Pre-Employment Assessments

Reduce Recruiting Costs and Time to Hire

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the cost of a bad hire is at least 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings.

Many clients have reduced the cost of hiring by 70% and time to hire by 60% by using eSkill’s pre-employment tests in all phases of their selection process.

For example, OSF Digital, reduced its recruitment costs by 64% and time to hire by 68%. Download the case study to learn how they did it

Pre-Employment Assessments 101

The past few years have been challenging for organizations in all industry sectors. Many were forced to change their business models and operational processes to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. Then they had to navigate through many supply chain issues to satisfy orders and meet customer demand. Just when they thought everything was returning to normal, they found themselves in a global talent shortage. All these factors have made hiring top candidates much more challenging than in the past.

Benefits of Pre-Employment Assessment Tests

Although labor markets are beginning to stabilize, most employers still struggle to find qualified employees. So, organizations worldwide are implementing pre-employment assessment testing solutions like the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM to hire top talent, maximize productivity, minimize hiring mistakes, and reduce turnover. These are some ways businesses benefit by using assessment tests for hiring.

• Hire Top Talent: Organizations task their HR teams with finding “perfect” candidates for every position. However, this is easier said than done because there is a lack of applicants with the skills employers need. Many businesses have adopted new technology and implemented digital transformation initiatives. As a result, they have added new jobs to support their new infrastructure and eliminated jobs that are now obsolete. They restructured other jobs, and they now require different skills than before.

Many applicants’ skills have not kept pace with these changes, and it has caused a huge skills gap. Korn Ferry released a report as part of its Future of Work series that shows a global talent shortage of more than 85 million people—approximately equal to the entire population of Germany. Industry experts predict that if this deficit is not addressed by 2030, organizations could lose around $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues.

• Eliminate Unqualified Candidates: Organizations often receive hundreds or thousands of responses when posting a job. Many are from unqualified applicants, but there is no easy way to determine which candidates are qualified for a job and which ones are not.

HR teams no longer rely on traditional screening methods, such as reviewing resumes and conducting interviews, because they are unreliable. According to a HireRight Employment Report, over 85% of candidates lie or exaggerate their experience on their resumes and during job interviews. So, a candidate who appears to be a dream hire could be their worst nightmare. 

• Maximize Productivity: Employers need top talent because well-run companies operate efficiently and “get more done.” According to Harvard Business Review, organizations that consistently maximize productivity realize higher profits and faster growth. The best companies are over 40% more productive than their nearest competitors and have operating margins that are 30% to 50% higher than their peers.

A recent McKinsey study shows that if you implemented a cross-functional project that would take three years to complete, it would be done in less than two years if you replaced 20% of the average talent with top performers. The project would take less than a year if the team members were 400% more productive than average. If your company and a competitor were working on similar projects, and the competitor hired talent that was 20% better than yours, the competitor would beat you to market even if it had a year or two head start. 

• Minimize Hiring Mistakes: Hiring mistakes are an organization’s worst nightmare because they are expensive and negatively impact productivity. According to Gallup, S. businesses lose $1 trillion yearly due to voluntary turnover, and the cost of replacing an employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. This means a 100-person organization that pays employees an average salary of $50,000 could have turnover and replacement costs that average $660,000 to $2.6 million annually.

If an organization terminates a manager who earns $62,000, it costs the employer around $840,000, including hiring costs, salary, benefits, lost productivity, severance, and lost business opportunities. If they hire the wrong person, it can hurt productivity and morale, and they must incur additional expenses to find a replacement.

• Reduce Turnover: Everyone wants newly hired employees to become productive team members contributing to organizational goals and objectives. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Research shows that 68% of new hires leave within the first three months, and 90% of employees explore new opportunities even if they are not looking for a new job.

The company also loses its investment if a new hire’s tenure is short. It costs around $240,000 to hire and onboard a new employee. If the employee does not work out, the company loses that investment and must incur recruiting and onboarding costs to hire a replacement.

• Improve the Candidate Experience: It is difficult enough to recruit top candidates. So, once a company attracts a promising candidate’s attention, it does not want to lose them because they get frustrated and decide to look elsewhere during the hiring process.

With the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM, employers can brand their assessment center with their logo and corporate colors and include information and videos that promote their company. They can also create a single pre-employment test that assesses candidates on all the areas they need to measure instead of requiring applicants to complete and submit multiple tests.

For example, if a company is recruiting customer service representatives and wants to ensure they have strong MS Word® and MS Excel® skills and basic math abilities, they can evaluate applicants on all these skills by creating a pre-employment assessment test with questions from the Customer Service, Basic Math, and MS Office® skills tests.

How to Select the Best Pre-Employment Testing Solution

HR leaders often ask us what they and their teams should look for when evaluating pre-employment assessment testing solutions. We tell them each company has specific and unique needs. The hiring assessment tests that are the best choice for an organization depend on the jobs they need to fill and the required skills.

Generally, we advise hiring teams to evaluate the following features when evaluating pre-employment assessment testing solutions.

• Assessment Library: A pre-employment testing solution should offer access to a library of validated skills tests for various jobs. If you need an administrative assistant with intermediate MS Excel® skills, an accountant who can prepare financial statements, or software engineers with advanced Java skills, the library should offer hiring assessments you can use.

The library should also include cognitive pre-employment assessment tests such as Logical Thinking and Verbal Reasoning. The eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM has hundreds of validated job- and subject-based skills tests you can use to assess applicants for virtually any job.

• Customization: The skills required for your job roles probably differ from other companies in your industry. So, you need an assessment solution that allows you to use pre-prepared tests or create customized pre-employment tests.

With the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM, you can use standard job- or subject-based hiring assessment tests “as-is” or modify them by adding and deleting questions. You can also build customized pre-employment assessment tests using questions from multiple tests.

• Simulations: An excellent way to be certain applicants can do a job is to ask them to complete tasks they will do on the job. This is why your employment testing solution must include simulations. The eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM offers MS Office, Chat, Multitasking, and Digital Literacy simulations.

The MS Office simulation enables you to accurately assess candidates’ Word® and Excel® proficiency. With the Chat simulation, you can evaluate a candidate’s ability to manage multiple conversations simultaneously while answering emails and responding to customer requests. The Multitasking simulation lets you set up a series of tasks and designate a time limit to assess candidates’ ability to manage emails, handle orders, and respond to customer requests. The Digital Literacy simulation helps you assess applicants’ basic computer knowledge and Internet and social media expertise.

• Behavioral Assessments

An employment assessment test measures hard skills, which helps you identify candidates who have the right skills to do a job. However, it does not tell you whether a candidate is a good fit for your company culture.

Poor job fit is the cause of 89% of hiring failures, and high turnover is one of the leading causes of reduced productivity. So, many HR teams use behavioral assessments to confirm that top contenders have essential soft skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal communication skills. Behavioral assessments also help them determine if a candidate’s work style is compatible with their company culture. 

• Video Response Questions: Many abilities, such as foreign language and verbal communication skills, are difficult to measure using a written pre-employment assessment test. So, your solution should offer the option to include video response questions in assessment tests for hiring.

With the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM, employers can easily include video response questions in skills tests. HR professionals set up the questions and designate the scoring criteria for each. Hiring team members then review and rate candidates’ responses and add their comments.

How Different Types of Pre-Employment Tests Work Together

Different pre-employment screening tests work together to help organizations identify top candidates. Subject and job-specific skills assessments show which candidates have the right skills, cognitive pre-employment tests confirm applicants have the intellectual capacity to do a job well, and behavioral assessments indicate whether they are a good cultural fit for an organization.

These are some ways the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM provides organizations with the flexibility they need to design pre-employment testing strategies for any hiring situation.

• Create custom hiring assessment tests by choosing questions from multiple assessments and adding proprietary content.
• Modify a pre-prepared pre-employment test to match a job role or meet corporate requirements by editing or deleting questions.
• Choose top candidates based on employment assessment test scores and expedite their progression through the hiring process.
• Add video response questions to evaluate skills that are difficult to measure with written assessments.
• Use simulation questions to present applicants with realistic work situations and evaluate their performance in job-related situations.
• Use behavioral assessments along with skill and cognitive pre-employment tests to verify that candidates are a good cultural fit. 

How Pre-Employment Assessment Tests Minimize Bias

Pre-employment tests help companies maintain compliance with industry and federal regulations by minimizing unconscious, or subjective, bias–negative attitudes and stereotypes that can influence hiring team members’ decisions.

Hiring teams are tasked with judging candidates fairly and impartially. However, unconscious bias can compromise even well-managed hiring processes. According to Bright Talk, 79% of HR professionals agree that subjective bias exists in recruitment and succession planning decisions.

Unconscious bias can be preferential treatment, where a hiring team member favors a candidate because they share a trait or experience, such as growing up in the same area, attending the same schools, or sharing the same hobbies. It can also be due to a hiring team member’s preconceived opinion about the type of person who can do a particular job. For example, an interviewer may be unable to visualize an African American as a chief financial officer (CFO) or Sales Manager or a woman as a diesel mechanic, commercial truck driver, or manufacturing engineer.

Pre-employment testing helps organizations minimize unconscious bias by reducing the focus on traditional hiring tools like resumes, applications, and interviews and emphasizing candidates’ skills and abilities. This allows HR teams and hiring managers to make sound hiring decisions based on “hard” data.

Get Started with Pre-Employment Assessment Tests

Pre-employment tests are the perfect solution for business leaders who want to simplify hiring without compromising candidate quality.  Organizations can take the guesswork out of hiring and reduce recruiting costs and time-to-hire by implementing an industry-leading hiring assessment testing solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM. Many eSkill clients have decreased hiring costs by 70% and reduced time-to-hire by 60%.

As a leading provider of hiring assessment solutions, eSkill is the perfect partner to provide your organization with access to top-quality skills tests and behavioral assessments.

Do you want to see how pre-employment tests can help you streamline your hiring process and improve hiring outcomes throughout your organization? Contact us to request a demo.