With so many pre-employment assessment software available to solve specific problems; it is not unusual to find yourself overwhelmed in finding the right assessment tool according to your company's needs.
That's why choosing the right type of pre-employment assessments available in the market is so important.
Why are pre-employment assessments required?
Assessment tests help to evaluate candidates whether they will be able to perform, fit into the culture, work as a team, handle the pressure and follow an ethical approach.
1. Integrity tests - evaluates ethical views
Integrity tests are one of the most objective assessments that companies use to assess an applicant's reliability. Employers tailor the questions to your level of integrity and ethical guidance when confronted with specific scenarios at work. Your honesty may demonstrate that you are a good fit for the company's culture and that you can work effectively with others.
Candidates can be assessed by considering:
- Misuse of company resources
- Using unethical practices
- Trust with confidential information
- Personal responsibility
On an integrity test, an employer may ask the following questions:
- Do you share the same underlying principles both at work and at home?
- What would you do if a boss or coworker assigned you a task that was against company policy?
- Is it appropriate to postwork samples on your website?
- Have you ever lied to your boss in the past?
- Do you comply with a client's request to do something illegal?
2. Emotional intelligence tests - evaluate behavior
Emotional intelligence is one of the sought-after skills by the HRs after the job-specific skills.
When you have high emotional intelligence, you can resolve confrontations and reduce coworkers' tension when they're irritated or dissatisfied. Some employers may utilize the iMocha evaluation to assess your emotional abilities to see if they are appropriate for the job you apply for.
Candidates can be assessed by considering:
- How to handle stressful scenarios?
- How to work with diverse teams?
- Caliber to handle challenges within the teams.
Problem: Emotional intelligence is something that can be shaped by the company's culture is good and the candidate has the right attitude for it but again evaluating (EI) through a test won't give you accurate results. Moreover, they can misguide you about the candidate’s behavior.
3. Personality tests - evaluates cultural fit.
Personality tests present insights into candidates' cultural fit. HR's creates tests that have a combination of questions from personality, integrity, and emotional intelligence.
Not really effective as misrepresentation of answers is again a big question.
Why these 3 pre-employment assessments are not that effective?
Why do you want to use pre-employment assessments? So that you will be able to assess the candidates in the right way and hire those who fit into your criteria, right? And here's the problem
It's better to assess the personality of a candidate through interviews where you will have a better chance to evaluate a candidate by checking their expressions, voice tone, answers depth, and your own gut feeling.
These parameters are important while hiring a candidate but the availability of the right software is still missing. It’s far better for humans to keep on assessing candidates' behavior than software or AI (at least for now).
(If you do get to know about a software that can overcome these challenges let me know I will update this article )
That’s the main reason why your focus for the pre-employment assessment software should be on job-specific skills, cognitive ability, and IQ assessments. You can check why Pre-employment Skill Tests Deliver Better Results than Personality Tests.
4. Job-specific skills tests - evaluates fundamental knowledge
Combine the knowledge of your particular job role and add specific soft skills you think a candidate will need to be successful and you will create the right skill assessments to evaluate candidates' skills successfully.
To create the right skill assessment test you also need to understand the science used behind it and Voila! You won't feel the limitations expressed by many.
Let's discuss the limitations and how can they be solved -
- Skills assessment tests are time-consuming -
This is applicable to only those recruiters who are not using the right assessment software. Ready-made assessments that are customizable can be created within 5 mins.
- Candidates leave because tests are time-consuming and boring -
Candidates leave only when assessments are not fun, wrong questions are asked and the duration of tests is more than required.
But if a test has questions that are engaging, related to the topics they are being hired for and duration is short you will see a really high no. of candidates completing the tests.
- You need time to evaluate results -
With so many powerful analytics that gives candidates information on each and every single skill with comparison to other candidates in a minimum time, you will never have to evaluate results on your own.
- Job skill tests can't really predict candidates actual performance -
Job skill tests are given to check if the candidates have the right knowledge of fundamental theories and help to shortlist and interview only the right candidates. It is not a replacement for face-to-face interviews or an accurate predictor of actual performance. With different simulators now being available, it is really easy to check the actual performance of candidates as well.
If you still have some confusion as to why using job-specific tests is so important, Do write in comments.
5. Cognitive ability & IQ tests - evaluates learning ability
A part of the job-specific skill tests is Cognitive ability or IQ tests that can offer you insights into candidates learning ability.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ability as "natural aptitude or acquired proficiency."
These tests can help you hire for any position and can predict how quickly a candidate will learn a job. Fresher’s and experienced candidates who don’t have a particular skill are usually given IQ tests.
Questions Include -
- Numerical reasoning
- Verbal reasoning
- Logical reasoning
- Aptitude
Also Read Pre-Employment Testing – Hiring the ‘Purple Squirrel’
Period:
Integrity, emotional intelligence, and personality are important parameters to ascertain the behavior of a candidate. Global companies look forward to hiring candidates who have better emotional intelligence and are a cultural fit. But we highly recommend you to go for a face-to-face interview to assess these skills personally.
Job-specific skills along with learning ability help to ascertain the fundamental knowledge and future performance of candidates. Buying the right Pre-employment Assessment Tool that can help you to find the right job fit.
