Pre-employment testing can be a daunting proposition. Yet, particularly during a period of high unemployment, when job seekers may be tempted to fudge information on their resumes or in an interview in order to land a job and a steady paycheck, the need to vet candidates is especially great.
Jackye Clayton of ERE breaks down the what-fors and how-tos of assessing candidates before extending job offers:
Testing can strengthen and simplify selection.
If a company is plagued by high turnover, it might be because it’s staffing the wrong people. The testing and assessments used most frequently pertain to a candidate’s past performance, criminal background, personality and cognitive and physical abilities, though testing to measure factors such as cultural fit may be equally telling (click here to check out our earlier post about using assessments to determine a candidate’s potential fit with the company’s culture.)
When hiring authorities have the problem of too many applicants, pre-employment assessments can be especially useful in separating the wheat from the chaff.
Be sure to implement a fair, positive selection process.
The assessments a company uses, whatever they are, should be pertinent to the position in question. Candidates want to feel they’ve been able to demonstrate their skills and abilities and judged on relevant criteria. When testing applicants, it’s also important to employ assessments consistently. Where interviews are fairly subjective, testing is meant to provide an objective view of candidates; it can only be effective to that end when applied to every candidate in the same way.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
