According to a report conducted by Talent Board on Candidate Experience, 82% of companies use some form of pre-hire assessment tests to learn about candidates’ skills. It’s safe to conclude that this choice to use employment assessment tools is conducting to a future where pre-employment assessments will be a must-have for every HR department. In the case of the tech field, these tools help companies to hire the most qualified engineers and developers possible for their job openings.
As a hiring manager, you are familiar with the process of selecting candidates and hiring for new positions, and if you don’t use pre-employment tests, you’re probably wondering if they’re a necessity or just a hiring trend.
Are pre-employment assessments important?
The truth is that, especially in tech recruiting where technical-based skills are essential for any job, pre-employment assessments are very important. They will test specific abilities to assess if candidates are the best fit for a job. They can also provide specific insights that, otherwise, would probably remain uncovered during the hiring process.
There are a lot of choices and offers among these pre-employment tech assessments, but modern tech companies have been preferring the ones that can do the screening online, and you can see why. By having these tests being done online, you are allowing for remote candidates to take them, without having to go directly to your office. You can also perform a larger number of tests at once and even gather and compare all the results in one single platform, which is very useful when you have a lot of talent to compare and assess. With all these benefits, it’s safe to say that online tech assessment tools are the right choice for modern tech companies who want to innovate and speed up their hiring process.
However, among online tech assessments, you need to make sure you are choosing the right one for your hiring needs. How? We give you some advice you should follow to make sure you are making the best choice when it comes to these pre-employment assessments.
Hiring statistics? Of course!
Online tests are a perfect tool to give you insights when you are hiring for a job opening and they should be developed with candidate experience in mind.
However, once you’ve evaluated the applicants’ exercises, it’s also important that you are able to analyse the test results and draw conclusions from them. An assessment platform that allows you to create data reports and shows you statistics about previous hiring processes is essential, not only to check if the hiring process was successful but also to analyse and improve procedures that didn’t go so well. This way, you are making sure that, in the future, you make better hiring decisions when it comes to assessing the right candidates.
Make sure that the testing platform is user-friendly
Considering that you will be sending the tests to possible future employees, you need to make sure they are as accessible as possible on every level. They should be compatible with as many browsers and devices as possible, as you don’t know which one candidates will be using.
The platform you choose should also offer great customer support, either if you or the candidate experience problems when using it, as well as customized test options. Lastly, it should have an intuitive usage and workflow, with easy to learn options and an accessible range of features both for you and for candidates.
Consider the number of idioms the platform offers
When choosing an online pre-employment assessment, it’s important to also look beyond the immediate and obvious tools and features and try to assess the user accessibility features. On top of browser compatibility, easy and reachable customer support and an intuitive workflow, las mentioned above, the available idioms is something you should also consider. Having a higher number of idioms will increase your chances of attracting international talent, who may be comfortable with a language other than english. Growing your international audience and possible candidates will give you an advantage over your competitors when it comes to hiring the best talent, so this is a factor to take into serious consideration.
Conduct internal tests within your team
When researching the best options for your pre-hire assessment, you will be confronted with several solutions. Some of them will look amazing and will catch your attention right away, and others will need further evaluation and probably a few tests before you can be sure if they are the right option. To generate the best test results possible, you should gather a team of technical experts to evaluate and come up with a few conclusions. Ideally, the team should be constituted of people who can understand the technical core of the testing platform, such as engineers, and also someone connected to the human resources department. Having both of these approaches, you will be able to generate knowledgeable insights as to what’s the best option for your company and which will be best received by your prospect candidates.
A tip: when performing these tests, make sure you evaluate the resemblance of the exercises with the real-life problems and challenges your company faces. It’s important to evaluate your candidates with assessments that will show you if they are able to solve problems and learn about the main working issues that your company’s tech department goes through.
Search for reviews from specialized websites
Just as important as your team’s internal opinion is the opinion of people who have actually already used the testing platform you are planning on acquiring. When you do your research, you can rely on the company’s website to let you know all their best features and all the positive reviews they’ve had. However, as you may imagine, these opinions are as biased as they can be. By visiting an external review website you will find unbiased insights, which will let you know about the main issues and problems that users experienced with the platform, as well as their best and favourite features. Some of the most reliable websites you can visit are G2Crowd, Select Software Reviews and Capterra.
Check for a remote online proctoring option
With online tech assessments, there is always the possibility that someone will try to cheat their way through it. Even though this is not certain, you want to make sure that, if it happens, you have an easy way of finding out. This will ensure you the most reliable results possible so that you are able to accurately predict job performance and hire the best candidate for the role. Online tech assessments that include remote online proctoring guarantee you cheat-free results, as they are able to monitor the candidate and ensure zero tolerance for cheating and unethical behaviours. Even in the authentication process, try to go for an online tech assessment that offers several authentication options, to minimize the chances of cheating.
As you can see, there are a lot of details to take into consideration when choosing the best online tech assessment. One of the most important things you need to have in mind is your candidates’ experience when they are performing these tests. Trying to achieve a smooth, integrated and easy process both for you and them is essential. Remember, this is going to be one of the first impressions the candidates will have of your company and how you process things, so it needs to be a good one.
