On average, every job opening receives 250 applications. So, at that rate, you have to study the resume for the next few weeks while your open role remains vacant and the cost of the vacant seat increases. The time has come to opt for pre employment testing. The pre-employment test can largely cut down your time for filing and improving the quality of your hire. When screening candidates with an objective, standard assessment, you can quickly and confidently eliminate the unfit or unqualified candidates.
Pre-Employment Tests
These tests are assessments designed for evaluating candidates, their skills, personality, and behaviors. The results of the tests can determine whether a candidate can meet the job requirements or not and has the skills required for performing well in the role. Pre-employment tests help the hiring process for narrowing down the candidate pool as well as determine who will be proceeding to the next round (ahead of an interview). The tests must be reliable and efficient for confidently making hiring decisions.
Few facts before you deploy pre-employment tests
It is crucial to know the legal consequences of discriminatory and unreliable pre-employment testing. The tests can give way to the violation of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws and unconscious bias. For instance, applicants with disabilities can have more difficulties completing written assessments or physical tests and they may get lower scores. But, their challenges with a pre-employment test will not interfere with their ability in performing the required job duties. So, disqualifying them from further consideration can be considered as an act of discrimination within the law. It is important that any tests you require of the applicants are reliable and the results should reflect the individual’s performance. The tests should be relevant means a physical assessment has no value for a data entry position where the employee will be at his desk for the majority of the working hours. Apart from these, these tests cannot ask for any formation that conflicts with EEO laws such as disability or age.
Advantages
When conducted in the right way, pre-employment testing can help employers in making informed hiring decisions. Test results are presented as quantifiable data — scores, ratings, or categories — that provides an objective, unbiased way of comparing candidates. This serves as an impartial supplement to what the candidate has to say about themselves during interviews or on their resume.
Additionally, the test can save your team members time by reducing the hours they need to commit to the hiring process. Furthermore, a pre-employment test can enhance your recruitment process efficiency by making it easier to narrow down your applicant pool faster and eliminate unqualified candidates sooner. Ultimately, this reduces your cost-per-hire, saving you money.
Conducting pre-employment testing improves your quality of hire and reduces turnover. Skills tests ensure the prospective employee is capable of excelling in the role, while personality and culture fit assessments help in verifying that they’re a suitable addition to the company, too. Pre-employment tests can also be leveraged when promoting from within like using a skills assessment for evaluating a current employee’s qualifications for a managerial or leadership role.
Test Formats
To establish a holistic, clear understanding of a potential employee, it’s important to adopt various evaluation methods. In addition to standardized tests, pre-employment tests can take the form of simulations, demos, and presentations, to name a few. In this section, we’ll break down a few formats of pre-employment testing.
Simulations and Demos
Creating simulations of potential job duties helps in improving the accuracy and quality of your evaluation. A mock phone conversation can demonstrate the candidate’s fit for a sales role better than they can explain during the interview process.
For testing the candidate’s knowledge of a particular platform of software, consider using a demo during your evaluation. Create a list of instructions or vague objectives, and set up a screen share so you can follow along as the candidate makes their way through the list. If it takes them longer than usual to perform specific tasks, you may need to rethink their candidacy. It is also crucial to assess public speaking skills and industry knowledge through a research project and this should be done during onsite interviews when the candidates have enough time.
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