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Pre-employment testing help organizations cut down time-to-hire and select the most qualified individuals that best fit the job role. However, this can happen only when the pre-employment tests are appropriately selected and monitored with care. It is essential to choose the right tests based on what is required in the job.
To select the right pre-employment testing you must consider these 2 steps:
1. Find the type of test you need
2. Evaluate the pre-employment testing tool
There are several types of pre-employment tests. It is likely that you want to find out just about everything about the candidate (her skill levels, her personality traits, culture fit, learnability, aptitude, etc.) However, too many tests can make your hiring process longer, and it would be tough to keep the candidates engaged throughout the lengthy hiring process. It is also likely that many good candidates might just leak out from your pipelines.
So, we always suggest a minimalistic approach, unless absolutely necessary. Check only those aspects that are extremely important and test the most fundamental qualities to assess the candidate job-fit.
Ask yourself - what are the most important attributes that the job demands - technical skills, learning ability, aptitude, technical knowledge, emotional intelligence, or cultural fit? Define the tests based on that.
Have a realistic approach when you choose the type of pre-employment tests and set a bar of what you want to expect out of the results. The above image shows the correlation of various types of tests with job performance.
Detail checklist to evaluate your pre-employment assessment vendor :
1. No. of skills provided by the vendor
Check your requirements by looking into the future
i. Are all the skill assessments I’m looking for available?
ii. If not, can the vendor make specific assessments?
iii. Will the vendor create custom-tailored assessments?
iv. If yes, how fast can they do this?
Quality is a subjective matter, it gets difficult to ascertain the quality of the tests, especially if you are not an expert of the technology you are hiring for. During the evaluation you can ask the tech experts or the hiring managers can spend some time with the questions to select the right test for the applicants, and benchmarking them would be a good idea to set the right score expectations from the candidates. Another good practice to improve the quality of the test is to ask your candidates’ themselves…
i. What do my best employees think about the quality of the questions?
ii. What is the average test score of my high performing employees
iii. Can the vendor’s SME guide you in understanding the science of assessments?
iv. Can experts help you in creating the right assessments according to job role?
v. Is skill tests created by Subject Matter Experts?
vi. Do they charge to speak to an expert?
vii. Are questions available on Google?
viii. Are the questions too easy or too difficult to solve
ix. Are the questions easy to comprehend
x. Are the tests EEOC compliant
xi. Is the candidates’ feedback taken after each test?
Every job-role & responsibilities are different, and generalizing your tests can be harmful. Assesses the tool on the following -
i. Do you need to give different assessments to the same candidate to assess his skills set
ii. Can you combine multiple skills into one single test
iii. Can you adjust the question difficulty level according to the expertise level desired in the job - position
iv. Can you add your own questions to the test
v. Can you upload your own questions in one go?
Creating software that facilitates a smooth assessment experience isn’t easy for a vendor and using the full potential of software for users requires a lot of time and I’m sure you already have a lot on your plate to work on. So, when it comes to assessment software you will want an easy to use software that can be remotely accessible with easy navigation, invitation and reporting options.
i. How easy it is to invite a candidate?
ii. Are you able to create assessments quickly?
iii. How easy it is to navigate the software?
iv. Are the reports dynamic or easy to share?
v. Does the platform allow role-based access control?
Your skill assessment platform must integrate with the Application Tracking System (ATS) you are currently using. Such tight integration helps in reducing delays in processing data and hiring the right candidate.
i. Is the software integrated with the ATS I’m using?
ii. How easy it is to integrate with the ATS?
iii. How much time will it take to sync the data with ATS?
iv. Is it possible to invite, assess, share, and view reports within the ATS?
A good support team will help you make the best use of the tool. It’s important to know the kind of support you can expect in the future from your vendor.
i. How proactive is the support team?
ii. Is there 24/7 support available?
iii. Is the support available to help you while assessing candidates?
Customized performance report that is well organized and summarizes overall strengths and skill gaps of a group of candidates with comparative reports helps in a quick selection of the right candidates.
i. Are reports customizable?
ii. Can I compare candidates?
iii. Do reports provide details of every single skill assessed?
iv. What candidates have to say about the test?
v. Are reports easily shareable?
To assess candidates remotely and to have a fair competition you need advanced cheating prevention techniques that facilitate a smooth test experience.
i. Is there an image, audio, and video proctoring feature available?
ii. Can candidates copy questions to google?
iii. Is there a window violation detection?
iv. Can questions be randomized?
v. Is there an option to preselect IP ranges to ensure authentication?
Security is one of the top concerns for enterprises and assessment vendors must understand your need for security
i. What are the security compliance guidelines being followed?
ii. Is your data safe with the vendor?
iii. Is the tool EEOC compliance?
iv. Is the GDPR compliant?
v. Is there an option for Single Sign-on?
vi. Is there role-based access control?
The candidates perceive your brand based on the presentation of assessments. White-labeled assessments, along with the fusion of different assessment software features help in strong brand building.
i. Can candidates see your company’s branding while giving an assessment?
ii. Are the assessments fun and quick?
iii. How easy it for the candidate to start the assessment?
iv. Is the whole procedure of assessment easy for candidates?
You must ask your candidates for their feedback after they complete the test. The feedback can help in improving the test and removing any difficulties that the candidates may have while taking the test.
Other questions that you can keep in your checklist
Different platforms have different solutions to help a client in candidate assessment. It is recommended that you ask about all such extra solutions.
1. Are there any features or solutions that you may not be aware of?
2. Will you be charged separately for those features or services?
iMocha is a powerful assessment platform that’s built to help you hire the best candidates faster. In addition to a large skills testing library, we’ve got AI that recognizes when someone else is on the computer, or there’s another human speaking in the background, or any other form of cheating. Here are our detailed benefits:
There is still no definitive way strategizing the hiring process and that's why you will find almost all the companies have different strategies in place. It’s more like a game of chess, with each and every different move, there's an opportunity to win the game in millions of ways and if not millions then definitely a million ways to hire the right candidate. It all depends on your strategies to choose. Pre-employment testing is one of the ways, when to use it will be your choice. So choose wisely.
