Just two years ago, U.S. employers were begging for applicants and good jobs were going unfilled. Today, unemployment rates are currently in the double-digits, and employers find themselves with many job applicants to choose from. This might sound like an advantage for an employer, but it is not.
Since so many experienced people are looking for jobs, candidate selection, interviewing, and hiring have become even more complicated than they were before the job market collapsed. Just because a haystack is bigger does not mean there are more needles to be found.
Why You Should Use Customer Service Skills Tests to Screen Applicants
When candidates apply for a customer service job with your company, you receive their resumes, but those resumes may not show a true representation of their skills. Resumes are designed to present a job applicant in the best light possible. However, due to the high rate of unemployment, applicants are tempted to exaggerate their skills and experience. Some experts even recommend that applicants create a new resume for each job they apply to increase the likelihood of getting an interview.
Unfortunately, many people have taken this to the extreme and misrepresent or even lie about their work experience on their resumes. As a result, reviewing resumes is now a less than ideal way to screen candidates. Also, many employers receive too many resumes to review in detail.
So, what can employers do? How do you find the right candidates to fill customer service positions if you cannot rely on the information on applicants’ resumes? The best way is to require applicants to complete a customer service skills test. These are some ways customer service skills assessments help improve your hiring process.
Customer service skills test level the field for applicants, protecting your company from discrimination lawsuits and helping clarify any misstatements about a candidate’s skills or experience. People have preconceived ideas and inherent biases that can interfere when they are considering job applicants. Unfortunately, this can result in unintentional discrimination while reviewing resumes and during interviews. Customer service skills assessments virtually eliminate unconscious bias because they do not care where an applicant went to school, what branch of the military they may have served in, what companies they have worked for, or if their name is difficult to pronounce.
Customer service skills test screen out candidates who are less likely to be a good fit for the job and enable the hiring team to focus on candidates who are best qualified and most likely to be successful at your company. This helps you decrease time-to-hire and reduces hiring costs.
Using customer service skills assessments at the start of your hiring process helps you identify the candidates who are most likely to be successful at your company. These will most likely be applicants who already have some customer service skills and experience. This means that the candidates you select by using customer service skills tests will be able to learn your systems faster, be easier to train, and may also be less susceptible to on-the-job frustration since they have worked in a customer service environment.
What Tests Should Your Company Use?
Customer service skills assessments can be customized to evaluate hard and soft job skills. With all of the testing options available, customer service simulation tests are seen as particularly effective.
A customer simulation test replicates your work environment and presents applicants with situations they are likely to encounter while on the job. This gives candidates the chance to demonstrate their customer service skills and gives you the chance to review attributes such as communication and active listening skills, multitasking abilities, and problem-solving skills. Candidates also get a taste of what it would be like to work for your company and can opt to not proceed with their application, which is better than accepting the job and quitting.
Customer simulation tests provide valuable insight into an applicant’s abilities, especially when used with other customer service skills tests. Request a demo today.