Hiring assessments come in all shapes and sizes. Pre-employment testing, employment assessments, recruiting assessments, pre-hire assessments… the names may vary, but the goal remains the same: make more successful hires. To accomplish this using hiring assessments, it’s important to choose the RIGHT assessment for your business.
There are three main categories of hiring assessment types: personality assessments, cognitive ability assessments, and skills assessments. Personality assessments reveal personality factors and interpersonal skills, such as those that compose the popular Five-Factor Model, which consists of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. While these can provide information that’s enjoyable to digest, they aren’t as useful or accurate at helping you make successful hiring decisions. Personality assessment results can change depending on a person’s mood at the time the test was administered, so they’re not a very good predictor of long-term personality expression or the ability to perform well in certain jobs.
Cognitive ability assessments and skills assessments are both more accurate styles to use for the goal of making successful hires. Cognitive ability assessments test factors like numerical, verbal, and deductive reasoning. They can also measure mental functions such as memory, language, and problem-solving. Measuring these can give you an idea of a person’s mental capacity, ability to perform in a certain job role, and how they think and process information. For example, if you’re hiring for an accounting role, it’s important to understand how someone mentally processes numbers. Skills tests also come in handy because these measure actual skills. Knowing how to perform mathematical equations would be important in filling an accounting or analytical role. Skills tests also measure things like basic verbal skills and physical abilities.
Once you understand the types of hiring assessments available to you, establishing a clear understanding of your needs for both an individual role and your company is important. Finding a good fit helps improve the employee’s success in their job, which improves retention. When you have a clear understanding of what you want from your assessment and how to apply the results, you’ll be able to select the appropriate assessment for your hiring process. Any assessment worth implementing will clearly tell you what to expect from the results, and how to apply those results for the best outcome.
For example, if you’re trying to fill a mid-level workforce position, Talexes offers the TalassureM assessment—the only assessment in the marketplace designed to help you identify, select, onboard, and manage mid-level employees. The results of the assessment will show you which candidates are best suited for specific jobs, reveal behavioral traits and reasoning skills, and build upon insights gained during the pre-employment process to enhance opportunities for employee development.
When you’re choosing the right hiring assessment for your needs, there is one more component to consider. After you’ve understood the types of hiring assessments and established a clear objective for what you want your assessment to do for you, you must consider if the assessment is able to be integrated into your existing technology or hiring processes. There is often an element of timeliness when filling open positions, and if an assessment is too cumbersome or time-consuming, it becomes too easy to skip it altogether. Doing so would cause you to miss out on the amazing benefits of choosing the right hiring assessment – namely, making data-driven hires that lead to success. So , it’s imperative that whatever assessment you go with should be easy to use.
The aforementioned TalassureM assessment for the mid-level workforce is cost-effective and can be administered in a short amount of time from any laptop. This allows you to easily administer it in a traditional interview setting with no extra legwork required. The results are delivered to you immediately and broken down in an applicable and easy-to-understand way, so you get the most from the assessment with the least amount of added work for your hiring manager.
Choosing the right hiring assessment can help you make more successful hires—and at Talexes, it’s our business to help you improve yours. Check out our full lineup of valuable and easy-to-use Talassure assessments to find the right one for you!
