Pre-Employment Testing: What to Know & How to Choose

The main challenge in the hiring process is assessing which candidates are fit for the job. On one hand, you could be sorting out numerous generic resumes from applicants who mass-distribute. On the other, there may appear to be a large pool of suitable candidates, all with resumes that highlight similar skills. 

What happens if you simply do not have the time and resources to comb through every application? Furthermore, how do you tell qualified and unqualified applicants apart, given that their resumes and interview answers may not be reflective of their skills?

A wrong decision could lead to the hiring of unfit individuals who look good on paper. In turn, this could exclude adept candidates who either have their application skipped over due to time constraints or have a less striking resume. Consequently, these decisions can burden a company with repeated hiring and training expenses.

In the long run, strategically narrowing down the list of applicants in the hiring process can save unnecessary interviewing time, reduce training costs, and improve employee retention rates. Before you even decide to read a resume, limit your selection to potential candidates who can do the job. One of the ways to do so is by introducing pre-employment testing into the hiring process, which we will define in the following sections. 

As the name suggests, pre-employment testing takes place before the hiring of an employee. It is a testing or screening process that employers use to gain insight on an applicant in relation to successful job performance at a company. Based on the importance of certain tasks or goals for a job, applicants may be assessed on characteristics such as their skills or personality traits. 

Unlike resumes and interviews, pre-employment testing offers a more systemized approach to assessment and tracking. Not only can employers reduce the chances of bias, but they can also better inform and support their hiring decisions with metrics. As a result, pre-employment testing can be helpful to a company in terms of productivity and legality. 

Speed up the recruitment process

By requiring additional pre-employment assessments in the job description, employers can deter uncommitted applicants and substantially size down the list of applicants, interviewees, and interviews required. Pre-employment tests can also be more efficient and informative, as they provide a means to organize data that interviews can’t. Employers can ask standardized questions, compare testing scores to evaluate candidates, and subsequently spend less time on guesswork.

Test candidates’ skills

Pre-employment testing can be used to observe a candidate’s skills beyond the theoretical level. Candidates may complete tasks or use software the job requires frequently. Employers can then assess if applicants understand the expectations of the task and what skill levels are needed, with respect to the role.

Create a better interview experience

By evaluating pre-employment test results, hiring managers can ask less general and more targeted questions. This can keep the interview more focused on questions relevant to the job. Instead of asking about what applicants can do, employers can learn why or how a task was performed in a certain way.

Reduce the number of bad hires

Pre-employment testing provides a way for employers to link improvements in company metrics with the qualities that are being tested for candidates. Once employers or HR teams establish a noticeable correlation, they can spot patterns in test scores for employees associated with lower or higher turnover rates. Hiring managers can then more accurately identify the qualities of candidates who can follow through with training or long-term employment.

Cognitive Ability Tests

Cognitive ability tests assess how an individual may process, recognize or react to situations using their mental abilities. These kinds of tests are particularly useful for jobs that require a degree of technicality (e.g. engineers, pilots, accountants) and may involve verbal, spatial, abstract or logical reasoning components.

Physical Ability Tests

For jobs that require endurance, strength, or exposure to risk-related environments, physical ability tests can be used to determine if applicants are capable of working in a safe capacity. Physical ability tests can also help employers avoid workplace hazards and related legal repercussions.

Personality Tests

Personality tests are used to identify the extent to which individuals possess certain traits that contribute to the goals, workplace culture, or continuation of a job role. Individuals who may score low in a trait can still be considered suitable candidates if they score high in other traits, due to the nature of the job or position. For instance, qualified customer service representatives may score high in traits, like diplomacy and patience, that successful salespeople may score low in. 

Integrity Tests

Integrity tests examine if candidates understand the legal implications of a job. This type of test may ask candidates about how they handle dilemmas that might compromise their ethicality in the role. Tests may consist of overt questions about previous records or covert personality questions that assess tendencies towards dishonesty or violation. 

Aptitude Tests

Aptitude tests evaluate the ability of candidates to process new information and put it into practice. This can be useful for screening senior role applicants prior to employment to assess which candidates can adapt to new situations and improvise solutions.

Skills Assessment Tests

Unlike aptitude tests, skills assessment tests are used to test learned skills that candidates may have gained prior, such as from courses, certifications, or previous work experiences. This type of pre-employment test can be helpful for entry-level hiring when employers want to know if a candidate understands how to use basic software.

Job Knowledge Tests

Job knowledge tests examine a candidate’s expertise, knowledge, and in-depth familiarity with a job. Candidates could be tested on their relevant knowledge of protocols, policies, or procedures involved in a job role.

Research the job requirements

Before implementing a pre-employment test, employers should conduct a job analysis. This is a process to research the varying aspects of a job in order to establish its requirements. HR managers or teams may look at working conditions, relevant skills, responsibilities, and qualifications involved in the job. Examples could include fluency in a language, technical certifications, or ableness to work certain hours.

Determine the necessary qualities and skills for the job

An approach to figuring out the specific qualities and skills employees should have for a job is by using KSAOs (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics). Determining KSAOs is important in finding candidates who can readily comprehend the concepts, terminology, and needs of a job. 

Additional qualities that are not related to knowledge, skills, or abilities. These may include education level, tendencies, or values. For example, characteristics could include responsiveness, willingness to work on-call hours, or openness to traveling and relocation.

Decide on a type of pre-employment test

After establishing the requirements, skills, and qualities that the job entails, consider how they will influence the types of pre-employment tests you may decide to implement. For example, more experienced positions that require creative problem-solving may call for a combination of aptitude and job knowledge tests. On the contrary, employers may use skills assessment and personality tests for entry-level roles, which can prioritize basic software proficiency and discipline over creativity. For jobs with working conditions that involve environmental stress (e.g. healthcare, construction, or mining), physical ability tests may be required. 

To recruit suitable candidates, make sure that your pre-employment tests are job-related. For instance, physical ability tests would be inappropriate for accountants. In a similar vein, firefighters shouldn’t be assessed on their ability to create spreadsheets or knowledge of accounting principles. 

Choose the suitable test

After deciding on the type of pre-employment test to use, employers can check resources online to choose and implement the test that will best meet their needs. Use tools—such as Harver, Criteria, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology—to look up reviews, assessments, or selection process details for pre-employment testing. There are a wealth of providers that offer testing software geared towards different types of pre-employment tests, with varying pricing plans and statistics analytics options. 

Reliability

Reliability ensures that the type of pre-employment testing implemented for an organization can be replicated. Employers should aim for a testing method that minimizes external influences. For instance, the differences in test scores among candidates for a job should not be a result of differences in the assessor, test versions, or weight of contents within a test. To prevent bias or favoring in rating, employers or HR departments should establish clear guidelines for testing. 

Validity

In the context of pre-employment testing, validity refers to how closely the results of a test are tied to job performance. For instance, if higher test scores are correlated with an improvement in success metrics for a job, the test has greater validity. Employers can use this information to optimize the hiring process and determine which skills or qualities they should look for in candidates. To determine the validity of a relation, job performance can be measured against a set of skills or knowledge, criteria, or personality traits.

Monitoring the test

Pre-employment testing offers employers a way to generate data. Keeping track of this information is important in making the data meaningful, especially for future hiring tests and legal documentation. By recording who took the test, which tests were taken, and what the results of the tests were, employers can create standards (e.g. passing scores) and support their rationale for hiring decisions with reliable and validated data. Ongoing monitoring also allows pre-employment testing changes to be made more easily amidst regulatory updates.

EEOC

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a governmental entity that regulates and enforces laws concerning the rights of employers, employees, and applicants when it comes to discriminatory practices in the US. Employers should familiarize themselves with EEOC regulations to ensure a fair working environment and protect themselves from legal battles. 

When preparing pre-employment tests, employers can refer to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), which is used by the EEOC to assess discrimination in hiring decisions and at different stages of the hiring process. For instance, physical ability tests cannot be requested at the pre-hiring stage and may only be used in exceptional circumstances to prevent disability-related discrimination. Other tests like cognitive ability tests or integrity tests may have racial implications. To prevent discrimination claims, employers should consider if the chosen pre-employment test is job-related and if the tested aspects are essential to the job.

• Use pre-employment testing before the recruitment process to target skilled or qualified candidates in a measurable way.
• Plan, select, and implement pre-employment tests by determining job specifications, assessing the relevance of the test to the job, and comparing testing software providers.
• Ensure that pre-employment tests are reliable, valid, and monitored to make legally-compliant and meaningful hiring decisions.

--- Originally written by Flora Lai ---