How to skill test for jobs: Competitive advantages for recruiters

Hiring without skill tests in today’s market would pose problems for any company. Long gone are the days when an open role would see just a few applications.

Today, a vacancy usually receives more than 200 applications, and it’s not unheard of for a company to get over 1,000 applicants for an opening. 

Hiring managers used to read through every resume to find just a handful of qualified candidates, and nowadays this simply takes too long. However, that’s not the only problem when companies don’t use skill tests. 

This article will explore the challenges companies face in the absence of skill tests and the benefits they gain when they do use them. But first, let’s start by defining what skill tests are.

What is a skill test?

A skills test is an assessment that the hiring manager asks applicants to complete that reviews their skills and evaluates their suitability for an open role. With skills tests, hiring managers can determine if the candidates have the necessary skills, personality, and character for the job they’re applying for. 

With resume screening, the hiring manager can only see those skills a candidate claims to have – the only genuine ability that can be reviewed is resume writing skills. This leads to a lot of false positives (candidates with great resumes, but not great skills for the actual job), and a lot of false negatives (candidates without good resume writing skills, but who have the skills necessary for the job). 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at all the benefits a company can expect to enjoy when they use skills tests.

Benefits of skills tests

Skills tests offer many benefits to businesses, but the following provide the biggest return on investment: 

Create a bias-free hiring process

With skills tests, you won’t have to worry about unconscious bias creeping into the hiring process. When your hiring manager receives the applications, they will send the pre-employment tests to every applicant and wait for the results. Each candidate gets the same test and the same amount of time to complete the test. In addition, test results are numerical so the hiring manager can compare candidates easily.

When you rely on resume screening, you can never be sure if the shortlist is a result of the hiring manager’s bias or if they genuinely are the best candidates. But with skill tests, you can look at the candidate test results and know which candidates have the most suitable skill set. 

Scalable solution

When your company uses pre-employment tests, it makes no difference if you receive 20 or 220 applications; the process will remain the same. The hiring manager simply sends the assessment to all candidates and waits for the results. With resume screening, the more applications a company receives, the harder it is to assess candidates properly. 

Great candidate experience

Candidates want feedback from companies, even when they don’t get a job. With resume screening, a candidate will never be sure why they weren’t called for an interview. They don’t know what made the difference. But when you incorporate skill tests into your hiring, you can allow candidates to see their scores. They will understand that they weren’t invited for an interview because they didn’t perform well on the test. There won’t be any ambiguity in the process, and candidates can identify where they need to improve. 

Easy to use

Pre-employment tests are straightforward to use. The hiring manager will simply send the tests to every candidate once they apply for the open role. Some companies take it a step further and insert the pre-employment assessment into their application systems to immediately filter out unqualified candidates. 

Remove reliance on resume screening

Pre-employment tests will help you end the reliance on resume screening. Instead of sifting through hundreds of resumes and trying to find a needle in a haystack, you can simply send your candidates the skills tests and wait for the results. And you will find all of the needles in the haystack, no matter how big that haystack is. 

What type of skill tests are there?

There are various types of skills tests, but they can all be organized into the following seven categories: 

• Cognitive ability tests, such as the Critical Thinking test or the Problem Solving test

• Language tests, such as the Norwegian (intermediate/B1) test or the Japanese (proficient/C1) test

• Personality & culture tests, such as the Culture Add test or the Motivation test

• Programming skills tests, such as the PHP (coding): Intermediate-Level Algorithms test or the C# (coding): Entry-Level Algorithms test

• Role-specific tests, such as the Fundamentals of electricity test or the Technical SEO test

• Situational judgment tests, such as the Account Management test or the Business Ethics & Compliance test

• Software skills tests, such as the Excel skills test or the IBM Watson test

When to use skills tests

It’s best to use skills tests as early as possible in the hiring process. That way, you won’t waste anyone’s time – the candidates’, yours, or your hiring managers’ – if the applicants aren’t qualified for the role. 

The sooner you can distribute an assessment to your candidates, the better it is for all involved.

How to choose the right skills tests

Choosing the right skills tests depends on the role you’re hiring for. You should determine the most important skills required for the position and then choose the tests that will evaluate those skills properly. 

And it’s best to avoid creating the tests yourself: You should use candidate-assessment software like TestGorilla. We have over 200 scientifically created tests that provide you with the bias-free metrics that will help you hire the right candidate.

Choose the right candidate-assessment software

The worst result of a hiring process isn’t failing to hire anyone but hiring the wrong person. To avoid this, choose TestGorilla’s pre-employment tests as your go-to skills tests for your hiring processes. We’ve helped over 5,000 companies implement pre-employment testing in their hiring process, and we can help you too. 

Take a look at our Test Library and browse more than 200 scientifically created tests to find those most relevant to you and your business. Don’t leave your hiring process to chance; choose TestGorilla and hire the best candidates. 

Sign up for your free TestGorilla plan and start creating your customized candidate assessment.