Assessment testing for employers Using Assessment testing
Numerous studies have found that an uncomfortably high percentage of new hires for many companies are a poor fit for their new position. These kinds of hiring errors are not only time consuming, but also costly, especially for small businesses. Unfortunately, until fairly recently, most businesses had only resumes, interviews, and broad applications to screen applicants. However, many are now finding that assessment testing is helping to fill in the gaps when searching for appropriate individuals for their employee candidate pools.
As an employer looking for a strong candidate to fill a particular position in your company, you need to make sure that you choose the right kind of assessment test to help you narrow down the field of applicants. Assessment tests are divided into two primary categories: skills testing and personality testing. Of course there are many variations of these tests, and some businesses find that they need a solid mixture of personally and skills testing to find the perfect hire.
Skills testing is an assessment of the candidate’s knowledge of the field, or their ability to perform particular tasks related to the job they are applying for. A broad variety of skills can be testing in this format from customer service to mathematics skills. These tests can be administered as either a traditional testing form, or as a performance-based assessment. The traditional tests can include multiple choice, matching, fill-in-the-blank, or even short answer questions while the performance based tests will analyze the applicant in real-time while they work to complete a specific task. Both of these kinds of tests allow the applicant to demonstrate their ability to perform the specific tasks that are crucial to the position they are looking to fill.
Personality testing, on the other hand, provides the employer a snapshot of who this applicant really is, and whether they would be a good fit for the company and overall job description. Most of these tests are based on either the Meyers-Briggs personality test, or the DISC behavioral test. The Meyers-Briggs is a classic personality test used by psychologists to determine basic personality traits such as introversion, extroversion, resourcefulness, flexibility, etc. The DISC creates a profile of a candidate’s behavioral “style” by assessing them on the basic “quadrants” of personality: dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance.
Both kinds of assessment tests have been highly successful in allowing both large and small businesses to find the perfect candidate for their employment vacancies the first time they are advertised. So no matter what your business, assessment testing could be the answer to cutting down on your candidate search costs as well as increasing the productivity of your company by having the right people doing the right job for you.
