It’s nearly 50 years where organizations started using pre-employment assessment tests. Despite the fact that a company’s most important asset is its employees. If the employees are par excellence at their designated work, they can help the company grow and reach great heights. For acquiring the best of talent most companies use online pre-employment testing and streamline their recruiting process.
These skills assessment tools and tests help to judge the candidate’s skills and whether they can perform the given tasks and job responsibilities. All the skills assessment tests have merits, but none of them are ideal. Thus, we've put together a list of benefits and drawbacks to assist you to decide whether or not to include pre-employment tests in your hiring process:
The Positive Side
Tests Have Broad Base of Evaluation
Ineffective indicators of job performance include unstructured interviews, resume screenings, and pre-interview calls. It is due to the fact that recruiters and hiring managers frequently evaluate candidates based on subjective factors rather than job-related criteria.
Tests work in a unique way. They can help you form more objective judgments if they're well-designed.
Tests Have Transparent and Standard System
The skill assessment test is quality and has the standard set of questions and all the candidate answers are auto- evaluated. Thus, we can say the system is transparent and there are no chances of being biased about a particular candidate.
Tests Have Quantifiable Assessment and Reporting
The employer can quantify the skills in terms of marks. According to the structure and importance of the questions, the marks are assigned. The reporting system gives an overall view of the skill-related strengths and weaknesses of the candidate.
Tests Are Cost-effective
The skill tests help to slash down the excess cost incurred in monitoring and conducting tests. Candidates can appear for the tests from any desired place of the world as long as there is an internet connection.
Hence, the need for infrastructure to conduct the test or to reimburse travel expenses is eliminated. Features like online web proctoring, windows violation records eliminate the need for human invigilation, making the screening process more secure.
Tests Are Less Time Consuming
For both candidates and interviewers, assessing all the qualities during an interview would be time-consuming and stressful. Pre-employment testing can be used to measure some of these characteristics.
To prevent wasting time interviewing people who can't execute the job, it's best to assess job expertise with tests. Tests such as typing speed, written communication, and problem-solving can also be used to assess particular talents.
Tests Are Effortless and Hassle-free
As the whole process of screening is automated right from sending the e-mails to the candidates, to getting the detailed reports. This automation makes the process of screening effortless and hassle-free.
Tests Are Strictly Job-Related
It's easy to stray from job-related criteria when interviewing candidates unless you use structured interviews. However, examinations can be devised to focus primarily on the aspects of the profession that are most important.
The Negative Side
Tests May NOT Be Validated
The test should be practically applicable, suited, and valid for a particular job role. For example, A PHP Developer should be practically proficient in one or more PHP Frameworks like Joomla, Drupal, CakePHP, Zend, Laravel, CodeIgniter, etc. If the tests cannot assess the candidate’s job-related skills then it is useless.
Tests May NOT Be Reliable
The skill test should have consistency in questions and marking. The marks of the candidate should not be abruptly too much or too little.
Tests May NOT Give Real picture
If the recruiter or the hiring manager is dependent only on objective tests it may not provide the real picture of the candidate. Guesswork can make the process invalid and unreliable.
Is it beneficial to add pre-employment tests to the recruitment process?
Pre-employment testing can aid in predicting the quality of a potential hire. But, here are some of the important things which are to be considered before adding it to the recruitment process.
Tests should be legal - Discriminatory tests can harm businesses, so keep an eye on the results before making a hiring decision.
Tests should be job-related - Questions should measure only job-related characteristics that have been established through job analysis by organizations. It's best to evaluate only 'must-haves' for a job.
Tests should be well-validated - Companies are not prohibited by law from utilizing tests devised on the spot by recruiting managers (as long as they are not discriminatory).
Conclusion
The Employer should keep these factors in mind while considering a pre-employment skills assessment software. The use of quality software can ease as well as accelerate the process of screening. It can help to find the right candidates, at the right place and at the right time.
At iMocha, an online skill assessment software; is a platform/software which has all the pros of pre-employment assessment testing software. As well as eliminating all the cons. It has a valid platform with questions that are practically applicable, scientifically constructed by subject matter experts and a subjective test simulator which eliminates the possibility of guesswork.
