation, fluency, language anticipation, listening skills, listening comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, pitch, mother tongue influence or any other spoken language parameters. Other job fitment parameters may also additionally be used to include other metric of performance, including but not limiting to written language skills, cognitive skills, functional skills, personality traits, domain knowledge and practical intelligence. The candidate scores may be quantitative scores on a scale of 0-100 or a discrete score such as a high, medium, low rating or a score based on an expert defined rubric or a color code to indicate strength or weakness of the candidate response related to the job fitment parameter. It would be appreciated by one skilled in the art that the candidate scores would be generated based on pre-defined rules and scoring criterion.

[0018] The system 10 includes an analytics module 16 for generating a job fitment recommendation based on a match (or proximity or closeness) between the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion. The job fitment recommendation is indicative of job fitment of the candidate with respect to different job profiles in different sectors.

[0019] The recommendation criterion in some exemplary implementations are rules that could either be thresholds (threshold score) determined by exerts or determined empirically for each of the job fitment parameters. In another embodiment the threshold scores could be a weighted average of the candidate scores on job fitment parameters where the weights can be determined by experts, or empirically using data and modeling techniques or by crowd sourcing. It may also be noted that the recommendation criterion may be a combination of the above rules and in some embodiments the individual importance attributed to each job fitment parameter while deciding the job fitment score of a candidate can also be generated on the fly and readjusted while actively learning. [0020] In some other implementations the recommendation criterion is derived from the employee scores of spoken language assessment of employees (or successful employees that an organization considers standard baseline for selection of new candidates) in these profiles in different companies. In these implementations the candidate scores are compared with the distribution of the employee scores in various profiles to determine which profiles match and which doesn't. It may ne noted that in some implementation the employee scores include their job performance ratings while in others performance rating of the employee may be ignored. The recommendation of the fitment can be given as a function of the closeness of the match as an empirical value or as a qualitative recommendation.

[0021] The matching of candidate scores with the distribution of the employee scores can be done through various techniques such as but not limited to statistical/Machine Learning techniques such as regress, classification and regression tree, neural networks, SVM's etc. [0022] In come implementations the predetermined recommendation criterion may also include cutoffs on individual job fitment parameter scores and/or linear combinations of job fitment parameter scores, to qualify for a job profile. In some implementations there are a plurality of recommendation criteria for job fitment recommendation to define a degree of match with the candidate scores.

[0023] In still other implementations, the job fitment recommendation is determined by an expert/consensus of experts feedback who understands/understand the requirement of spoken English for different job profiles in different sectors.

[0024] In still other implementations, the job fitment recommendation is determined by obtaining crowd sourcing feedback that involves obtaining a consensus of non-experts or naive judges of the spoken language using a technique called crowd sourcing.

[0025] The system 10 further includes a reporting module 18 for generating reports based on the job fitment recommendation for candidates (candidate report), and for employers (employer report). The candidate report includes the job profiles for which the candidates are employable. The employer report includes the candidate scores and job fitment recommendation and further analytics highlighting their strengths/weaknesses, and percentile of scores.

[0026] The system 10 includes a graphical user interface as the online interface that further includes different interfaces for different users such as candidates or job seekers (a candidate interface), and employers, expert interface for receiving inputs from experts (or any other user authorized for candidate search and screening) that is used by the analytics module, a crowd sourcing interface to receive inputs from non-experts used in the analytics module.

[0027] The system 10 will also include a storage module (not shown) to store the candidate speech responses, candidate scores, recommendation criterion, job fitment recommendation and other outputs from the system 10.

[0028] It would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that an administrator interface will also be provided for enabling different control and analysis aspects for all the different components and modules of the system. [0029] In another aspect, a computer network implemented method for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting is provided, as shown in flowchart 20 of FIG. 2. The method comprises a step 22 for receiving a candidate speech response using techniques as explained herein above. The method then comprises a step 24 for generating candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters. At step 26, the method includes generating a job fitment recommendation based on the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion. Different recommendation criterion are possible as explained in relation to some exemplary implementations as described herein above. The method then includes a step 28 for generating and communicating a candidate report that includes job profiles across different sectors that are suitable to the candidate and an employer report that includes the job fitment recommendation for each candidate that matches the desired job profile, and other analytics based on job fitment recommendation.

[0030] It would be appreciated by one skilled in the art that the system and method described herein may be advantageously used along with traditional resume screening methods to provide an improved system and method for selection of candidates that suit desired job profiles in an optimized and objective manner.

[0031] It would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the method and system of invention provided herein eliminates the biases from the short-listing or screening process of the prior art system and method and provides a novel system and method of screening candidates based on objective criterion/parameters, which has significant correlation to job requirement and consequently improve the interview convert rates.

[0032] The system of the invention may be accessible through an application interface on a networked computer or through any other electronic and communication device such as a mobile phone connected via wires or wirelessly which may use technologies such as but not limited to, Bluetooth, WiFi, Wimax. In one example the system and method of the invention are implemented through a computer program product residing on a machine readable medium, where the computer program product is tangibly stored on machine readable media.

[0033] The different users described herein may enter or communicate data or request through any suitable input device or input mechanism such as but not limited to a keyboard, a mouse, a joystick, a touchpad, a virtual keyboard, a virtual data entry user interface, a virtual dial pad, a software or a program, a scanner, a remote device, a microphone, a webcam, a camera, a fingerprint scanner, pointing stick.

[0034] The described embodiments may be implemented as a system, method, tool, apparatus or article of manufacture using standard programming or engineering techniques related to software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The described operations may be implemented as code maintained in a "computer readable medium", where a processor may read and execute the code from the computer readable medium. A computer readable medium may comprise media such as magnetic storage medium (e.g., hard disk drives, floppy disks, tape, etc.), optical storage (CD-ROMs, DVDs, optical disks, etc.), volatile and non-volatile memory devices (e.g., EEPROMs, ROMs, PROMs, RAMs, DRAMs, SRAMs, Flash Memory, firmware, programmable logic, etc.), etc. The code implementing the described operations may further be implemented in hardware logic (e.g., an integrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.). Still further, the code implementing the described operations may be implemented in "transmission signals", where transmission signals may propagate through space or through a transmission media, such as an optical fibre, copper wire, etc. The transmission signals in which the code or logic is encoded may further comprise a wireless signal, satellite transmission, radio waves, infrared signals, Bluetooth, etc. The transmission signals in which the code or logic is encoded is capable of being transmitted by a transmitting station and received by a receiving station, where the code or logic encoded in the transmission signal may be decoded and stored in hardware or a computer readable medium at the receiving and transmitting stations or devices. An "article of manufacture" comprises computer readable medium, hardware logic, or transmission signals in which code may be implemented. A device in which the code implementing the described embodiments of operations is encoded may comprise a computer readable medium or hardware logic. Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications may be made to this configuration without departing from the scope of the present invention, and that the article of manufacture may comprise suitable information bearing medium known in the art.

[0035] A computer program code for carrying out operations or functions or logic or algorithms for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages which are either already in use or may be developed in future, such as but not limited to Java, Smalltalk, C++, C, Foxpro, Basic, HTML, PHP, SQL, Javascript, COBOL, Extensible Markup Language (XML), Pascal, Python, Ruby, Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++, Visual C#.Net, Python: Delphi, VBA, Visual C++ .Net, Visual FoxPro, YAFL, XOTcI, XML, Wirth, Water, Visual DialogScript, VHDL, Verilog, UML, Turing, TRAC, TOM, Tempo, Tcl-Tk, T3X, Squeak, Specification, Snobol, Smalltalk, S- Lang, Sisal, Simula, SGML, SETL, Self, Scripting, Scheme, Sather, SAS, Ruby, RPG, Rigal, Rexx, Regular Expressions, Reflective, REBOL, Prototype-based, Proteus, Prolog, Prograph, Procedural, PowerBuilder, Postscript, POP- 11, PL-SQL, Pliant, PL, Pike, Perl, Parallel, Oz, Open Source, Occam, Obliq, Object-Oriented, Objective-C, Objective Caml, Obfuscated, Oberon, Mumps, Multiparadigm, Modula-3, Modula-2, ML, Miva, Miranda, Mercury, MATLAB, Markup, m4, Lua, Logo, Logic-based, Lisp (351), Limbo, Leda, Language-OS Hybrids, Lagoona, LabVIEW, Interpreted, Interface, Intercal, Imperative, IDL, Id, ICI, HyperCard, HTMLScript, Haskell, Hardware Description, Goedel, Garbage Collected, Functional, Frontier, Fortran, Forth, Euphoria, Erlang, Elastic, Eiffel, E, Dylan, DOS Batch, Directories, Declarative, Dataflow, Database, D, Curl, C-Sharp, Constraint, Concurrent, Component Pascal, Compiled, Comparison and Review, Cocoa, CobolScript, CLU, Clipper, Clean, Clarion, CHILL, Cecil, Caml, Blue, Bistro, Bigwig, BETA, Befunge, BASIC, Awk, Assembly, ASP, AppleScript, APL, Algol 88, Algol 60, Aleph, ADL, ABEL, ABC, or similar programming languages or any combination thereof.

[0036] The different components and databases referred herein may use a data storage unit or data storage device that is selected from a set of but not limited to USB flash drive (pen drive), memory card, optical data storage discs, hard disk drive, magnetic disk, magnetic tape data storage device, data server and molecular memory.

[0037] The term "network" as used herein means a system allowing interaction between two or more electronic devices, and includes any form of inter/intra enterprise environment such as the world wide web, Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Storage

Area Network (SAN) or any form of Intranet.

[0038] While only certain features of the invention have been illustrated and described herein, many modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention.

Claims

We Claim:

1. A computer implemented system for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting, the system comprising: a test response module configured to receive a candidate speech response; an evaluation module to generate candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters; an analytics module for generating a job fitment recommendation based on the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion; and a reporting module for generating and communicating a candidate report and an employer report based on the job fitment recommendation.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the job fitment recommendation is indicative of job fitment of the candidate with respect to different job profiles in different sectors.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more job fitment parameters comprise one or more of spoken language parameters.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the one or more spoken language parameters comprise pronunciation, fluency, language anticipation, listening skills, listening comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, pitch, and mother tongue influence.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the recommendation criterion comprises expert derived thresholds, crowd sourcing derived thresholds, weighted average of the candidate scores or empirically derived thresholds to be applied on the candidate scores.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein expert derived thresholds are based on a feedback by one or more experts, consensus of experts on requirement of spoken English for different profiles in different sectors.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the recommendation criterion is an employee score of spoken language assessment of employees in different job profiles.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the analytics module is configured for matching the candidate scores with a distribution of employee scores through at least one of a statistical method, or a machine learning method.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the recommendation criterion is generated on the fly.

10. A method for candidate response evaluation for spoken English for job fitment reporting, the method comprising: receiving a candidate speech response; generating candidate scores for the candidate speech response based on one or more job fitment parameters; generating a job fitment recommendation based on the candidate scores and a recommendation criterion; and generating and communicating a candidate report and an employer report based on the job fitment recommendation, wherein the job fitment recommendation is indicative of job fitment of the candidate with respect to different job profiles in different sectors, and wherein the one or more job fitment parameters comprise one or more of spoken language parameters.