1. They focus on skills that relate to performance
The greatest thing about skills testing is you can cater them to the job you are hiring for. Let’s say you’re hiring a sales person. This is a pretty common role, and you know what a good sales person should have right? Well, many hiring managers don’t and this is where skills testing comes in! Instead of spending 45 minutes asking a candidate about past performance; give the candidate 3-fifteen minute Sales Skill Tests like: the Professional Sales Profile, the Influence test, and the Sales Ability and Fit assessment. These tell hiring managers what kind of experience their job candidates have, their knowledge base, and what kind of salesperson they would be. This also rules out all candidates who may fudge their experience during the interview.
2. They are more objective than interviews
Skills testing is the proof in the pudding compared to interviews. Why? Because it measures skills that relate to job performance. Kevin Wheeler with Ere.Net stated in an article about interviewing and skills testing that, ‘Research has consistently shown that by combining skills testing along with assessing for cultural fit and motivation, success on the job can be improved over interviewing.’ Using skills testing decreases hiring based on your ‘gut feeling,’ because the results are measurable and objective.
3. They tell you how to manage your employees
There is more to pre-employment testing than just skills – it’s also finding out about your job candidate’s personality. Hireology co-founder, Margot Baill, states in a recent blog post that ‘personality tests are a great tool for understanding people and improving management,’ and they ‘can be extremely valuable when trying to understand the motivations and work styles of your new employees.’ So instead of taking two months to ‘get to know your employee,’ and learn how they react to management, give them a 15 minute skills test and have your answer immediately. Hello increased employee engagement!
So instead of worrying about bad hires and turnover, start worrying about what assessments you will give your job candidates and new hires. Eric Herrenkohl in an article from Monster says, ‘figure out the skills that predict top performance, measure them with assessment tools and focus on them in the interview, and then make more objective hiring decisions.’ We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
