How Pre Employment Testing Benefits Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

The benefits to using pre employment tests as part of a solid talent acquisition strategy are endless. From saving money and time to streamlining the screening process, using pre employment testing to measure skills, competence, and personality has can help address and improve a host of business challenges.

The following are just a handful of the several challenges testing addresses in your talent acquisition process:

Your Talent Management & Labor Market Challenges

With the recovery of the economy from the recession of 2008 still under way, Human Resource Leaders have been presented with labor shortage challenges and a candidate skills gap. This has lead hiring managers to place increasing pressure on their HR Executives to fill positions faster and with more dynamic talent.

To address this, HR Leaders are increasingly turning to employment assessments to help them screen a higher volume of candidates faster and more thoroughly, earlier in the talent management process. These assessments have been shown to better identify candidates who have the core abilities and behaviors that allow them to excel on the job.

Creating a Positive Candidate Experience in the Interview Process

Measuring candidate traits as part of the selection process contributes to a positive candidate experience by helping to make sure the candidate ends up in a career where they are most likely to be successful. There is no sense in filling a role with a candidate whose personality and preferences are ill-aligned with the activities of the role. Measuring these traits during the interview process can help both the candidate and company understand where they might be the best fit, or not.

Communication is, perhaps, one of the most important components to consider in the talent acquisiton process. Be sure to communicate your purpose of and intent to use assessments in your interview process. You might explain that these tools help you make better hiring decisions by ensuring the candidate is a good fit, which will therefore increase their chances of personal and professional success, job enjoyment and overall satisfaction with work. Helping candidates see how pre-employment assessment tests are used not only as a screening tool, but also as a way to help provide a sense of clarity that benefits both them and you, allows for a transparency, respect, and a level of communication that many candidates appreciate during this phase in the interview process.

Accelerate the Hiring Process By Up to 7 Days With the Use of Pre-Employment Tests  

Using pre-employment testing early in the hiring process helps candidates and employers identify sooner whether they are a likely fit for the job or not. If you have several candidates applying for a job, it can become a daunting and overwhelming task to review and screen all of them in a timely manner. Having a screening tool like an assessment that you can use to verify certain skills and abilities can help you narrow down your candidate pool more quickly and efficiently.

Similarly, being able to confirm whether candidates are a fit sooner frees up your other employees who may be filling in for the vacancy, and reduces any lost productivity for the business as a whole. Every day your business has an unfilled position or an underperforming employee filling a key role, is a loss of new sales opportunities, reduced capacity to produce or deliver your products and services, and increased cost to support your clients.

Another key point to consider in wanting to execute a speedy hiring process is to avoid candidate drop-off. In a tight labor market, good candidates are hard to come by. Having a long and drawn out hiring process increases the chances of them dropping out or getting poached by another company. The quicker you move, the better your chances are of hiring a really great candidate.

Mismanaging any of these factors can result in reduced profitability and reduced overall business growth.

Improve Poor Hiring Practices with Pre Employment Tests.

Hiring a candidate who is not a fit for your role, for reasons of work style, personality, or competency increases the likelihood of them quitting prematurely or you having to terminate them for lack of performance or behavior. Pre employment testing used to screen out candidates who won’t be successful in the role or who are not up to par with your requirements will surely save you the trouble, time and cost of making a poor hiring decision. The less time and financial investment you put forth for the wrong candidates frees you up to focus on those candidates who do meet your standards and have the necessary skills and motivation that will drive business growth.

Implementing a system of assessment for your talent acquisition process sets your business up to address previous poor hiring practices and sets your business up for success with more deliberate and better structured future hiring objectives.

A Way to Improve Interview Skills for Emerging Leaders

Because pre employment testing provides an in-depth and comprehensive look into a candidate’s skills and personality style, for example, interviewers can better understand and hone in on areas a candidate scored particularly well or poorly in during initial interviews.

This insight will help interviewers identify the most important components of their position and how they propose their questions to get the most out of each interview with candidates. Focusing in on these interest areas helps interviewers further develop their process for interviewing.

Serves as a Guide for Employee Development

Researchers have found that pre-employment assessments can predict a candidate’s future performance at work. Employees who have desirable personality traits, including strong levels of motivation, empathy, and self-confidence have been shown to perform better in the workplace when compared to those who don’t.

These qualities are essential in employees who will be able to stay on task, present a positive attitude towards their jobs, and perform effectively.

During the onboarding phase, HR leaders can use the information gleaned from pre employment assessments to target these areas where an employee might need improvement. Now, in addition to being a tool used to help assess for hiring, an employee’s test results can also serve as a starting point for improving their performance and creating smart goals to increase productivity.