Pre-employment talent assessment software can help you make the right hiring decisions. The purpose of such software is to reduce your overall interview load, fill roles faster and avoid mis-hires. There are an overwhelming number of options on the market to choose from, so finding the right fit for your organization can be a daunting task.
What to Look For in a Talent Assessment Tool
The assessment tool you choose needs to filter out unsuited candidates more rapidly than you could by handling the screenings yourself.
The tool should make your initial screenings more hands-off and allow you to get results near instantaneously. You also need to be able to tailor the screening to suit your particular needs as well as easily rank and compare candidates.
You also need the flexibility to identify potential candidates even if they don’t have a skill set that matches what you’re looking for perfectly. Recruiters we surveyed say this comes in second in their list of hiring challenges.
You should also be looking for minimal set up for recruiter and candidate — ideally neither should have to download any software.
Improving Your Hiring Process
You’ll want a tool that integrates with your overall hiring process. This means integrating with your systems whether for sending follow ups, scheduling interviews, or tracking the candidate through your applicant tracking system (ATS).
Moreover, the tool you choose needs to help you go beyond the resume. This means removing unconscious bias from your process and allowing you to make data-driven decisions. According to our 2022 survey, 42% of recruiters use skill-based assessment solutions to improve diversity.
It’s also important that you look to improve the candidate experience as this will reflect on your brand (don’t think that candidates don’t share notes about their experiences with a company — websites like Glassdoor have sections dedicated to reviewing a company based on candidates’ experience). According to our recent survey, recruiters consider that candidate experience is the number 1 priority for 2022.
One technique you can employ to make the process more engaging for your candidates is gamification.
Getting the Most Out an Assessment Tool
In order to make the most of your pre-employment assessment tool you must first determine what you intend to measure. This may require involving subject matter experts, such as software developers from your platform engineering group, to tell you what the critical skills to look for are. The hiring process is full team effort and as such you will want a tool that allows for a collaborative process.
Ideally, the tool you select will measure more than mere job knowledge and role-specific skills. You will want to do a cognitive assessment and engage your candidates in work simulations. Moreover it’s important to determine whether your potential hire will fit into the company culture. This means doing personality and integrity assessments as well evaluating so-called “soft skills”.
The best tools will predict a candidate’s job performance and help prepare managers by giving them a full overview of the new hire.
Pre-Employment Assessment Tools to Consider
In our review of ratings and rankings of pre-employment test software the following options were consistently ranked highly among their peers.
For in-depth reviews and ratings, we suggest you consult GetApp and Software Advice. Other useful ranking lists include those created by iSmartRecruit, Workable, and Mercer.
CodinGame
CodinGame is a pre-employment assessment tool specifically for hiring developers.
The platform supports 60+ languages and frameworks and allows recruiters to screen developers through hands-on coding games and exercises (3900+!).
Their team includes former employees of leading video game studios that use their experience to create coding tests that are tech-friendly and excite developers. The platform has won awards for its ease of use and has the strongest anti-cheating technology on the market.
Their detailed scoring (design, reliability, language knowledge, etc.) provides you with the granularity you need to decide which tech candidates should move forward in your hiring process.
Over 100 companies worldwide have adopted CodinGame including ElectronicArts, Roche, and OpenTrust.
Looking for a technical assessment platform? See 8 Best Recruitment Tools to Assess & Recruit Programmers and How to Choose an Online Coding Interview Tool.
eSkill
eSkill covers the employee lifecycle, from pre-employment (with video interview options) to behavioral development. You can select pre-prepared tests from a library of tests that cover basic office skills, data entry, clerical skills, mechanical aptitude, basic math, and remote working skills. Alternatively you may create customized assessments with your own questions. These questions can simulate on-the-job situations. Video responses can provide a more in-depth view of the candidate’s communication skills.
eSkill’s clients include global organizations in a variety of industry sectors such as staffing, non-profit, healthcare, information technology, manufacturing, customer service/call centers, and the public sector. eSkill’s long list of clients includes FedEx, Kaiser Permanente, Pepsico, and Stanford University.
HR Avatar
HR Avatar tests measure candidates according to work history, skills, knowledge, simulated job tasks, and cognitive ability. The tests include sections that judge real workplace situations along with an animated host to guide the job applicants. Their features also include video interviews and automated reference checks.
Small and midsize businesses usually administer HR Avatar’s off-the-shelf job assessments while larger organizations tend to develop their own custom assessments tests. Their clientele includes McDonald’s, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the University of Minnesota, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee.
WonScore
WonScore by Wonderlic analyzes three crucial components of a candidate: cognitive ability, personality, and motivation. The system produces scores for each of these three factors and one unified score (“Wonscore”). This solution offers a variety of industry- and job-specific tests to best match the role for which you’re hiring. WonScore helps employers prioritize candidates through weighted scores and compare shortlisted applicants for specific roles.
WonScore’s clients include Duracell, Subway, U-Haul, and Aveda.
According to Software Advice, WonScore is the front-runner in their priciest category.
Criteria
Criteria’s key features include the most comprehensive suite of aptitude, personality, skills, and emotional intelligence assessments. Their cognitive aptitude tests measure a candidate’s problem-solving, attention to detail, learning ability, mechanical reasoning, concentration and focus while their personality tests measure a candidate’s work style and behavioral tendencies, such as general personality, integrity and honesty.
Criteria has 4,000 clients in over 60 countries worldwide, including the US Department of Agriculture, MedUSA, and Domino’s Pizza.
The Hire Talent
The Hire Talent is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses looking to measure the personality and job fit of their potential hires. The platform adjusts for both exaggeration and humility in a candidate’s answers. Emotional intelligence (EQ) and cognitive skills can be assessed alongside communication skills, problem solving, adaptability, and people skills.
WizeHire
WizeHire is a cloud-based recruitment solution primarily designed for the real estate industry. It also caters to the needs of hotels, insurers, restaurants, tech companies and manufacturers.
The solution supports businesses and teams of all sizes. Key features include job posting, automatic reminders for incomplete job applications, built-in job templates, and interview guides. The solution also applies cognitive science and machine learning technology to provide suggestions that help recruiters make decisions for candidate selection.
WizeHire has over 15,000 customers including Best Western Hotels & Resorts, New York Life, and Mazda.
Vervoe
Vervoe is notable for its implementation of AI in their assessments and having a beautiful design. They also provide an API to create seamless student experiences, credentialing at scale, and integration via chatbot to bring efficiency to existing hiring flows for large retailers.
Vervoe works with companies of all sizes, with notable clients including Walmart and TriNet, one of the largest PEO’s in the industry.
Interview Mocha
Interview Mocha is big on “talent analytics”. They provide AI-enabled proctoring as well as AI-powered insights.
They offer real-time simulators with 1,500 coding problems for 25 programming languages to assess candidates’ coding knowledge, analytical thinking, and logical approach. They also have a tool called the AI-LogicBox which is a pseudo-coding platform to assess functional programmers for skills where online coding compilers are not available.
Interview Mocha is used by Ericsson, Fujitsu, Cognizant and wipro.
HireVue
HireVue is a video interviewing and pre-employment assessment software available in over 30 languages. They continue to add novel and relevant products to their offering, such as candidate assessment and AI recruiting. HireVue allows recruiters to curate specific interview questions for each open role and also serves as an ATS.
HireVue has more than 700 enterprise customers worldwide including Vodafone, Tiffany & Co., and Qantas
EmployTest
In addition to providing over 250 skills tests and reducing bias in hiring, EmployTest helps you identify top candidates so you can retain top talent and increase productivity.
EmployTest has helped over 600 organizations pre-test job applicants and their clients include Allstate, Cigna, AutoZone, ReMax and the California state government.
Harver
Designed with the input of industrial and organizational psychologists, Harver is designed to build a diverse and inclusive workforce.
It enables collection of data after the interview to negate future unconscious bias. Key features include workflow management, candidate comparison, personality/skill/aptitude testing and custom tests. Managers can conduct situational judgment tests based on institutional requirements and the system can automate action triggers based on candidate status, assessment results, and levels of engagement to streamline workflows.
Harver has over 100 clients that include Netflix, Zappos and KPMG.
