A question on every HR professional’s mind nowadays is how to attract qualified applicants with the right skills and experience. Organizations nationwide across all industries are struggling to find the talent they need because of the talent shortage we are experiencing.
In this challenging hiring environment, HR teams need a well-planned strategy to recruit and retain top talent. Many have implemented a pre-employment testing solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM to simplify their hiring process and streamline and improve workflow.
What Is a Pre-Employment Test?
A pre-employment test refers to various types of assessments that HR teams use to evaluate job applicants. The most popular pre-employment testing tool is a skills test.
Skills tests typically include questions in multiple formats, such as multiple choice and true-false, and are administered online. So, there is no need to purchase booklets, answer sheets, and other testing materials. HR professionals send applicants a link to a skills test via email so they can access and complete the assessment. Once candidates submit assessments, HR teams sort and review the results.
Behavioral assessments are another popular type of pre-employment test. While skills measure a candidate’s acquired abilities, behavioral assessments provide insights into their core personality traits. The results help hiring teams determine which applicants are a good fit for a job and their company culture.
Both skills tests and behavioral assessments can help you hire better and faster when used alone. However, they are most effective when used together because they provide a comprehensive view of a candidate’s skills, abilities, and behavioral traits.
Hire Better and Faster with Pre-Employment Tests
Pre-employment tests improve your hiring process by allowing HR teams to identify top applicants quickly and efficiently. These are some ways pre-employment tests can help you hire better and faster.
Streamline Hiring
Companies often receive thousands of responses to a single job posting. This means hiring teams could spend hours reviewing unqualified applicants’ resumes to find the few candidates who have the right skills and experience. This is tedious and time-consuming and is an inefficient use of valuable time.
Pre-employment testing streamlines hiring by enabling recruiters to eliminate unqualified candidates immediately so they can focus their time and efforts on the applicants who are best qualified for the job. This makes hiring easier, faster, and more efficient and wastes less time.
The eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM enables hiring teams to create automated workflows that streamline the entire candidate selection process. During its 20 years in business, eSkill has helped clients reduce hiring costs by up to 70% and time to hire by as much as 60%.
Lower Turnover
With every new hire, the two questions every HR professional and hiring manager thinks of are, “Will this person work out?” and “Will they stay with our company and contribute to our mission?” The unfortunate fact is that many do not. A BambooHR survey shows that almost 70% of new hires leave within the first three months, and 90% of employees explore new opportunities even if they are not actively searching for a new job.
In addition to hiring qualified employees, organizations need to retain top talent and reduce turnover. U.S. businesses lose $1 trillion yearly due to turnover, and the cost of replacing an employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary.
Pre-employment tests enable businesses to screen applicants for skills and behavioral traits so they can determine whether a candidate is likely to be successful in a job and assimilate into their company culture. Research shows that using skills-based and behavioral assessments can increase the likelihood of placing the right person in the proper position by up to 80%.
Minimize Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias refers to negative attitudes or stereotypes that can impact an individual’s decisions. It can also refer to preferential treatment, where a hiring team member favors a candidate because of a common trait or experience, such as attending the same university or enjoying the same hobbies.
Hiring teams are tasked with judging candidates fairly and impartially. However, bias has a way of creeping into even well-managed hiring processes. According to Bright Talk, 79% of HR professionals agree that unconscious bias exists in both recruitment and succession planning decisions.
Pre-employment tests help organizations minimize unconscious bias by emphasizing candidates’ skills and abilities and reducing the focus on traditional factors such as resumes, applications, and interviews. This allows HR teams and hiring managers to make hiring decisions based on “hard” data.
Get Started with Pre-Employment Testing
Many businesses are reevaluating their screening and hiring processes to adjust to the reality of the “new” talent ecosystem. For many, this has included implementing pre-employment testing.
Pre-employment tests are the ideal solution if you need an easy way to recruit top candidates efficiently. As a leading provider of pre-employment testing solutions, eSkill is the perfect partner to provide your organization with access to top-quality skills tests and behavioral assessments.
Do you want to learn how pre-employment testing can help you make better hiring decisions faster? Contact us to request a demo.