When you’re hiring for your business, it’s important that you find the right person for the job. Your candidate should possess the right skills to allow them to succeed in the role, but they also need to fit in with your workplace culture and have the experience necessary too.
The hiring process can be difficult, and it’s important to get it right, as high employee turnover is a major factor in companies that are struggling. If you want to run a successful business, finding the right employees is essential. Pre-hire skills assessments can be a great help, allowing you to properly evaluate candidates before hiring them.
What Are Pre-Hire Skills Assessments?
A test or questionnaire can be used to screen candidates for job openings on a number of different skills and abilities. Pre-hire testing or assessments can be used to evaluate many different skills, including cognitive capacity, critical thinking abilities, personality, preferences, and motivation.
Depending on the role you’re hiring for, some skills may be more important than others, so your skill assessment should ideally test for those specific skills. The test is created either by you or a testing organization, and the candidates sit them before you select your final hire.
Ideally, the pre-hire skills assessment will reveal everything you need to know about the candidate before hiring them. Although a lot of information can be gathered through screening CVs and interviews, the skills assessment provides a much more realistic view of how the candidate will perform in the role.
Why Use a Pre-Hire Assessment?
Pre-hire assessments are a useful part of an effective hiring strategy, allowing hiring managers to choose the ideal candidate for the role. Many applicants often lie about their experience or skills on their CV, so a proper assessment can help to weed out the bad applicants from those that are truthful. In addition, it pays to make sure that the person you hire is the perfect fit, as the hiring and training process can be long and costly.
Here are a few of the reasons why your business should make use of a pre-hire skills assessment:
Reduce employee turnover rate – An effective hiring process is a key factor in helping to reduce employee turnover. Having a high turnover rate can lead to poor results, with unmotivated and undertrained staff. With a low turnover rate, the staff you have on board are more likely to be motivated, competent, and successful. Testing and evaluating employees before they join will ensure that the people you hire stay on longer in most cases.
Save resources – Hiring is a long and expensive process, with screening candidates individually taking up a lot of time. Businesses often waste resources by having a revolving door policy where new staff are always being brought in to replace the ones that are constantly leaving. A company can save resources by hiring the right people and ensuring they stay longer.
Find the perfect person for the job – When you’re hiring employees, you always want to make sure that the candidates you hire are skilled and well-suited for the role. An interview can be helpful, but it won’t usually reveal as much information as a pre-hire skills assessment would.
Evaluate specialized skills – If you’re hiring a specialist, you need to make sure they have the right skills. Evaluating skills can be difficult, especially if you’re not an expert in that area. Luckily, pre-hire skills assessments can reveal all the information you need to know, helping you determine whether the person will succeed in a specialized role or not.
Types of Pre-Hire Assessments
There are many different types of pre-hire assessments, including skills assessments and personality tests. Each type has its own advantages, and some will be better suited to certain roles over others. Before you design or purchase a pre-hire test, be sure that it evaluates all of the skills necessary for the specific role.
Some examples of pre-hire assessment tests include:
A personality and culture test – Personality is often an overlooked aspect during the hiring process. It’s important that the candidate you hire is going to fit well with the team and the existing culture of the company.
Cognitive ability – Cognitive ability simply tests the candidate’s problem-solving skills and capability when faced with learning and understanding difficult topics. It’s worth testing a candidate’s cognitive ability because it can affect how they’re able to perform in the role.
Language – A language test evaluates the candidate’s proficiency in a particular language. This is very important for roles that require the employee to use multiple languages or to communicate effectively in one particular language.
Situational judgment – Situational judgment tests judge the candidate on whether they can apply their knowledge and skills to specific situations that are likely to arise in their role. This is critical, as sometimes, simply having the right skills isn’t enough.
Role-specific skills – Role-specific skills tests will cover the skills that are particularly important in that role. These can be customer service skills, programming skills, or anything else.