Hiring mistakes are every business leader’s worst nightmare because they are expensive and negatively impact productivity. The business loses what it has invested in the employee and incurs the additional costs of hiring and onboarding someone new.
According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), 75% of hiring costs go toward replacing terminated employees and those who leave voluntarily. So, the best way to minimize hiring costs is to hire the right people in the first place. Employees who enjoy their jobs and like working for your company are less likely to leave.
This is much easier said than done. It also takes a lot of time to fill critical job roles. With so much at stake, more and more companies are implementing pre-hire assessment tools to elevate their hiring game.
How Do I Evaluate Pre-Hire Assessment Tests?
Many business leaders ask what they should look for when evaluating pre-hire assessment tools. The answer is different for everyone because organizations have unique requirements. If Company X and Company Y decide to hire a customer service supervisor, some job requirements will probably be the same or similar in the two companies. However, there will be variances because the companies’ organizational structures and business strategies differ.
Which pre-hire assessment testing solution is best for you depends on several other factors, such as the jobs you need to fill, the required skills for each, and whether you want to measure hard skills or soft skills.
Hard skills are abilities applicants need to do a job successfully, such as the ability to fix machinery for a maintenance technician or MS Excel® expertise for an administrative assistant or data entry operator. Soft skills refer to behavioral attributes and work styles that determine whether candidates can assimilate into your corporate culture.
In general, these are features you should look for when evaluating pre-hire assessment tests and pre-hire assessment tools because they will help you take hiring to the next level:
- Comprehensive Assessment Library: Your pre-hire assessment tool should offer access to a library of validated subject- and job-based skills tests. The industry-leading eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM includes hundreds of validated job- and subject-based pre-hire assessment tests. For instance, if you are hiring a web administrator, there are Web Designer, Web Developer, Web Applications Tester, and WordPress Developer skills tests. There are also skills tests for programming languages such as Java, C#, and Python and assessments to evaluate problem-solving and logical thinking.
- Customizable Skills Tests: You should be able to customize skills tests to match each of your job roles. The eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM lets you choose ready-made pre-hire assessment tests and add and delete questions or build custom skills tests by selecting questions from multiple tests and adding your own questions. For instance, if you need to hire an administrative assistant for a law firm, you can build an assessment using questions from the Legal Typing, Legal Terminology, and Litigation Legal Assistant skills tests and add questions from the MS Word® and MS Excel® assessments.
- Video Response Questions: A written assessment does not measure all abilities effectively. So, you must choose a solution that allows you to include video response questions in pre-hire assessment tests. For example, if you are hiring technical support representatives and want to be sure they are articulate on the phone, the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM lets you record questions so candidates can record and upload their responses.
- Job Simulation Questions: The best way you can be sure applicants can do a job is to ask them to complete tasks they would do if hired and evaluate their performance, which is why your pre-hire assessment tool must include simulations. The eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM includes Chat and Multitasking simulations, an MS Office simulation to evaluate Word and Excel proficiency, and a Digital Literacy simulation to assess applicants’ computer, Internet, and social media expertise.
- Behavioral Assessments: Skills tests show you which candidates can do a job but do not tell whether they are a good fit for your company. Poor job fit is the cause of 89% of hiring failures, and high turnover is one of the leading causes of reduced productivity. So, choosing a pre-hire assessment testing solution that includes behavioral assessments is important. With the behavioral assessments available with the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM, you can confirm that candidates have essential soft skills such as collaboration and teamwork, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal communication.
Get Started with Pre-Hire Assessment Testing
When you have the right people in the right jobs, everything works as it should. A McKinsey study showed that if you replace 20% of the average talent on a project team with top talent, the project will take less than two years to complete if the team is 400% more productive and less than a year if it is 800% more productive. It also showed that if a competitor hired talent that was just 20% better than yours, it would beat you to market on the same project, even if you had a year or two head start.
Do you want to see how implementing a top-rated pre-hire assessment tool can help you up your hiring game? Contact us to request a demo.
