Personality tests in employment decision-making processes have come a long way since the Rorschach inkblot tests were introduced in 1921. Soon after that, during the World War I era, pre-deployment tests were used to recruit soldiers for special missions. In 1962, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was launched, and it was used to categorize employees informally. Since then, these tests have spawned several derivatives. Modern-day companies now use these tests to assess job candidates.

The growing popularity of pre-employment tests in the corporate world is understandable. In various industries, the talent pools are limited, so the race to find candidates with the highest ‘excellence quotient’ is very intense. These tests foster hope for better, cheaper, and more efficient hiring practices at a time when pre-employment screening has become an extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive procedure for recruiters.

Traditional recruitment processes have become outdated. The momentous rise in job seekers coupled with the increasing demand for high-potential talent are two factors that have contributed to the glaring inefficiencies in traditional recruitment processes. Many recruiters find themselves doing repetitive tasks (for example, going through hundreds of resumes) instead of improving their organizations’ hiring strategies.

These repetitive and unrewarding tasks even distract recruiters from their main responsibilities like – onboarding high-quality talent, maintaining consistency in candidate selection processes, etc. Pre-employment tests are ideal for candidates who need impartial recruitment processes to succeed in their careers. These tests resemble a triumph of objectivity over biases and inefficiencies.  

Addressing the Fundamental Challenges Faced by HRs

Problem 1 – The Rising Costs of Bad Recruits

One would assume that companies systematically gather data to improve recruitment processes and avoid unnecessary costs like bad hires. In reality, that’s not the case. Unlike the traditional expenses that companies incur (for example, the cost of replacing damaged equipment), the costs of bad hires aren’t obvious.

The Undercover Recruiter dug deeper into this matter and discovered that bad hires could potentially cost businesses $240,000 per employee. The research considered costs related to interviewing, hiring, training, paying, and retaining employees.

• The higher the position and the salary of the “bad recruit,” the higher the costs.
• The longer the “bad recruit” works at the company, the longer the business has to incur unnecessary expenses (for example, setting up an office space for a low-quality hire).
• The more training the “bad recruit” receives, the higher the costs.

Surely, companies must be doing something to cut down these costs, right? According to another study, 74 percent of companies have lost an average of $14,900 on every poor recruit.

The cost of bad hires is compelling companies to look for alternative solutions. Pre-employment tests offer the perfect alternative. A top Pre-Employment Assessment Test company will charge their clients on a per-score or per-exam basis.

So, if a small-scale company needs to hire two highly specialized candidates, they can easily get tests for ten or twenty candidates and select the two who score the highest on the customized job-specific pre-employment tests. Testing ten or twenty candidates will certainly cost much less than $14,900 (the average cost of a bad hire in the USA). 

Staffing and recruitment companies even receive customized deals like unlimited tests for fixed prices from these pre-employment screening companies. More importantly, the software tools and online portals used by these third-party recruitment experts can easily be integrated with existing HR systems.

So, the costs of integrating this recruitment strategy into any business from any industry are also minimal. This assessment-based recruitment strategy can finally solve the decades-long problem of rising costs in the HR industry.

Problem 2 – High Volumes of CVs 

Companies hire all throughout the year. HR departments not only have to schedule hundreds of in-persons interviews every month, but they also have their monthly KPIs to fulfill. Add pre-screening to this mix of responsibilities, and you have the perfect recipe for employee overload. Manual pre-screening processes also challenge candidates in various ways.

They have to wait to get shortlisted and then wait for pre-screening interviews. If they’re rejected, the reasons for their rejections often remain unaddressed. Recruiters can use this time to focus on other important tasks. Applicants can meanwhile study for other pre-employment tests for other companies. 

By partnering with a recruitment assistance company that provides pre-employment tests, HR departments can easily bypass these challenges by –

• Selecting from hundreds of standard job, subject, or industry-based tests.
• Customize relevant tests to include certain job functions they’d like their employees to complete.
• These tests feature predictive content, which makes it easier to ensure that all candidates are compliant as per local employment laws.
• Testing experts help create unique skills-based tests and job assessments for HR departments. They also assist in eliminating any risk of cheating. These tests can be re-used as well. 

Be it bulk-hiring or selecting one or two experts from a large pool of candidates – pre-employment tests are ideal for HR departments of all sizes. They enable recruiters to easily pre-screen their candidates, verify their skills, and improve the overall quality of recruiting for their companies.