A 2017 detailed survey by CareerBuilder revealed that 74% of employers admitted hiring the wrong person for a profile.
Pre-employment tests play an integral role in the entire hiring process. It is a conventional yet effective means to know whether a particular candidate is a right fit for a specific job position. Besides, does he or she possess the skills and genuine passion for becoming one of the company’s valuable assets?
Here are the most recommended pre-screening tests that your company should take, right before your HR department makes any job offer.
Read on to Know the Various Pre-Employment Tests:-
1. Job Knowledge Test
It is a type of test that evaluates a candidate’s knowledge about the job. For example, if you’re hiring for a PHP programmer, the test will be related to this coding language’s fundamentals.
However, the questions are not complicated since the knowledge test is preliminary. The job knowledge test is a means to determine if the candidate has the expertise earned from previous programming positions.
2. Integrity Test
Next up, is the integrity test, which measures the applicant’s reliability. The test includes tricky questions to determine the candidate’s degree of integrity & ethics when dealing with critical workplace scenarios.
It is significant in lowering the odds of hiring a high-risk employee that may contribute to theft and disruptive behavior in the workplace, thus creating a workplace culture deemed safe by everyone.
The questions must be in line with your office culture to clearly understand whether the individual can fit the workspace.
Some Prevalent Questions Included in an Integrity Test Are:-
- How would you react if your manager or coworker asked you to do something that violates the company policy?
- If the client asks to do something illegal, will you do it?
- Have you ever lied to your team leader or manager in your previous role?
3. Personality Test
A personality test aims to see if a particular applicant has an engagement level and whether they see a long-term career with the organization.
These tests can measure how analytical, team-oriented, conscientious, influential, flexible, or open the candidate is, while the advanced measurements can even determine whether the candidate is an Extroverted Introvert Vs. Introverted Extrovert. There are no right or wrong questions, but these tests draw a fine line between what can be perceived as a good and a bad candidate, and can be hugely beneficial to your company as a result.
Some Personality Tests You Might Consider Are:-
- The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
- The Caliper Profile
- The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
- The SHL Occupational Personality Questionnaire
- The DiSC Behavioral Inventory
These tests allow recruiters to identify the candidate’s required personality traits, work preferences, values, and motivation for a specific job role. You can easily buy DISC assessments online for any job applications or interviews you may be holding to help you understand your potential new hires better.
4. Skills Assessment Test
It is the most decisive test that judges your candidates’ soft and hard skills. Skills tests, such as those offered through the HiPeople Assessments platform, can be an effective way to judge if a candidate has the appropriate knowledge for a specific role. Their results can be examined objectively or they can be compared against a model of what you require in a specified job role. This can help to sift out candidates who may have impressed in interview, but who simply lacked the technical skills to pick up the role smoothly. By doing this, you can reduce training costs and minimise the impact of a new hire on team productivity as a whole.
For instance, if you are hiring for a copywriter’s profile, the skill assessment measures the candidate’s creativity and how many words they can write in an hour, along with language & grammar command, and how well the content is proofread before submission.
Additional skills include research skills, presentation, or leadership skills. Each question must be focused on job-specific skills.
Why Conduct Background Investigations & Reference Checks Before Onboarding?
While the candidate has cleared all the tests, what next?
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh — American Internet entrepreneur & venture capitalist, approximated that bad hires had cost the company “well over $100 million.”
The stakes are high. Background screening done by the best background check service validates a candidate’s academic history, verifies the courses they studied with the exact date of joining & relieving, and the qualifications gained. It will also give you an idea about the candidate’s character, reliability & capabilities before getting them on-board.