Common Mistakes To Avoid When Using Assessments

Intelligence, work ethic, integrity and empathy are all traits necessary for success in a role, however they cannot be taught. Pre-hire assessments allow for selection based on the above traits, ensuring you hire quality candidates that can help take your business to the next level. Hiring therefore remains a key driver of success in many organisations, as without quality candidates, a business cannot perform at an optimal level and grow.

Despite this, many companies continue to make mistakes within their recruitment processes, neglecting pre-hire assessments, encouraging bias and disrespecting the candidate’s time and effort. Below, we have included the most commonly made mistakes in regards to pre-hire assessments, to ensure you do not make the same.

A number of companies and recruiters still avoid utilising psychometric testing within their recruitment strategies as they fear it creations friction throughout the process. However, psychometric tests are the sole accurate, and viable means for efficiently refining the candidate pool to identify top candidates.

Typically, psychometric assessments last up to 30 minutes, delivering almost immediate results to the recruiter whilst reducing the time required of the candidate. Issuing assessments can also encourage a positive brand experience for the candidate, when structured correctly.

It is therefore essential for recruiters to avoid the mistake of not including assessments within their recruitment strategy, as they can ultimately reduce the time spent on identifying the best candidates, whilst improving the brand image.

Research demonstrates that cognitive assessments provide an accurate prediction of job performance for every job, level and industry. Thus, the benefits of cognitive assessments are indisputable and should be integrated into your hiring strategy.

Many companies avoid cognitive assessments as they fear the potential for bias across demographics. However, pairing personality assessments with cognitive assessments can improve the overall predictiveness of the selection process, removing potential bias and avoiding discrimination.

Succeeding cognitive ability, work ethic is the next best predictor of job performance and success within a given role. However, in recent years publicity has raised concerns about employers utilising personality assessments to identify and diagnose mental health issues. Whilst there are personality tests that have been designed to diagnose mental health issues, assessments used for employment are designed to understand a candidate’s fit within a company’s culture. Neglecting the inclusion of such assessments can be detrimental to turnover rates and may result in mis-hires.

Recruiters and employers often make the mistake of issuing incorrect assessments, leading to inaccurate results that do not aid in streamlining the recruitment process. Recruiters should communicate with the test issuer in order to understand each test’s use case in order to ensure they receive the correct data required for candidate selection.

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Often, recruiters place greater emphasis on unimportant aspects of test results, analysing a candidate’s score on a trait which they feel is important, thus creating bias. However, the overall test score is a greater predictor of job performance as it provides a holistic view of the candidate behaviour.

In order to avoid this, recruiters should decide the primary use of each assessment and its related rules within the selection process.

Recruiters may find themselves taking the pre-hire tests themselves to immerse themselves into the process, and to determine how they score. However, often they pay little attention and speed through the test, leading to a poor score. As a result, they question why they scored so poorly as they feel confident in their ability to pass, concluding that the either the test design is not optimal, it does not provide accurate results or it does not work.

It is therefore important for recruiters testing the assessments to ensure they are completing them under the correct conditions; quiet environment, sufficient time and are motivated to do so.

Many companies often neglect communicating with the candidate if they deliver poor test results. This can reflect negatively on the candidate’s perception of the company, utlimately affecting brand image. Communicating with the candidate, letting them know where they stand and giving them an idea of when they can expect to hear back from you is therefore extremely important.

Similarly, it is important for recruiters to ensure they are respectful of the candidate’s time by making sure that assessments are clear, concise and engaging. In order to understand if your assessments are effective, look at the candidate drop-off rate. If candidates are exiting the assessment before it ends, this may be an indication that the test is not engaging or relevant enough to the advertised role.

Diversity continues to add true value to organisations, as it increases innovation, breadth of appeal to customers and suppliers, and results in a happier, more inclusive workplace. Diversity is not new to pre-hire assessments, with psychometric tests promoting greater diversity than alternative selection tools such as interviews or CV screening. Additionally, pre-hire assessments can allow recruiters to measure diversity within the workplace, enhancing it if necessary, whilst simultaneously enhancing the quality of hire.

The use of pre-hire assessments are pivotal to any recruitment strategy as it enhances the calibre of a company’s most valued asset - their people. Assessments can enhance the consistency of the selection process and mitigate risk whilst attracting top talent. Avoiding the above mistakes can help your recruitment strategy, leading to quality hires and job success.

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