You might have heard this phrase a thousand times - One fish can spoil the whole pond. The exact phrase applies to the hiring process. One bad hire can harm the business and affect the business’s overall productivity. This is the only reason why conducting pre-employment assessment tests for candidates is critical for organizations.

According to HR Grape Vine, recruiters who use pre-employment tests are 36% more satisfied with their final decision.

It’s been more than 50 years that organizations are constantly leveraging the power of these assessments as it is a cost-effective approach towards hiring the right candidate.

However, some organizations still rely on traditional assessments due to a lack of online pre-employment tests. If you’re the one – then keep on reading this article. This article will discuss 5 common misconceptions about online assessments and facts that will help you choose a method that suits you.

Interviews Are Better Than Assessments

Interviews and assessments may vary from recruiters to recruiters. Some of them prefer interviews over online assessments and vice versa. However, interviews are time-consuming, and the decisions taken are on personal judgment and not skills-related data.

While hiring a candidate, it is crucial to consider hard skills along with soft skills. The combination of both is what makes a candidate a perfect fit for the organization.

The fact is that – a well-designed assessment can give you more accurate data than unstructured interviews. With pre-employment tests, recruiters can get a deep insight into a candidate's skills and expertise, which is a time-saving approach compared to traditional interviews.

Assessments Lengthen The Hiring Process

This is definitely not the case with pre-employment assessments. These tests streamline the hiring process and make it easier for recruiters to find the right talent. How can it lengthen the process then?

Fact: as a recruiter, you will have to deal with hundreds of applications for a particular job post. With pre-employment tests, you can quickly assess 100+ candidates effectively in a matter of minutes. As a result, it will help you save time and schedule the interview for the selected candidates.

Pre-employment tests help recruiters not waste time on candidates who can’t perform well in a particular job role.

Pre-Employment Testing Is Expensive

One bad hire can cost you twice a candidate’s yearly salary. So, it is always worth it to invest in pre-employment assessments to eliminate such costs.

When you compare pre-employment assessments with the very significant cost associated with making a bad hiring decision, it is clear that the investment made in testing will provide a great return on investment.

It Is Easy To Fake Assessments

The MCQs feature in pen and paper-based tests often feature monotonous questions. This factor can leave the recruiter with less than optimal results.

However, recruiters can ask skill-related questions with a pre-employment test, offering a more personalized test result. A well-designed test encourages the candidates to put their best foot forward. Many big companies have developed a standard assessment process to capture candidate’s attitude fraud.

It Is Too Time-Consuming

Several types of pre-employment tests can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over 2 hours to complete. Some tests require continuous monitoring while others don’t. However, candidates can complete some tests in 15-30 minutes, and you can administer them online. Depending on the level and position you are hiring for, you need quick tests to promote a swift yet thoughtful hiring decision.

These pre-employment assessments provide:

• An effective interviewing report and a candidate’s key strengths and weaknesses help recruiters to make informed decisions.
• An interview report consists of questions that are legal to ask in a pre-employment assessment test.

Most recruiters think that these tests won’t work in my industry. On the contrary, efficient and reliable pre-employment testing provides relevant insights into job-specific skills and characteristics of prospective employees. No matter what the industry is, pre-employment assessments help determine whether the candidate is suitable for a particular job role or not.

Many industries, such as eCommerce, retail, real estate, pharma, manufacturing sectors, etc., all use pre-employment tests to onboard the right talent.

Focus On Enhancing Candidate Experience

An improved candidate experience is directly related to the employer brand. Today, more and more companies are focusing on a candidate-driven approach to enhance the candidate experience and build a positive employer brand on review sites.

A pre-employment assessment saves a lot of time, money, and effort you put towards grabbing the right talent for your organization. These tests ensure alignment between the employee selection process and desired business outcomes such as lower turnover, boost sales, and higher customer satisfaction.

Here are some of the benefits of implementing the pre-employment testing accurately:

• Enhance business’s overall productivity
• Reduce the costs related to turnover
• Increase employee retention
• Enhanced defensibility of the hiring process through the use of validated metrics
• It is a less time-consuming hiring process

In the past few decades, there has been a considerable shift from traditional recruiting methods to online assessments to get more accurate results.

All industries must conduct pre-employment assessments to cut down on the time and cost involved in the recruitment process. The primary purpose of any online assessment is to streamline the hiring process and help recruiters make better hiring decisions.

These tests give a clear insight into the candidate’s skills and expertise, which help recruiters determine whether the candidate is the right fit or not. Undoubtedly, these tests help reduce cost and time, but most importantly, they reduce the chances of bad hires.

To sum it up, don’t let the above misconceptions hinder you from leveraging the power of a well-structured pre-employment testing program. It’s part of making a successful team, no matter the company size.