There are various types of pre-employment assessment tests you can use to measure candidates on soft skills such as personality, situational judgment, cognitive ability, as well as hard skills such as role-specific skills (example: web developer) software proficiency, programming skills, and more.

In this article, we will walk you through four different types of pre-employment tests that will help you hire the right candidate.

1 Personality Tests

Personality assessments help you evaluate whether an applicant is a cultural fit and if his or her personality is suitable for job success.

In today’s changing business scenarios and digital disruption, you need to hire employees who not only possess the intelligence and knowledge but can also apply specific attributes to perform a challenging job. In such situations, evaluating the personality traits of the applicants is critically important for your business.

According to a report, U.S. employers test almost 70% of applicants’ personalities. Also, as per a survey, the primary reason behind the failure of executives at work performance is personality types like selfishness, ego, and their inability to fit with other team members.

This is proof that conducting personality tests should not be ignored while hiring a candidate.

2 Cognitive Ability Tests

The cognitive ability tests help you evaluate the applicants’ problem-solving abilities, thinking process, numerical reasoning, and verbal ability.

Such tests measure general mental ability. The primary benefit of measuring this attribute in your pre-employment evaluation is to understand applicants’ capability or potential to use mental processes when dealing with workplace issues.

Such pre employment assessment tests are not as specific as technical assessments which require subject matter expertise or domain knowledge. And they are much more challenging than personality tests.

Some of the key cognitive ability tests you should include in your pre-employment evaluation are:

● Spatial reasoning
● Critical thinking
● Reading comprehension
● Problem-solving skills
● Attention to detail
● Numerical reasoning

3 Emotional Intelligence Tests

Emotional intelligence is a key component of success in the workplace.

According to several studies from Stanford and Harvard University, around 85% of a person’s success depends on their soft skills, interpersonal skills, and emotional intelligence. Yet, only a tiny percentage of businesses pay attention to this vital aspect. However, emotional intelligence is becoming a most sought-after skill by many companies.

Emotional intelligence tests help you evaluate an applicant’s ability to understand and control his or her emotions and the emotions of other team members. For example, it helps you assess a candidate’s behavior on working with a diversified team, response to stressful situations, self-awareness, empathy, managing emotions, and handling challenges.

4 Skill Tests

According to a report, resume fraud costs businesses around $600B annually and around 57% of applicants lie about their skill set. Skill tests can help here.

Skill tests help you evaluate the job-related skills of an applicant. It helps you measure the candidate’s ability to apply skills while working on a specific job.

You can measure skills by presenting a series of scenarios of the applicants and assessing their response in those situations. You can even conduct job-specific pre-employment assessment tests that are closely related to the given job role.

You can have any of the following types of tests in a single job-specific skill test :

● Technical
● Job-simulation
● Business domain knowledge
● Language and communication

To create such test expertise science of assessments, quality of questions, and knowledge is given due importance.

Not every pre-employment testing vendor can offer this bifurcation, so you need to check carefully.

Also, when it comes to technical assessment, you can conduct a programming skills test to identify whether the applicant has the required knowledge for the vacancy on a specific topic.

Coding is complex so the programming skills tests can last longer than 10 minutes. Questions and challenges can vary from problem-solving to technical knowledge and can be complemented by images or screenshots to help the candidate visualize the issue at hand.

You can also include software skills testing in your pre-employment assessment tests which are geared towards productivity and proprietary platforms.

You can conduct tests anywhere from cloud CRM solutions such as Salesforce to traditional skills such as MS Excel and Word.

Do you have any questions about pre-employment assessment tests? Please leave your comments below.