7 Pre-Hire Assessment Tools You Should Be Aware Of

Whether you are actively looking out for job opportunities or waiting for the right opportunity to come your way, you need to know what employers look for in potential hires and how they assess candidates. According to Harvard Business Review, about 76% of organizations with over 100 employees turn to assessment tools for evaluating the aptitude and attitude of candidates during recruitment process. Another study shows that 22% of organizations in the country use assessment tools while hiring for entry level positions, whereas 34% use them for managerial positions. This means that there is a high possibility that you will face a pre-employment test as part of the hiring process.

Pre-employment assessment tools enable hiring managers to go beyond their biases and select candidates as objectively as possible. Assessment tools are used to determine a candidate’s experience, personality, skill sets, behavior, emotional intelligence, leadership capabilities, and so on during the recruitment process.

Here are six assessment tools that are most commonly used by employers and recruitment consultants during the recruitment process. Being aware of them can help you perform optimally on the tests.

Psychometric Assessment

Psychometric tests help in measuring whether a candidate is suitable for a role based on the personality characteristics and cognitive abilities.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

MBTI is the most widely used personality test in the world, with over 3.5 million tests assessed every year. About 80% of Fortune 500 companies have been using the MBTI to assess the preferences, perception and decision-making skills of candidates. The test aims to indicate a pattern in human behavior and categorizes candidates into four different personality types. The result of this test indicates the type of personality category that you fall in, helping the company determine if you are a good fit for the role.

Caliper

Caliper has been used to assess the personality of potential candidates for over 50 years and has been adopted by companies such as Motorola, Orange County Luxury Hotels, and more. The test measures if your traits and attributes are in alignment with the job profile or not. It focuses on your natural strengths, potential in the required job areas, and motivations. This method can also give you a chance to judge if the nature of the job aligns with your interests or not.

Likert Scale

This is psychometric tool is often used to form the questions and options for a psychometric test for job applicants. It is a bipolar method of testing your positive and negative responses to a particular statement. A leading online testing platform, Mettl, uses Likert Scale as one of its assessment tools to measure certain personality traits of candidates during the recruitment process.

Skills Assessment

These assessments help employers accurately gauge the skill level of the candidates to successfully perform a certain job.

Predictive Index (PI)

The index is a 12-minute test that is often used as a pre-employment assessment tool for hiring and as a post-employment assessment tool for talent development. The PI has been in use for over 60 years by companies across the globe. This is a scientific tool that assesses your cognitive and behavioral aspects of your personality to test if you are a good fit to a job role, thereby helping employers mitigate turnover.

Interview Mocha

Interview Mocha is Indian online assessment software that helps recruitment consultants and hiring managers shortlist candidates in four simple steps. It is used by the employers to check your aptitude and job readiness, skills, with the help of custom tests and advanced simulations. This tool provides a quantifiable result for making a selection decision. Companies such as Sephora, Capegemini and Nielsen use this tool for employee assessment.

Behavioral Assessment

These tests evaluate behavioral traits of an applicant to predict their future performance and identify candidates who are most likely to succeed.

Wonderlic

A major test used to select athletes, especially quarterbacks in the National Football League (NFL), is now used by companies to assess their candidates. The tool can be used to test your decision making skills, grasping power, and other behavioral skills. BP, a Fortune 500 company, food franchise Subway, and many more companies use Wonderlic to assess their applicants.

IBM Kenexa

This employee assessment wing of IBM uses behavioral science techniques to measure traits, skills, and culture fit of potential candidates and employees. IBM Kenexa provides job evaluation tools, skill assessment tests, functional behavior assessments and more. IBM’s clients administer more than 30 million tests annually.

Some amount of research at your end can give you an idea about the tools being used by the companies to which you intend to apply to assess candidates. You can take the relevant practice tests available online to understand the test template and type of questions, helping you gain some practice ahead of time. Regardless of which assessment test you are subjected to, be as honest and open as possible during the recruitment process.

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about the author

yeshab giri

chief commercial officer - staffing & RT professionals

yeshab is responsible for leading the development and expansion of randstad India’s value added staffing services which currently encompass field force, engineering and technology roles.

tags:

recruitment

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