Skills testing recruitment strategy is becoming increasingly common among most hiring managers. During the hiring process, the company will want to gather all the relevant data about candidates to help them land the right fit.

Although most employees are still stuck with traditional methods of using interviews and resumes, these tricks don’t often produce the best results.

In contrast, a well-prepared pre-employment skills test can be a reliable tool during the hiring process. The information gathered from the skills test can help you make well-informed hiring decisions.

So, if you’re not yet convinced of why you need to add pre employment skills testing to your hiring procedure, here are some reasons to sway you.

What is Pre-Employment Skills Testing?

Pre-employment skills assessment is a measure of determining the candidate’s proficiency in areas like typing and data entry, verbal comprehension, basic computer literacy, and general job readiness. In short, the employment skills test will help the hiring team to determine if the candidate has the requisite level to perform a specific job description.

Types of Pre-Employment Skills Assessment Tests

Talent assessment or pre-hire assessment tests can come in many forms. These tests can help employees to measure a candidate’s technical and soft skill.

Below is a quick list of the most commonly used employment assessment tests:

• Personality tests
• Job knowledge tests
• Integrity assessments
• Situational judgment tests
• General mental ability test
• Psychometric tests

Why Organizations Need Skill Assessment Tests?

On top of being the most reliable and objective way of assessing candidates, skill evaluation tests bring in many other additional benefits. Here are some reasons why modern employers prefer using skill assessment tests:

• Eliminate unqualified employees in the initial screening phase.
• Less time-consuming hiring process.
• Remove personal bias from the hiring process.
• Quickly identify talent strengths and gaps.
• Improve employee productivity.
• Achieve the hiring manager’s satisfaction.

Pre-Employment Skills Assessment vs. Other Testing Methods

Besides skills testing programs, there are many other different assessment methods. Some standard techniques include job interviews, resume reviews, and reference checks.

But, of course, none of these methods can offer the kind of first-hand experience on the candidate’s ability like pre-employment skill assessment tests. For instance, making judgments while using other methods like referrals, interviews, and resumes will mainly depend on what the applicants say about themselves.

Therefore, a well-defined skills evaluation test can yield the right result by defining, measuring, and evaluating the candidate’s ability.

A Word of Advice

Finding the right candidate with the best job knowledge and experience after conducting pre employment skills testing is straightforward. However, motivation plays a vital role in overall employee productivity. Also, take note that most soft skills are trainable. So, don’t overly base your conclusion on the skills assessment test results.