9 Must-Have Features of the Best Pre-Employment Assessment Tools

Business leaders dream of finding perfect candidates to fill all their critical jobs. However, this is easier said than done-especially in recent years.

Organizations nationwide across all industries are struggling to find the talent they need to fill critical jobs. Although the talent shortage has eased, businesses still find it challenging to attract qualified applicants with the right skills and experience.

There is a shortage of applicants with in-demand skills. If you have upgraded technology or implemented digital transformation solutions, you need different skills than before. Unfortunately, many applicants’ skills have not kept up with these changes, and the result is a big skills gap. So, if you feel that recruiting is like searching for a needle in a haystack, you are not alone.

A Korn Ferry report shows there is a global talent shortage of more than 85 million people, a number roughly equivalent to the population of Germany. The problem has become so serious that 71% of CEOs say hiring and retaining top talent has become their biggest business challenge.

Organizations need a well-planned strategy to recruit and retain top talent in this dynamic hiring environment. That is why many have implemented an employment assessment solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM to simplify and streamline their hiring process.

What Are Assessments for Employment?

Businesses strive to choose the best pre-employment assessment tools to evaluate job applicants. Two of the most popular types are skills tests and behavioral assessments.

A skills test measures applicants’ ability to complete tasks they will perform on the job. They are administered online and include questions in various formats, such as multiple choice, true-false, and simple-select. Organizations that use them do not need to purchase materials such as testing booklets and answer sheets. HR professionals simply send candidates a link to a skills test and sort and review the results when they receive completed assessments.

Behavioral assessments are another popular type of assessment for employment. While skills tests measure abilities candidates have acquired, behavioral assessments allow you to examine their innate personality and behavior traits. This helps your hiring team determine whether candidates are a good fit for a job and the company culture.

Using skills tests or behavioral assessments alone can help you improve hiring outcomes. However, the most effective assessments for employment include both to provide a comprehensive view of candidates’ skills, abilities, aptitudes, and behavioral traits.

The Best Pre-Employment Assessment Tools Improve Hiring Outcomes

The best pre-employment assessment tools improve hiring outcomes by helping you identify top applicants more quickly and efficiently. Here are nine features and advantages the best pre-employment assessments offer to help you hire better-quality applicants faster.

• Instantly Screen Applicants: You probably receive hundreds of responses for each job posting. Assessments for employment allow you to identify top candidates and eliminate unqualified candidates quickly.

• Decrease Time-to-Hire: Your hiring teams can focus their attention and time on top candidates instead of wasting hours reviewing resumes from unqualified applicants with no chance of being hired.

• Minimize Hiring Mistakes: Hiring mistakes are expensive and can negatively affect team morale. A bad hire has the potential to cost your company hundreds of thousands of dollars, including recruiting expenses, team disruption, lost productivity, and loss of customer goodwill.

• Flexible Assessments for Employment: Leading assessment solutions include a library of validated assessments that you can use as-is or modify by adding and deleting questions.

• Customize Assessments for Employment: Top assessment solutions allow you to build skills tests from scratch by choosing questions from multiple skills tests so you can tailor your tests for specific jobs.

• Simulations: Assessment results show a candidate has the right skills and experience but not whether they can apply the knowledge on the job. Simulations ensure they can by replicating job-related situations so you can see how candidates perform.

• Video Response Questions: Some abilities, such as verbal communication and foreign language skills, cannot be measured using written assessments. Video response questions allow you to evaluate these attributes.

• Minimize Unconscious Bias: Hiring teams make decisions based on applicants’ proven abilities instead of relying on gut feel.

• Dedicated Assessment Expert: Leading solution providers of assessments for employment assign every client a dedicated assessment expert who can help you and your team develop hiring strategies and answer questions.

Implement the Best Pre-Employment Assessment Tools

Assessments for employment provide organizations with an easy way to recruit top candidates efficiently. You gain a competitive advantage when you use the best pre-employment assessment tools, which can lead to improved productivity and higher profits.

As a provider of some of the best pre-employment assessment tools, eSkill can give you access to top-quality skills tests and behavioral assessments. Many eSkill clients have reduced hiring costs by 70% and decreased time-to-hire by 60%.

Do you want to see how using the best pre-employment assessment tools can improve hiring decisions throughout your organization? Contact us to request a demo.