Sandra Hess — October 31, 2018 — October 31, 2018
With today’s record-low unemployment rates fueling a fiercely competitive job market and hiring costs on the rise, finding qualified candidates is not enough. Today’s employers want to find the “right” qualified candidate. Certainly, employers want candidates with the right skills, but they also want candidates that will “fit” well into the company culture.
This new demand for culture fit means that employers must go well beyond the standard skills testing and create a hiring strategy that enables them to identify candidates with the right personality traits and attributes, such as motivation, empathy, flexibility, initiative, and integrity. These skills aren’t easy to identify, especially not with basic hiring practices, such as resume tracking and interviews.
Employers have been using pre-hire assessments, such as keyboarding assessments and job simulations, for years to help evaluate candidates’ skill level. Employers also realize that employment assessments can do more than just evaluate skills, they can help identify candidates that have the personality traits and attributes they want in a new hire. Here’s how.
Science-Backed Results
Professional employment assessments are not just a fun little test potential candidates can take. Instead, these pre-hire assessments are built around scientific evidence and results. Each assessment is carefully designed to provide employers with the most accurate data possible. Unlike other hiring strategies such as resume tracking that can give inaccurate or subjective results, pre-hire assessments offer a fact-based, objective view of each potential candidate. Since each prospective candidate can take the same pre-hire assessment, you can compare candidates objectively and factually.
Real-Time Data
Pre-hire assessments also offer real-time results. As soon as the assessment is complete, you will receive a full analysis of the results. For example, if dependability is a strong attribute your company needs in a candidate, the right employment assessment can help you identify which applicants are most likely to display that trait. Real-time data enables you to filter through prospective candidates to determine fit quickly. Using this hiring strategy to sift through candidates can help you significantly reduce the time-to-hire.
Customized Testing
A unique benefit of pre-hire assessments is that they are fully customizable.
There are many pre-made assessments available to use, but the ability to customize a pre-hire assessment to meet the specific needs of your company is an exceptional benefit.
You can choose which personality traits and attributes, such as adaptability, integrity, resilience, and decision-making, are most important to your company and then a customized employment assessment can be built to provide the exact results you need to make sound hiring decisions.
Easy Implementation
Once you determine what type of pre-hire assessment can drive the results your company needs to make the right hiring decisions, the implementation process is easy. You can choose to assess every candidate that applies and make the assessment part of the application process. On the other hand, you can wait and use pre-hire assessments only after you have filtered through some of the candidates or even use these assessments during the interview phase.
Early testing, however, will allow you to immediately identify candidates that have a strong tendency towards the attributes and traits your company is looking for, as well as eliminate those candidates that are at risk for displaying negative behaviors.
Employment assessments also are easy to administer. Most pre-hire assessments can be completed through either a desktop computer or mobile device, and they typically take less than 15 minutes to complete. Fast and easy administration of these assessments makes it more convenient for the candidate, which allows you to obtain the fact-based results you need to make the right hiring decision without hampering candidate engagement.
As you can see, pre-hire assessments aren’t only for skill testing. You can learn much more than just about the candidate’s skill set when you implement the right type of employment assessment strategy.
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