How to Find the Best Pre-Employment Assessment Provider

We are amid an unprecedented talent shortage, and organizations worldwide are having trouble recruiting qualified candidates to fill critical job roles. So, it is essential to get hiring right the first time and avoid hiring mistakes.

Hiring mistakes cost businesses thousands of dollars each year. If a manager who earns $60,000 is terminated after 2.5 years of service, the employer’s cost could be as high as $840,000, including recruiting costs, salary, benefits, severance, disruption to productivity, and lost business opportunities.

The company also loses the money it invested in the employee. It can cost as much as $240,000 to hire and onboard a new hire. If the employee does not work out, the company loses its investment and must incur additional recruiting and onboarding costs to hire a replacement. This costs organizations millions yearly because 75% of new hires replace terminated employees and those who leave voluntarily. 

Since it is difficult to fill essential positions and there is so much money at stake, many companies are working with pre-employment assessment companies that offer solutions to help them streamline recruiting, improve hiring outcomes, and minimize the risk of hiring mistakes.

How Do I Evaluate Pre-Employment Assessment Companies?

HR professionals often ask us what to look for when evaluating pre-employment assessment providers. There is no set answer because businesses have different goals and objectives. Job requirements for the same position also vary by employer. If Company A and Company B post jobs for a Business Analyst, some basic job requirements will be the same. However, there will be variances because the companies’ organizational structures and business models differ.

Which pre-employment assessment provider is right for you also depends on the jobs you need to fill and whether you want to test hard skills, soft skills, or both. Hard skills are abilities and aptitudes applicants must have to do a job successfully. Soft skills are behavior attributes and work habits determining whether a candidate fits your corporate culture.

In general, you and your team should look for the following when evaluating pre-employment assessment companies.

• Extensive Assessment Library: You must have access to an assessment library. The industry-leading eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM includes hundreds of validated job- and subject-based skills assessments you can use to evaluate candidates for just about any job. For instance, if you are hiring software engineers, use skills tests for applications like Java, C#, Python, and C++ along with cognitive skills tests such as problem-solving, logical thinking, and numerical reasoning abilities to recruit top candidates.

• Customization: Your pre-employment assessment provider should allow you to tailor skills tests to perfectly match your job roles. The eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM lets you choose pre-prepared skills tests or build customized assessments by selecting questions from multiple tests and adding your own questions. For instance, if you need to hire customer service representatives with strong MS Office® and good basic math skills, you can build an assessment using questions from the Customer Service, MS Word®, MS Excel®, and Basic Math skills tests.

• Video Response Questions: It is impossible to evaluate some abilities effectively using written assessments. A couple of examples are verbal skills and foreign language abilities. This is why you should choose a pre-employment assessment provider that allows you to include video response questions in assessments. The eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM lets you record questions so candidates can make and upload their responses. Your hiring team members can then rate applicants’ responses and add their comments.

• Job Simulations: The best way to be sure applicants can do a job is to ask them to complete tasks they will perform if hired, which means the pre-employment assessment company you choose must offer simulations you can include in skills tests. The eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM includes MS Office simulations to evaluate Word and Excel proficiency, a Digital Literacy simulation to assess applicants’ computer, Internet, and social media expertise, and Chat and Multitasking simulations.

• Behavioral Assessments: Skills tests help you confirm candidates can do a job but do not tell you whether they are a good fit for a job or your company culture. Since poor job fit is the cause of 89% of hiring failures, and high turnover is one of the leading causes of reduced productivity, your pre-employment assessment provider must offer behavioral assessments. The behavioral assessments provided by the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM help you confirm that candidates have essential soft skills like collaboration, teamwork, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal communication.

Get Started with a Pre-Employment Assessment Provider

When the right people are in the right jobs, everything works as it should. A McKinsey study showed that if a company replaced 20% of the average talent on a project team with top talent, the project would take less than two years to complete if the team was 400% more productive and less than a year if the team was 800% more productive.

Do you want to see how working with a top pre-employment assessment company can help you improve hiring efficiency? Contact us to request a demo.