Candidate Assessments
Candidate assessments help expand the talent pool of potential hires. Creating a larger talent pool of pre-assessed candidates is a proactive measure for workforce development and future growth. Candidate talent assessments play an important role in an organization’s recruiting, hiring, and retention strategies for a productive, long-term workforce.
There are a variety of tools that can be used for candidate assessments, screenings, and testing. Organizations are most interested in tools that can help predict with good accuracy whether the candidate is well qualified to perform to required job standards and responsibilities.
By conducting behavioral and skill based assessments, employers gather relevant data for analysis and evaluation of a potential hire’s skills, knowledge, and abilities specific to job requirements. The assessment data, together with traditional background screenings and verifications, help the employing organization make a more informed hiring decision. Assessment tools when properly administered and correctly analyzed can help predict how quickly the new hire can assimilate into the workforce, become productive, and contribute to the organization over longer term employment.
Incorporating candidate assessment tools into the initial phases of hiring allows recruiters to more quickly identify well-matched candidates to job requirements and, as a result, expedite the hiring process. A better fit between the organization and the candidate can avoid a potential bad hire. It has been estimated that one in five hiring decisions would not have been made if adequate assessment and evaluations had been conducted. A bad hire, whether from a job performance standard or workforce interactions, is a costly decision throughout the employment term.
Before selecting assessment models, an organization should conduct job analyses to determine job requirements and corresponding employee skill sets and characteristics. It is important that assessment tools evaluate candidates on the basis of job related skills and proficiencies.
The organization may need to evaluate a number of assessment models and delivery platforms to choose the right model for its business needs. The validity, accuracy, and reliability of assessment models should be a priority in considering different models. A single model may not be adequate to assess the desired skill level and knowledge requirements of all jobs in the organization. It may be that several different assessment models should be used for evaluating candidates to fully capture relevant data.
Candidate assessment tools will have limitations. Organizations and candidates should be aware of possible bias; inconsistency or variation in administration of the selected model(s); manipulative, incomplete or inaccurate candidate responses; or other factors that could influence, limit, or skew assessment outcomes for accuracy and validity. Every effort should be taken by an organization to educate and train hiring assessment personnel on understanding assessment model(s) design, administration, and scoring metrics to minimize system errors, limitations, or flawed data.
Assessments should measure job related skills and abilities. Interpersonal skills, communication skills, planning and organizational abilities, leadership experience, teamwork building, and analytical skills may also be assessed as needed for specific jobs. Simulation exercises such as role play can assess various abilities including job knowledge, cognitive ability, general skills, and personality traits.
Skill based assessments are commonly used assessments to evaluate candidate hard skills. A hard skill gained from education, training, and experience is easily demonstrated by a candidate with the requisite skill. Candidates without such experience will not be able to successfully complete a required skill test and should not be advanced for hiring considerations.
Behavioral assessments are used to evaluate a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, values, and personality traits. If behavioral assessments are backed by scientific principles proven to have reliability and validity, the assessment data provides insight for candidate performance and development. For organizations looking to match candidate personality with corporate culture, behavioral assessments may be of benefit in identifying good prospects for employment.
Some of the most commonly used candidate assessment tools include:
- Interviews
- Work Simulations/Work Samples
- Cognitive Ability Assessment
- Personality Tests
Interviews
Structured formal interviews are often used to evaluate a candidate’s job skills, experiences, and communication skills as candidates respond to a set of pre-determined questions developed from job specifications and requirements. All candidates are asked the same set of questions and responses are recorded for analysis and evaluation for potential hire. Many organizations use structured interviews as a means to help defend against candidate claims of bias and discriminatory treatment.
Informal reviews, those with no set format or prepared job related questions, are often too subjective in nature and generally do not provide the relevant data needed for analysis and evaluation of candidate skills. An unstructured interview is unlikely to accurately predict a candidate’s future job performance.
Work Simulations
Work simulation is an assessment tool that allows the organization to see how candidates perform under pressure in a simulated work environment. Using role play exercises or requiring a candidate to complete a sample of a job related task allows the organization to assess the candidate’s decision making skills, abilities to prioritize and multi-task, and perform specific job skills required for actual job performance. When developed using actual work requirements and administered correctly, work simulations can be a reliable indicator of job performance.
Combination Interview and Work Simulations
While traditional structured interviews are the most common of all candidate assessments for all types of organizations, many companies combine the interview with work simulations or role play exercises to gain a better sense of how the candidate will handle job responsibilities, interact with other employees, and produce an acceptable work product. For many employers using this combination of assessment tools provides an adequate and effective means of evaluating a job candidate.
Cognitive Ability Tests
Cognitive ability tests are designed to measure critical thinking and problem solving, abilities that are fundamental to job performance. Assessment may be conducted to measure the candidate’s aptitude to quickly learn new material, apply logic, and demonstrate reading comprehension and mathematical reasoning. This type of assessment has a good level of predictive validity of a candidate’s work performance and the potential for leadership and higher levels of job responsibilities.
Personality Tests
Personality tests help manage organizational risk by assessing the candidate’s behavioral traits in relationship to job requirements, interpersonal interactions, and the culture of the organization. Attributes of honesty, dependability, initiative, conscientiousness, and willingness to work with others may be indicators of a potential good hire.
It is unlikely that a single test by itself can be a perfect predictor of future work performance. Accordingly, many organizations use a combination of screenings and testing to assess several relevant skills and abilities of a candidate. This in itself can provide a broader perspective of candidate knowledge and abilities and a more reliable, objective evaluation of the candidate as a prospective employee. It is important for defensibility of the organization’s hiring process to use objective, validated metrics in testing.
Properly developed and validated hiring assessments such as interviews, work simulations, cognitive reasoning and problem solving tests, and personality traits assessments, by their structure and design have been shown to be of value to an organization to provide an objective, reliable means to predict an candidate’s future work performance and contribution to an organization’s goals.
Using candidate assessment tools to evaluate potential hires increases the likelihood of a better hire, a productive employee, and greater employee retention. In turn these benefits can help reduce organizational costs associated with employee hiring, training, and turnover. A fully integrated hiring assessment policy using bona fide screenings and testing can contribute to a more effective workforce with greater productivity.