Pre-Employment Assessments — The Complete Guide for 2023
In today’s competitive job market, pre-employment assessments are vital for making informed hiring decisions and quickly on boarding the best person for a role. Finding someone with all the desired skill sets who fits in well with your company culture can be an elusive task — like finding that proverbial needle in a haystack!
It usually takes between 33 to 49 days of the recruitment process before you find said needles so avoiding this lengthy procedure makes economic sense too.
That is why recruiters make use of these evaluations as they give them great insight into both possible candidates’ abilities and character traits , helping their businesses hire faster while ensuring quality hires each time round.
Recruiting without pre-employment assessments is like a game of chance — while the initial impression may seem positive, you will likely end up hiring someone who does not meet expectations and you will have to go through the entire process again.
To save time in finding quality candidates, recruiters rely on these tests to get an accurate measure of their abilities.
Depending on industry type, there are different types of assessment tools tailored for particular skills so that everyone involved has confidence with each hire made.
Pre-Employment Assessments — The Definition
Pre-employment assessments are one of the best ways for employers to identify and validate their top candidates, paving the path for an informed hiring decision.
These strategies can not only help streamline recruitment but also create reliable standards so that future selection is as efficient in finding qualified applicants! But what exactly constitutes an assessment?
From knowledge-based tests to skill sets evaluations — there are plenty of tools at your disposal to determine if someone has what it takes fit into its organization.
While these may feel intimidating, such assessments provide a valuable understanding on who could potentially be hired or passed up by employers during this crucial part of their process.
Put simply: if you’ve been asked by your employer-to-be to do any kind of task in order to progress towards employment, then don’t worry — it’s just part of the assessment game!
Benefits Of Using Pre-Employment Assessments
Pre-employment assessments are an essential tool for hiring professionals, offering numerous benefits that save time and money.
By utilizing these tests during the recruitment process, organizations can reduce costs associated with replacing a hire; research from SHRM suggests that each new employment carries with it USD4,700 in expenses — not to mention effort!
Leveraging pre-employment assessment solutions is undoubtedly one of the most profitable investments any company can make when looking for qualified candidates.
Hiring an employee is a major financial commitment that can cost organizations up to three times the annual salary of their chosen candidate.
For this reason, recruiters have turned to pre-employment assessments as an effective way of making sure they make the right hire for any position.
Besides saving them money in the long run, these assessments also offer other benefits and advantages when it comes to finding top talent for open positions.
1.Giving candidates the same opportunity
Every job opportunity should be an open playing field — no candidate receives a head start.
With interviews offering only so much in the way of determining if someone is truly qualified, pre-employment assessments provide something concrete and objective ; assuring everyone has their fair chance to prove they have what it takes for the position.
2.Saving time and resources
With so many talented candidates in the job market, recruitment processes have become a race against time.
If you don’t move swiftly to select candidates or drop them from consideration, they won’t stay idle — typically continuing interviews with other companies while waiting on your response letter that may never come!
To avoid this potentially devastating outcome and make sure each potential hire fits snuggly into their assigned role, utilize pre-employment assessments for an efficient way around those 30 days it takes on average to settle in someone new.
3.Identifying the right candidate
Pre-employment assessments can be a great way to objectively determine which applicants are best suited to your open jobs.
This process not only saves time and resources in recruiting high quality talent but also allows interviewers to accurately identify the right candidate based on their skills as they have expressed them in application forms. What better assurance when considering who will fill important roles?
So, let’s say you are recruiting a software engineer. Now, in order to know that a candidate really has the skill they mention on their resumes, you need to assess those skills.
Fortunately, Manatal’s ATS comes integrated with assessments from Codility, which allows recruiters to send technical assessments to candidates directly from the platform.
Types of Pre-Employment Assessments
With the world at our fingertips these days, there are an abundance of pre-employment assessments to choose from. But while they all serve a purpose in recruitment and strategy building, it is important to consider which specific assessment fits your particular needs best.
A popular option among recruiters today — let’s take a look into what makes this type so beneficial!
1.Skill Assessments
Knowing what a candidate is capable of and whether they have the necessary abilities for the role at hand, recruiters embrace skill assessment tests as an effective way to measure job readiness.
These assessments can come in various forms — from multiple choice questions & true or false statements through to writing samples & project plans.
Though many methods are available (depending on your needs), assessing skills objectively with quantifiable data often ensures that companies make well-informed decisions when it comes time for hiring their next great team member.
With that in mind, you need to know that there are different skill assessments that can be implemented depending on what you are trying to evaluate.
- Work sample assessment — This assessment is designed to simulate certain tasks that a new hire is expected to perform in their job. For instance, it can be writing assignments, compiling a working code, or a presentation. By having them do this type of assessment, recruiters can predict a candidate’s potential for performance.
- Cognitive ability assessment — These are designed to measure an individual’s reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making abilities. Common aptitude tests include verbal and numerical reasoning, inductive/deductive reasoning and spatial awareness.
2.Behavioral Assessments
If you are recruiting candidates and want to objectively evaluate how they would fit into a company’s culture, then you need to consider using a behavioral assessment.
According to this article, behavioral assessments is “a systematic evaluation of candidate personality profiles used to gauge the viability of a candidate based on things like culture fit, work style, and potential.”
Thus, it is safe to say that you could use the assessment to determine if a candidate can work well with others, how they would react to stressful situations, and if there is a hidden talent that can be used to improve them and an organization.
These assessments can take on various formats — from multiple choice questions and open-ended questionnaires to video answers, the options are plenty:
- Behavioral Interviews: In this type of assessment, the interviewer asks the candidate questions about how they have behaved in past work situations, to gain insight into their behavior patterns and decision-making style.
- Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs): These assess an individual’s behavior and decision-making in simulated work-related scenarios, to determine their suitability for the role. SJTs typically present the candidate with a hypothetical situation and ask them to choose the best course of action from a set of options.
- Job Simulation Tests: These involve giving the candidate a job-related task to complete, either on-site or off-site, to evaluate their skills, abilities and approach to work.
This type of assessment is similar to a work sample test, but with a focus on evaluating the candidate’s behavior and decision-making in a simulated work environment.
Behavioral assessments are used by organizations to gain a more comprehensive understanding of a candidate’s suitability for the role, beyond their technical skills and qualifications.
These assessments help organizations to identify individuals who possess the right personality, work ethic, and behavioral traits to thrive in the role and contribute to the organization’s success.
LEARN MORE: What You Need to Know About Behavioral Assessments vs. Skills Assessments
*First published on Manatal.com.
*To read the full article, click here.
Manatal is an end-to-end recruitment and onboarding SaaS platform trusted by thousands of brands in over 135 countries worldwide. It is an AI-powered Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool that allows companies to hire faster, better and save costs.
