HEAAADERLOGORIGHT

BUSINESS ENGLISH · ENGLISH IN VIDEO · ADVANCED (C1-C2)

RECRUITMENT
TESTING

QrrkoD Scan to review worksheet

Expemo code:
13J6-N4K8-3ZBX

1 Warm-up

Work in pairs to answer the questions according to your role in your company.

If you have a role in recruitment and interviewing:

1. Have you ever received an application, resume or CV but never replied to the applicant?
2. Have you had to fire someone less than a year after they started work?
3. How effective do you think a resume or CV is in matching candidates to roles?
If you do NOT have a role in recruitment and interviewing:

1. Have you ever applied for a job or sent in a resume or CV, but then never heard back from the
employer?
2. Have you ever left a job that you had held for under a year?
3. How effective do you think a resume or CV is in matching candidates to roles?

2 Tune in

You are going to watch a talk by Priyanka Jain, who specialises in the use of Artificial Intelligence in
recruitment. It’s helpful if you first watch the beginning of a presentation, to get used to the speaker’s
accent and speed of delivery. Watch the introduction to the talk (0:00-1:07), and then answer these
questions:

1. What evidence does the speaker give that the current system of recruitment is not serving companies
or applicants well?
2. What information is missing from most resumes or CVs?
3. In a changing economy, why should we use new ways to recruit people with the right skills?

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 1/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Leszek Ochalek's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
ADVANCED (C1-C2)

RECRUITMENT TESTING

3 Watch for main idea

Now watch the rest of the talk (1:07 – 4:34) and then answer these questions, saying what you have
understood so far

1. What is the solution to the recruitment problem that Jain has described?
2. The video includes an interactive task – what information does this activity generate? How did
you perform?
3. Are there any dangers in using this solution?

4 Vocabulary

The words/phrases in bold are all important in the talk. Work in A/B pairs and use the context to
explain their meanings.

Tip: Use what you know about how words are constructed in English to decode new
vocabulary. You should think about word families and grammar, Latin and Greek roots, and
prefixes and suffixes.

1. I believe that at the crux of all of this is a single piece of paper: the resume.
2. Multimeasure tests are a way to understand someone’s inherent traits - your memory ...
3. But if you ... sometimes clap on green, that might mean that you’re more impulsive and creative ...
4. ... top-performing salespeople often embody these traits.
5. But technology actually poses a really interesting opportunity. We can create algorithms that are
more equitable ....
6. You’ve probably seen that algorithms have gotten pretty good at matching people to things, ...
7. ... if you never clap on the green, you might be high in attentiveness and high in restraint.
8. ... if we’re building algorithms based on current top performers, how do we make sure that we’re
not just perpetuating the biases that already exist?
9. Every algorithm ... has been pretested to ensure that it doesn’t favour any gender or ethnicity.
10. ... we can transcend racism, classism, sexism, ageism ...

a. being part of a group of people based on cultural background or race

b. continuing an unfair way of thinking
c. fair and equal
d. have and demonstrate specific qualities
e. instructions that a computer uses to solve a problem
f. likely to act suddenly without thinking or planning

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 2/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Leszek Ochalek's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
ADVANCED (C1-C2)

RECRUITMENT TESTING

g. move beyond a problem into a better situation

h. positive qualities relating to concentration and control
i. qualities that you are born with
j. the most important part of an issue

5 Watch for detail

Read through these sentences and recall/predict if they are true or false. Watch the talk again (1:07
– 4:34) to check your ideas. Be ready to justify your answers with information from the talk.

1. Multimeasure tests have always been a good solution to recruitment problems.

2. You cannot fail the clap test.
3. Great project managers share the same traits as great salespeople.
4. The standard performance for multimeasure tests has been set by people who are already successful
in a specific role.
5. If we look at CEOs in top companies (the S&P500), there are the same number of women as there
are people named John.

6 Language point: Key word test

The TED talk mentions several kinds of tests. Define the words in bold, using the sentence context
to help.

1. Employers require an accessible test which can be set up in different contexts.

2. Employers may be interviewing large numbers of candidates, so they also need a test that’s scalable.
3. Standardised tests allow employers to make direct comparisons between candidates.

Now match these test types with their descriptions:

1. aptitude test a. measures personality, attitude and opinions

2. blind test b. related to income and used to determine access to financial

support
3. psychometric test c. related to inherent talents

4. means test d. the tester and/or the testee are unaware of a key piece of
information about the test

Which of these terms are not usually used in an employment context? What contexts do they relate
to?

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 3/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Leszek Ochalek's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
ADVANCED (C1-C2)

RECRUITMENT TESTING

7 Talking point

Work in pairs or small groups to discuss these questions. You can then compare your ideas to the
comments which accompany this talk on the TED website.

1. This TED talk is titled "How to make applying for jobs less painful." Do you think this is a good
title? (Read Geoffrey Davis’ comment).
2. What important characteristics does this type of testing NOT measure? Is this a problem, in your
opinion? (Read Vickie Hearne’s earlier comment.)
3. What do you like and what don’t you like about the testing described in the talk? (Read Stephen
Achilles and Dina Ng’s comments.)

What comment would you like to make?

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 4/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Leszek Ochalek's lessons.