Asking Job Applicants to Do the Assessment

Assessment Manual Asking Job Applicants to Do the Assessment

Top Performers put the Effort to Complete Assessments

Asking Job Applicants to Do the Assessment

One concern I hear from a new client over and over again it that the candidates will give a negative reaction to doing the assessments. In reality, after personally asking hundreds of applicants to do the assessments, I have only had a couple of complaints from those who appeared to have attitude problems. From the tens of thousands of those that my agents and clients have asked to do assessments, I could count the numbers of problems on one hand that I have had from them and still have fingers left over. In fact, if you think about it, if you ask people to do something for you and they give you resistance, how will they behave once you hire them? Remember people are on their best behavior when applying for a job.

My clients find the best time to ask a candidate to do the assessments is right after the first interview if they still like what they see and hear. This is often done by sending the applicant home with the web link and codes.

These are some of the ways to ask them to do the assessments:

Find a quiet place for them to answer the questions on a company-owned computer.
Work out a time they will do the assessment outside the office (home, library, internet café etc.)

Before they start, tell them that the assessment is sensitive to how honestly they fill it in. This is important as extreme false or exaggerated responses render results useless (you will be notified when this happens). What seems to get the best results is forwarding an e- mail I send you with the web address and codes with a statement to you about how the assessments are sensitive to how honestly they are filled in and that I will not recommend anyone who exaggerates. Over time, I have found that some clients’ candidates exaggerate more than my other clients’ candidates.

In this day and age, over 50% of companies use questionnaires. The computer age has made assessments more accessible to everyone. So don’t feel it is inappropriate to ask someone to do an assessment. Once you ask a few people, you will realize how accepting the candidates are.