Pre-employment tests add great value to the recruitment process as they help companies to objectively check if their candidates are really fit for a specific job. Oftentimes, candidates state in their resume or during job interviews that they have specific skills and mind-sets that, in reality, they don’t which can lead recruiters to make bad hiring decisions. To prevent this from happening, companies can implement pre-employment testing during the recruiting process enabling evidence-based decision-making.
Pre-employment tests are an objective and standardised way of gathering data on candidates during the hiring process to get insights into their capabilities and traits. Nowadays, there are many online platforms that offer pre-employment tests, making it more affordable for companies to implement this type of assessment during the recruitment process. More and more companies are adopting pre-employment assessment and selection tests in their talent acquisition efforts.
Here are the factors to consider when choosing a pre-employment test.
Types of pre-employment tests
There are different types of pre-employment tests and depending on the type being used, pre-employment assessments can provide relevant information on a candidate’s ability to perform in the workplace.
- Aptitude tests: These tests measure critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to learn, understand and apply new information. Cognitive aptitude tests are used to assess a candidate’s general intelligence or brainpower.
- Personality tests: These tests are very popular among recruiters as personality is a scientifically proven predictor of job performance. Assessing a candidate’s behavioral tendencies in a work environment allows recruiters to understand if a candidate will, in fact, be a top performer and if he will fit the culture of the company.
- Skills tests: These tests measure broad and specific job-related competencies from verbal, math, and communication skills, to typing and computer skills.
In a work setting, personality is determinant in the way individuals interact with one another and that affects the daily outcome of any organisation. If a team doesn’t work well together that will ultimately affect organisational productivity. Measuring workplace personality traits and occupational scores that are predictive of job performance helps recruiters to quickly assess if a candidate is suitable for a job position or not, across a wide range of job categories. Moreover, a personality assessment goes beyond avoiding the risk of poor candidates making it to the final stage of the recruitment process. It also helps recruiters identify exceptional candidates that otherwise could go unnoticed through the traditional screening methods.
Tips to help recruiters choose a pre-employment test
Pre-employment assessments can be one of the most objective ways of predicting job performance and company fit. Nevertheless, recruiters need to carefully choose the pre-employment tests they’ll use during the hiring process. Here are the things recruiters definitely must take into consideration while choosing a pre-employment test.
1. Is it legal?
The use of pre-employment testing and assessment has to follow the same guidelines as any other hiring selection method (including resumes, interviews, etc.). These guidelines state that pre-employment tests must comply with equal employment opportunity laws, avoiding any discrimination or adverse impact on candidates, and be job-related.
Tests can add a layer of legal defensibility to the hiring process due to the fact that they provide employers with objective, scientifically validated predictors of success in a job, in opposition to other subjective hiring methods. These actually give companies a chance to better defend their hiring procedures if someone questions their hiring process legality.
2. Is it well-developed and scientifically proven?
There are different types of psychometric measures that are used to validate pre-employment tests. The most important types of validity-supporting evidence are construct validity, content validity, and criterion validity.
3. Is it job-related?
Pre-employment tests must measure job-relevant skills, abilities, and traits. Otherwise, not only will companies have an ineffective selection process, but also it will fail to be legally compliant. To make sure this doesn’t happen, recruiters must first create a job profile for a given position, describing the skills, work activities, and abilities that are associated with it, and then determine which tests are the most relevant.
4. Is it easy to integrate on an existing recruitment process?
When deciding to include a pre-employment assessment in the recruitment process, recruiters must think about how the candidates will take the test. Will they be provided with a link to a secondary website (of the test provider) to complete the test? That can discourage candidates that are more concerned with privacy issues and cause them to drop out. The best option is to choose a pre-employment test that can seamlessly integrate into a company’s recruitment process.
