Did you know 82% of Fortune 500 companies use pre-employment tests as a central part of their hiring funnel? As reported by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), popularity of pre-employment assessments is steadily growing, and they are most often used in one of the two primary ways – to either assess the candidate’s job skills, or to measure if they have the right behavioral traits that would fit the job position.

The increased use of pre-employment tests today is easily explained. These assessments add objectivity to the hiring process by providing results that can be standardized across all applicants. Such objectivity can be difficult to practice in a typical face-to-face interview setting.

These insights can then be used by employers to make more informed hiring decisions, as 70% of hiring managers believe the recruitment process should be more data-driven. Furthermore, employers can minimize the amount of time spent reading resumes and performing interviews just by using pre-employment testing.

Read on to learn about 5 ways pre-employment tests can enhance any company’s hiring process.

1. Pre-employment tests tackle the issue of bad hires due to talent shortage

Attracting and retaining qualified workers has never been more difficult, with 54% of organizations reporting talent shortages globally, the greatest amount in more than a decade. Talent shortages in the United States have more than tripled in the last ten years, according to a ManpowerGroup report, with 69% of businesses failing to fill positions, up from only 14% in 2010.

Korn Ferry believes that by 2030, the global talent deficit will have reached 85.2 million individuals, costing businesses trillions of dollars in lost revenue. As a consequence, organizations can no longer afford to hire inadequate people in today’s competitive economy. For this reason, many companies have been actively looking into ways to lower hiring costs.

When it comes to minimizing bad hires and lowering hiring costs, using pre-employment tests has shown to offer a massive advantage in proper candidate screening and determining if they are well-suited for the position.

2. Pre-employment tests improve hiring funnel effectiveness

There’s more to the hiring process than identifying the desired skills for the job position. Defining the hiring need, assessing and generating role-specific requirements, publishing job postings, examining applications, screening, and selecting the best candidates are all key parts of the recruitment process.

Talent acquisition can be a complex process, but one that is a fundamental part of every company. When looking for the ideal applicant, it’s critical for businesses to cast a wide net and then narrow down their selection until the right candidate has been found for the role. A recruiting funnel can be used by businesses to incorporate and analyze all of the stages that a candidate goes through before being hired.

Sales and marketing professionals have long used this type of funnel strategy. Recruitment pros now see how creating an effective recruitment funnel improves the company’s recruitment strategy and makes the hiring process more efficient. Well-optimized hiring processes and their efficiency can be measured through shorter time-to-fill, lessened workload for the HR department, and top talent being recruited for the company. 

3. The hiring process can be adjusted for the position in need

As hiring managers are always looking for ways to improve, process optimization is never-ending. Because different abilities are required for customer service, sales, and manufacturing roles, to mention a few, optimization can entail completely revamping the process for every position a business is attempting to fill.

Fortunately, as skill-based hiring is becoming more common, it is increasingly easier to put in action. In essence, it’s hiring for a certain set of skills, which necessitates the establishment of specific skill or competency requirements. Pre-employment testing is the most efficient method of achieving this goal. Hiring managers can use a wide variety of pre-made pre-employment tests that are available on the market, or they can customize them based on the position.  Pre-employment tests can now be easily created and administered using online tools, which makes the testing’s evaluation phase exceedingly quick and efficient.

4. Hiring managers can discover hidden talents more easily

Standard interviews, in contrast to pre-employment tests, are often unstructured and too spontaneous. There are many tips as to how to make interviewees feel more at ease during the interview. However, even though spontaneity might help to calm the mood and allow candidates to better present themselves, they may miss  important details about what actually needs to be understood.

Failure to follow an organized and well-defined procedure when hiring managers are looking for a strong candidate with specific abilities and experience can result in a bad hire. Pre-employment tests, which are designed to identify top talent and skills that could otherwise go unrecognized, can be custom-tailored to seek and elicit structured responses from candidates.

Because pre-employment tests can provide hiring managers with tangible facts, hiring managers will have more confidence that the candidate at the bottom of the hiring funnel is the right fit for the job.

5. Hiring managers are able to plan for the future

 

For pre-hire testing, companies also have the option to use aptitude tests. They can not only test for the hard skills required for the job at the time of hire, but they can also incorporate aptitude and personality tests to see if any of the possible applicants have the desired “soft skills”.

This gives hiring managers insight into whether a candidate could have a bigger role to play in the future of the organization. There are many advantages to promoting internally, as it is significantly less expensive and more efficient for hiring managers.

Opportunities for progress and growth are attractive to new employees, which is why it is easy to keep productivity high by promoting internally. Companies are less likely to lose promising employees to another business if their employees are aware that there is a viable career path within the organization.

Internal candidates, according to Forbes, are deserving of advancement because they are committed to the brand and organization. If a business wishes to promote from within, it will need a large pool of eligible candidates to choose from. The hiring procedure is the first step in creating that candidate pool. Businesses should set high criteria and take as much time as needed to discover the right people for the job.

In Conclusion

Reduced bad hiring, improved bottom line, and stable financials should be priorities for any business. And if you want to stay one step ahead of your competitors, pre-employment tests may prove to be just the ticket.

Skill assessment companies such as EmployTest provide ready-to-use pre-employment tests, as well as custom-tailored test forms that can be adapted to the demands of the role and the company.

Comments

comments

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This