Resume based hiring. The first professional CV was created nearly 600 years ago & guess what? Research has revealed that:
- The correlation between education and job performance is 0.10;
- The correlation between work experience and job performance is 0.16.
So, if resume-based screening is not the most reliable method – what other alternatives are there? Pre-employment tests.
Pre-employment tests allow you to take a sneak peek into the future by providing an estimation of how well the candidates will do the job even before they get the job.
However, as you can imagine, pre-employment tests need to be selected with utmost care – otherwise, their use might lead to adverse effects.
In this blog, we will focus on exploring what are pre-employment assessments & what do they measure, factors you should consider when choosing a pre-employment assessment tool, as well as comparing different assessment providers.
What are pre-employment assessments & what do they measure?
Pre-employment assessments (or pre-hire assessments) are tests/tools you can use to assess and compare different candidates. The focus of these assessments can range from personality and cultural fit to cognitive skills and intelligence. All with one goal: Getting to know your candidates.
The following are the most commonly used types of tests to assess candidates:
- Job knowledge tests. The candidate is being tested on specific job-related knowledge and elements. An example of such a test could be a Python test for a software engineer position.
- Personality & behavioural tests. These types of assessments offer insight into whether a candidate’s personality can translate into job success, for example, the DISC assessment or Myers & Briggs’ 16 personality types indicator.
- Cognitive ability tests. Cognitive ability tests focus on measuring someone’s general mental capacity which is the #1 most important trait determinant of job performance. For example, it can be a critical thinking test.
3 reasons why pre-employment tests should be your best friend
There are three main ways in which the use of pre-employment assessments can be very beneficial:
- Efficiency. When working with pre-employment assessments you can more easily categorize your candidates, ranging from disqualified up to highly promising. This prevents you from spending your time on the wrong candidates.
- Objectivity. Working with pre-employment assessments allows you to collect a broad set of data per candidate to objectively base your hiring decisions on. After all, the gut feeling shouldn’t be your only driver, right?
- Quality. And last but not least, pre-employment assessments help you raise the quality of your hires by easily helping you find the very best candidate in terms of job fit and/or team fit.
7 factors to consider when choosing pre-employment screening assessment tools
In order to create a more structured overview of each option, we will focus on 7 factors: (1) types of assessments; (2) what’s being measured; (3) The position of the assessments in the hiring funnel; (4) candidate experience; (5) hiring bias & contribution to DE&I; (6) scientific validation/foundation; and (7) possibility to analyse the current team (yes/no).
P.S. We wrote a whole blog explaining the 7 factors to consider when choosing pre-employment tests – you can read it here!
Comparison between Alva Labs, Test Gorilla, Harver, Arctic Shores & Equalture
Now that you are familiar with the 7 factors that you should consider when choosing a pre-employment assessment tool – let’s compare how Alva Labs, Test Gorilla, Harver, Arctic Shores & Equalture score on each of these factors.
Option 1. Alva Labs
Customer focus
Mostly big companies, a wide variety of industries: retail, insurance, energy, tech
Types of assessments
Traditional assessments:
- Cognitive ability/logic tests
- Personality tests
What do the tests measure?
General mental ability (e.g. problem-solving, learning ability, decision making) and The Five-Factor Model of Personality
Scientific validity
Yes. Created and validated based on scientific research
Position of assessment in the hiring funnel
Mid funnel
Candidate experience
Medium. Candidates don’t like traditional tests, assessments can take up to 45min in total. Candidates do get their results back afterwards.
Hiring bias & contribution to DE&I
Low. Traditional personality tests enable people to decode and identify socially desirable answers. Additionally, as the tool is introduced later in the process, the first filtering has likely been made already and first impressions have been created.
Is it possible to assess the current Team composition?
Yes. Job requirements and hiring needs are defined by the employer or based on predefined test profiles. Existing team members can complete a personality test (Team Insights/Team Fit) at the final stages of the hiring process, as suggested by Alva, to get a better understanding of the current team.
Option 2. Test Gorilla
Customer focus
Startups, scaleups or bigger companies from a wide variety of industries.
Types of assessments
Traditional assessments:
- Job knowledge tests
- Cognitive ability tests
- Personality tests
What do the tests measure?
- Personality & culture
- Situational judgement
- Role-specific skills (e.g. programming or software skills)
- Language skills
Scientific validity
Medium. Algorithms used for tests are created and validated based on scientific research.
Position of assessment in the hiring funnel
Mid funnel
Candidate experience
Medium. Candidates don’t enjoy traditional tests or hard skill tests, additionally, these assessments can take between 10-30min in total. However, they do receive their results after completing the assessment.
Hiring bias & contribution to DE&I
Low. Traditional personality tests enable people to decode and identify socially desirable answers. Additionally, as the tool is introduced later in the process, the first filtering has likely been made already and first impressions have been created.
Is it possible to assess the current Team composition?
No. An option of team analysis is not available to benchmark candidates against, thus, objectively assessing hiring needs before assessing candidates is not possible.
Option 3. Harver
Customer focus
Corporates & multinationals
Types of assessments
Traditional assessments:
- Job-specific
- Cognitive
- Personality
What do the tests measure?
- Personality Questionnaire
- Cultural Fit Assessment
- Live Chat Support Simulation
- Work from Home System Diagnostics
- Typing Test
- Multitasking Test
- Cognitive Ability Testing
- Learning Agility
Scientific validity
No. Harver builds their own situational test per company.
Position of assessment in the hiring funnel
Mid funnel
Candidate experience
Medium. Traditional testing with a long time-to-complete. However, they do get automated feedback and insights in the company culture.
Hiring bias & contribution to DE&I
Low. Traditional assessments are shown to have a high risk of being culturally biased as it is text-heavy. This results in the risk of rejecting potential high-performing candidates.
Also, they can never be used as a first step in the process because of CX.
Is it possible to assess the current Team composition?
Yes. Only focused on cognitive abilities.
Option 4. Arctic Shores
Customer focus
Mostly big companies, a wide variety of industries (the set up on average can take up to 5 weeks)
Types of assessments
Game-based psychometric assessments
What do the tests measure?
- Cognitive abilities
- Personality traits
Scientific validity
Yes. Games are developed based on neuroscience and are validated as novel scientific instruments.
Position of assessment in the hiring funnel
Post-application stage (after candidates have submitted initial application).
Candidate experience
Games are more enjoyable to take part in than traditional assessments and create a more engaging experience. Candidates receive their results after completing the assessment.
Hiring bias & contribution to DE&I
Contribution to DE&I is low, as the tool is introduced later in the process, which means that the first filtering has likely been made already and first impressions have been created.
Is it possible to assess the current Team composition?
No. An option of team analysis is not available to benchmark candidates against, thus, objectively assessing hiring needs before assessing candidates is not possible. There is an option to use standardized job templates.
Option 5. Equalture
Customer focus
Medium size to Corporates
Types of assessments
Game-based assessments:
- Cognitive
- Behavioural
What do the tests measure?
- Flexibility
- Workplace interaction
- Working style
- Learning ability
- Problem-solving & analytical intelligence
Scientific validity
Yes. Validated based on:
- Peer Reviews
- Literature Studies
- Construct Validity.
Position of assessment in the hiring funnel
Ideally at the start funnel
Candidate experience
High. Games are more enjoyable to take part in than traditional assessments and create a more engaging experience. Candidates receive their results after completing the assessment.
Hiring bias & contribution to DE&I
High. Games focus on skills rather than work experience and education. Due to their high engagement, games can be at the start of the funnel and are therefore one of the most objective ways of hiring.
Is it possible to assess the current Team composition?
Yes. Existing team members complete a set of neuroscientific games to identify skill gaps, set cognitive benchmarks codify your culture, and more, by letting your existing team members anonymously complete the games.
This allows you to know exactly what to look for in the next hire.
Try a game yourself!
The main takeaway when it comes to choosing pre-employment assessments
Now, I want you to know that I am not writing this blog to try to convince you to buy our product. The reason why I am writing this blog is that I firmly believe that hiring decisions can only become better if we begin to use the tools that are available for us, such as pre-employment assessments. What I’d like to remind you though, when choosing what tool you’ll use when assessing your candidates, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is it that you want to measure when assessing & evaluating candidates?
- Do you care about creating the right first impression of a candidate from step 1?
- Do you want to boost your employer brand by creating an unforgettable candidate experience?
- Are you capable of preventing hiring bias from affecting your hiring decisions without any help?
- Do you genuinely care about ensuring equal opportunities and DE&I?
- If you’re choosing a pre-employment assessment, would you choose one that is not scientifically validated?
- Do you know what will make someone a successful hire within YOUR company?
Most importantly – there are no good or bad solutions. There are just solutions that might fit your needs more and there are solutions that might fit your needs less.
Meanwhile, if you have any more questions – feel free to reach out to us and we’ll be glad to tell you more about how using pre-employment assessments can take your hi
