Employees are the backbone of any successful organization – and imagine hiring unqualified employees for a particular job role. It can badly impact the business’s overall productivity and even cost a lot.

To avoid any unnecessary costs and increase productivity, it’s essential to hire the right talent for your organization. But how do you ensure that the person is the right fit for a job role you’re hiring for? Here is where a pre-employment assessment comes into play.

Pre-employment assessments are the ideal ways to assess a candidate's skills, and it helps recruiters speed up the recruiting process. According to HR Grapevine, recruiters who leverage pre-employment assessments report 36% more satisfaction with their hiring decision.

However, every recruiting process has its pros and cons. If you’re the one confused about whether to include pre-employment assessments in your recruiting process, then we’ve got you covered. Here we will discuss when you should use pre-employment testing and when you should avoid it.

A pre-employment assessment test focuses on objective ways to hire a candidate. It helps recruiters get a clear picture of the candidate, and recruiters can assess the candidates beyond their resumes.

According to Inc, more than 85% of candidates lie in their resumes. Hence, hiring a candidate based on their wordy resume is a bad practice, and one single mis-hire can cost a company a lot.

With pre-employment assessments, recruiters can ensure that they’re hiring a skilled person for a particular job role and the candidate is the right fit for the company’s culture.

Pre-employment assessments are of different types, including cognitive ability tests, critical thinking skills, personality, and many more. Depending on the job role you’re hiring, the process of conducting a pre-employment assessment may vary.

For example, suppose you’re hiring IT professionals for your company. In that case, you need to conduct a coding assessment test using the best coding interview tool to get a deep insight into the candidate’s technical skills. Here cognitive assessments, thinking skills, among others, may not work.

So now you have a glimpse about pre-employment assessments. Let’s discuss when you should include them in your recruiting process.

You can use pre-employment assessments:

To Save Time And Money

Every organization, especially startups, seeks different ways to attract the right talent by investing less time and money. The good news is – pre-employment assessments can do that for you!

For instance, coding assessments are also a part of the pre-employment test, using an auto-grading system. Based on the marks the candidates get in this assessment, they proceed to the next interview rounds. As a result, it helps recruiters to save time interviewing unqualified candidates. It will also help to save money and the efforts you put towards hiring the right talent.

To Enhance Business’s Productivity

According to research by Criteria, a well-structured pre-employment test can predict employee productivity across a wide range of industries.

It’s true that – when pre-employment assessment is conducted accurately, it can determine the extent of knowledge, skills, and experience of the potential candidate.

As we have mentioned about the different types of assessments, you can assess the candidate’s hard and soft skills, resulting in higher productivity. The combination of both skills is what makes an employee ‘perfect’ for a particular job role.

To Reduce Bias

When a pre-employment assessment test is structured and streamlined, it can do wonders for your organization. It can give you a clear idea of whether the candidate is the right fit for your company’s culture or not.

The best assessments can predict future job performance, enabling you to identify the right talent, even if wordy resumes and biases have occurred.

As we have mentioned above, every assessment has its positive as well as negative sides. So, here are some reasons why you must avoid conducting pre-employment assessments.

You should not conduct pre-employment assessment:

To Avoid Candidate’s Lies

The worst thing about pre-employment assessments is that they can be easily faked. Candidates can lie in these assessments just to land their preferred job.

In these assessments, candidates always strive to put their positive side forward, called social desirability bias. For example, when you can ask a candidate about their social skills, only a few of them will rate themselves as an ‘introvert’ or ‘antisocial person.'

Conducting pre-employment assessments is a good practice, but there’s no point when candidates always lie in these assessments.

To Avoid Slowing Down Of The Hiring Process

As a recruiter, you must avoid conducting pre-employment assessments if you have some deadlines to fill a vacant job position. However, if you’re not in a hurry to hire – then it can’t be an issue.

Unfortunately, when you take a longer time to fill a job position, it can negatively impact your business’s overall productivity and can cause a delay in the ongoing project. If you can start the sourcing process just a few days earlier when assessments are required, it can help you reduce the pressure of quick hiring.

To Avoid Candidates Step Out Of The Hiring Process

Some job positions require multiple tests of a candidate. So, there’s a high probability that candidates will step out or even don’t apply for your company if multiple tests are included. It makes the hiring process complex and lengthy.

However, some candidates will stick to the hiring process as they know the importance of such assessments. When candidates start stepping out of the process, you will lose many opportunities to hire the right person for your organization.

Undoubtedly, pre-employment assessments will help you acquire quality candidates, but there are some negative sides. It is the best way to assess a candidate’s skill, but it makes the hiring process lengthy.

When including pre-employment assessments in your hiring process, ensure that it is fair, validated, and legal. And be sure to measure the quality of hire both pre and post-assessment, so it becomes easy for you to determine the candidates’ job performance in a particular role.