As a business leader, you aim to recruit the best talent to build a team that can help you meet your growth goals. If your experiences are like those of most of your peers, you know this is easier said than done.
Few candidates have the in-demand skills organizations need. When companies upgrade technology and implement digital transformation solutions, they add jobs and eliminate obsolete ones to support the new infrastructure. They also restructure other jobs, which means the jobs require different skill sets.
Applicants’ skills have not kept pace with these changes, and the result is a massive skills gap. 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 experts say organizations could lose around $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues if this deficit is not addressed during the next 10 years.
Another problem is that tried-and-true hiring tools are no longer reliable. HR teams and hiring managers cannot assume the information candidates provide on their resumes is correct because around 55% of applicants lie on their resumes and during job interviews. Some experts estimate the number is 85% or more. So, hiring a candidate who looks good on paper and sounds great during interviews could be a hiring mistake that costs thousands of dollars and hours in lost productivity.
As a result, organizations in every industry implement pre-employment skills testing solutions like the industry-leading eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM to address these issues and simplify hiring.
How Pre-Employment Skills Assessment Tests Streamline Hiring
Business leaders know pre-employment skills assessment tests help their HR teams work more efficiently. Instead of spending hours reviewing resumes, they can instantly screen applicants and review candidates’ skills, which streamlines recruiting, decreases time-to-hire, and ultimately improves productivity and generates higher profits.
When we ask HR leaders what benefits they’ve derived from implementing a pre-employment skills testing solution, they cite the following advantages:
- Minimize Hiring Errors: All businesses strive to minimize hiring mistakes, which are expensive, can negatively affect productivity, and lower team morale. A bad hire can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars when you factor in recruiting expenses, staff disruption, project delays, potential litigation costs, and loss of customer goodwill. Pre-employment skills assessment tests lower the risk of hiring errors by showing which applicants have the skills and experience required for the job.
- Speed Up Applicant Screening: Many organizations receive thousands of applications in response to a job posting. This means the HR team needs an easy and efficient way to identify top candidates. Pre-employment skills testing allows them to eliminate unqualified candidates so they can focus on the best-qualified candidates.
- Flexibility in Creating Pre-Employment Skills Assessment Tests: Leading assessment solution providers offer clients access to an assessment library with hundreds of validated job- and subject-based pre-employment skills assessment tests. Recruiters can use the pre-prepared versions, modify them by adding and deleting questions, or build customized assessments by selecting questions from multiple skills tests. For instance, if a hospital wants to hire an administrative assistant, the HR team can create an assessment using questions from the eSkill Medical Typing, MS Word®, MS Excel®, and Medical Terminology skills tests.
- Simulations: Applicants’ assessment results show they have the right knowledge and experience but do not show whether they can apply it on the job, which is why many HR leaders include simulations in pre-employment skills assessment tests. Simulations present applicants with realistic job situations to show how they will handle common problems they will likely encounter. For example, suppose you are the HR manager for a law firm and are hiring paralegals who will work closely with many clients. In this case, you can build an assessment using questions from the eSkill Paralegal Skills, eDiscovery Specialist, and Customer Service skills tests to ensure they will treat clients courteously and professionally.
How Pre-Employment Skills Testing Works
Organizations in every industry use pre-employment skills assessment tests to streamline their recruiting and improve hiring outcomes. These are examples of results eSkill clients have obtained:
- TaskUs is a global provider of outsourced digital and customer services that help companies protect and grow their brands. Implementing a pre-employment skills testing solution helped TaskUs improve its quality of hire and reduce turnover by 25%.
- Charger Logistics, a commercial transportation company, reduced hiring costs by 30% and time-to-hire by 33% and increased employee retention to 95% when itbegan using customized pre-employment skills assessment tests.
- Regency Recruitment and Resources Limited, an HR solutions provider, was using another pre-employment skills testing solution. When it switched to the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM, it reduced recruiting costs by 50% while helping its clients decrease time-to-hire.
- Encore Exchange, a medical billing service, began using pre-employment skills assessment tests and decreased applicant screening time by 67% and time-to-hire by 33%. The company also improved hiring outcomes organization-wide.
Get Started with Pre-Employment Skills Testing
You will take the guesswork out of hiring and reduce recruiting costs and time-to-hire by implementing an industry-leading
pre-employment skills testing solution. Many eSkill clients have reduced hiring costs by around 70% and decreased time-to-hire by about 60%.
Do you want to see how pre-employment skills assessment tests can help you streamline and simplify recruiting throughout your organization? Contact us to request a demo.
