When assessing candidates, we tend to take into consideration what’s in their CVs – the educational degrees they have acquired, the previous work experience they have, languages they speak and the hard skills they highlight as their strengths.
Even if in some cases such information is beneficial, there are plenty of situations where we make hiring decisions based on things that do not directly correlate with future job performance. So, we end up hiring for experience and firing for behaviour.
However, aspects such as cognitive traits, behaviour and personality cannot be captured within a CV or motivational letter. And this is exactly the reason why YOU should wait no longer to begin using pre-employment assessments and testing tools to not only improve hiring quality but also hiring efficiency.
What are pre-employment assessments & testing tools?
Job fit and future job performance cannot be revealed through motivational letters or CVs. However, these aspects can be revealed by implementing pre-employment assessments and testing tools.
Pre-employment assessments allow you to gather valuable insights about candidates in a standardized and objective manner. And base your final hiring decision on data instead of your gut feeling. Over the past years, there has been a significant increase in terms of the usage of pre-employment assessments in hiring. But what are the most common types of pre-employment assessments used in recruitment to improve hiring efficiency?
The 3 most common types of pre-employment tests
Pre-employment testing has become one of the fastest-growing types of tooling that is used as means of screening candidates. Thus, it comes without surprise that the choice of different assessments and tests in terms of what and in what way is being tested or measured seems like it has no end in sight.
However, there are 3 types of pre-employment tests that are used most commonly as means of improving both hiring quality and efficiency:
- Job knowledge tests that are created and used as means of assessing specific job-related knowledge & skills, such as a test assessing someone’s coding skills, for example, in a programming language such as Elixir or Python.
- Behavioural and personality tests which are used to assess whether someone’s personality and behavioural aspects will translate into job success for a certain role. For example, Myers & Briggs’ 16 personality types indicator or the Big Five.
- And, cognitive ability tests. These types of pre-employment assessments focus on assessing and measuring a candidate’s learning aptitude but also decision-making ability, style and so on.
2 ways using pre-employment assessments improves your hiring efficiency
Faster & more efficient candidate shortlisting process
We all want candidates. The more the better. Right? Well, not in all cases.
In this global war for talent, receiving a lot of job applications might sound like a luxury problem. However, a high number of job applicants can in fact have an enormous impact not only on your hiring quality but also significantly impact your hiring efficiency.
Shortlisting is one of the ways to improve your hiring efficiency. The term itself is quite straightforward. Shortlisting is all about selecting candidates that meet a set of criteria to be considered for a certain job position. In recruitment, shortlisting takes place after finding and attracting talent and prior to the first interview.
Using pre-employment assessments will allow you to shortlist candidates accurately, easily and efficiently in a standardized manner. It is the dream of everyone working in human resources – it can reduce the workload of going through large numbers of unsuitable candidates drastically.
If you receive not 20 but 200 applications, that means you not only need to scan 200 resumes, but you also need to interview 50 people.
If the average interview length is between 30 to 45 minutes, you’ll end up spending 1500 to 2250 minutes just interviewing candidates…
By collecting information about candidates through pre-employment assessments, you are provided with an already interpreted report for each and every candidate, in a standardised format. Think of all the time you’ll save?!?
Improved overall quality of new hires
Quality of Hire (QoH). The metric that is on top of everyone’s priority list. After all, it is the quality of every single hire that eventually contributes to the success of a company. Long story short – QoH is one of the most important metrics to track when assessing the overall efficiency of the hiring process.
Think of it this way – if you don’t know what makes someone a good fit with your company or what skills you should be on the lookout for when hiring, how can you know whether you hire the right person?
That’s where pre-employment testing can come to the rescue by allowing you to hire people who are best suited for both the organization, as well as the job position they’ve applied for.
The 7 factors to consider when choosing pre-employment assessments
When selected with care, pre-employment tests can lead to multiple benefits, however, if not selected carefully, their use might lead to adverse effects.
To conclude, a good decision is an informed decision, that’s why there are 7 main factors that everyone should keep in mind when choosing a pre-employment testing tool:
- Type of assessment (for example Cognitive ability tests for employment or Psychometric tests)
- What is being measured
- Position of assessments in the hiring funnel
- Candidate experience
- Hiring bias & contribution to DE&I
- Scientific validation and foundation
- Possibility to analyze current team (yes/no).
You can read more about it here!
Without a surprise, as the popularity (and demand) for pre-employment tests skyrocketed, so did the variety of companies offering pre-employment assessments. Don’t have time to draw comparisons yourself? Take a look at the comparison between candidate pre-employment testing tools that we prepared for you!
Cheers, Anete
