Top 6 user-friendly assessments for hiring

When you’re looking for the perfect new employee, traditional resume reviews and phone screening may result in bias or even a mis-hire. Pre-employment assessments, however, ensure you’re shortlisting candidates based on skills and aptitudes.

A user-friendly testing platform can be a huge asset to your organization, allowing you to create assessments intuitively and get your test results quickly. We’ve reviewed the top six user-friendly assessments for hiring so you can make an informed choice for your business.

Top 6 user-friendly assessments for hiring at a glance

Top 6 user-friendly assessments for hiring: Comparisons 

Let’s look at each assessment platform’s main features, pros and cons, and top use cases.

1. TestGorilla

TestGorilla boasts a library of over 300 tests covering personality traits, cognitive ability, job-specific skills, coding and software skills, and more. You can customize questions and tests, and run coding challenges for developers.

In addition, you can assess candidates using one-way video interviews and add personalized intro and outro videos.

There’s a TestGorilla plan for any business type and size. You can get started on our free-forever plan or choose from two premium plans billed annually or monthly.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes

Features:

• Large test library with +300 tests, including coding challenges

• Tests available in 11 languages

• One-way video interviews

• Customizable questions and tests

• Personalized intro and outro videos

• Anti-cheating measures

• Collaborative candidate scoring

Pros:

• Very easy to use

• Clear candidate ranking

• Rigorous quality control

• Scalable pricing plans

Cons:

• No phone support

• No live interviews

Pricing:

• Free forever at $0: Full access to 10 free tests, including all personality tests.

• Depending on the size of your company, paid plans begin with:

• Starter from $75 USD per month ($900 per year paid upfront) - start with skills-based hiring for all roles. There is also the option to pay monthly, starting from $85 USD per month.

• Pro from $115 USD per month ($1,380 per year paid upfront) - maximize your hiring with advanced features. There is also the option to pay monthly, starting from $130 USD per month.

Verdict:

TestGorilla is one of the best assessment platforms overall, offering an extensive test library, one-way video interviews, and insightful analytics at competitive prices.

Our tests can help you hire for a wide range of roles and experience levels, including software developers, with our dedicated coding language tests and challenges.

The slick user interface makes TestGorilla super easy to navigate, and candidates don’t need to log in to start their assessment. Also, you can quickly add custom questions and tests to your assessments, and bulk invite multiple applicants.

TestGorilla is a highly collaborative platform. You can set user permissions within your team, and each member can score candidates and add comments, even for video interviews.

2. Mercer Mettl

Mercer Mettl offers several people management products, including pre-employment assessments. Tests are mainly aimed at graduate, experienced, technical, and sales hiring.

Its test library includes psychometric, aptitude, coding, and behavioral tests. You can customize your own questions and assessments.

Mercer Mettl is high on our list due to its anti-cheating measures, most notably its proctoring features. 

Best for: Anti-cheating measures

Features:

• Large test library

• Question bank of 100,000

• Customizable questions and tests

• Video interviews

• Proctoring features, including AI

Pros:

• Vast range of customizable tests

• Strong anti-cheating measures

Cons:

• Many assessments are +1 hour long

• Surveillance could increase candidate stress

• No free plan

Pricing:

You must contact Mercer Mettl to get a quote.

Verdict:

Mercer Mettl is a top pre-employment assessment provider, with a wide variety of tests and a large bank of +100,000 questions. Its intuitive interface allows you to create and customize tests quite easily.

Its strong anti-cheating measures include an online proctoring feature that monitors test takers using AI, video, and audio technology. Additionally, you can enable three-step candidate authentication and prevent the opening of browser windows.

However, this high degree of surveillance may increase candidate stress. This, combined with the hour-plus duration of many of its tests, could be inconvenient for applicants.

Find out more in our TestGorilla vs. Mercer Mettl comparison guide.

3. Paradox

Paradox offers two pre-employment tests, assessing the candidate’s personality and cognitive ability.

Tests take up to two minutes to complete, with most questions prompting a “me” or “not me” answer, and they’re highly visual. A conversational chatbot guides applicants through the assessment process.

Best for: Quick-fire quizzes

Features:

• Personality test (Big Five model)

• Cognitive test (General Mental Ability)

• Conversational chatbot

• Video responses to questions

• Live video interviews

Pros:

• Quick tests with well-designed visuals

• Chatbot answers questions about your company 

Cons:

• Limited range of tests

• Limited range of answer types

• No customizable questions or tests

Pricing:

Paradox’s pre-employment tests are billed annually, with prices depending on the number of applicants and/or hiring locations. You need to contact Paradox for a quote.

Verdict:

Paradox is a very user-friendly assessment software with a modern, intuitive design. Its conversational chatbot answers candidates’ general questions and prompts them to take a test or record video responses.

Paradox’s cognitive and personality tests take under two minutes and are backed by research, but the platform can’t assess specific skills or job-based knowledge.

Verified customers on G2 praise the assessments’ mobile-friendliness, but suggest they don’t integrate very well with third-party ATS. This could be an issue for larger businesses. 

Find out more in our TestGorilla vs. Paradox comparison guide.

4. Codility

Codility is an assessment platform for hiring software engineers and other tech roles, including data scientists and software testers.

It tests +90 coding languages, plus development tools and frameworks. Its +200 coding tasks include customizable tests and challenges.

You can use live coding interviews to give candidates a real-time coding or debugging challenge.

Best for: Hiring software engineers

Features:

• Software engineering tests, including coding languages and frameworks

• Live coding interviews

• Virtual hackathons

• Customizable questions, tests, and challenges

Pros:

• Great for hiring software engineers

• Highly customizable

Cons:

• No cognitive, personality, or non-tech skill tests

• Interview feature only suitable for coding assessment

• No free plan

Pricing:

You need to contact the company for a quote.

Verdict:

Codility is a great option if you’re hiring software engineers and other tech roles. Its large test library covers coding languages, software knowledge, frameworks, and more.

Its user journey is smooth and intuitive for both candidates and recruiters. You can create custom questions, tests, and challenges. Live coding interviews include useful templates and whiteboard tools.

However, you can’t use Codility to assess candidates’ personality, cognitive ability, or culture fit, which could lead to potential mis-hires.

Find out more in our TestGorilla vs. Codility comparison guide.

5. Vervoe 

Vervoe is a skills-based assessment provider with +300 tests. Its AI algorithms rank candidates based on their suitability for the role.

Vervoe also provides job simulations for specific roles, taking candidates through real-world problems and analyzing their performance.

Best for: Job simulations

Features:

• +300 skills-based tests, including software development, customer service, and marketing 

• AI ranking system

• Job simulations

• Customizable questions and tests

Pros:

• Large skills test library

• You can teach the AI how to rank top candidates

Cons:

• No personality or cognitive ability tests

• No video interviews

• No free plan

Pricing:

• Pay & Go plan: $228 per year for one assessment and 100 candidates. 

• Skills-based Hiring plan: suitable for businesses hiring +50 positions per year. Contact the company for a quote.

Verdict:

Vervoe is a leading assessment provider with a large test library covering multiple skill types. You can customize questions and tests using an intuitive interface.

Its AI system learns what answers you care most about and ranks candidates in a way that’s bespoke to your business. It’s not clear whether this is easy to set up, though.

Vervoe’s job simulations are great for testing how candidates solve typical day-to-day problems in your business. However, they’re only available for customer service, cybersecurity, and sales roles.

Find out more in our TestGorilla vs. Vervoe comparison guide.

6. CriteriaCorp

CriteriaCorp offers pre-employment assessments, with tests including cognitive aptitude, personality, risk handling, emotional intelligence, and various skills.

Its strong point is its one-way video interviews. They help eliminate bias from your recruitment process by hiding candidates’ video and personal details, and disguising their voice.

Best for: Video interviews

Features:

• Test library that includes emotional intelligence and risk attitudes tests

• Blind one-way video interviews

• Game-based assessments

• Custom tests

Pros:

• Bias-free video interviews

• Tests suit a variety of industries and roles

Cons:

• No ready-made software development tests

• Limited number of tests overall

• No free plan

Pricing:

CriteriaCorp offers three pricing plans:

• Essentials: for smaller teams

• Professional: for most business types and sizes 

• Enterprise: for larger businesses with complex hiring needs 

You must contact the company for a quote.

Verdict:

CriteriaCorp has several user-friendly features, including recommending tests based on role and industry, and sending candidate invitations in bulk. It also has an intuitive interface, guiding you through the setup process with ease.

The one-way video interview feature makes it easy to hide candidates’ personal details and video, as well as disguise their voice, with just a click. This helps make unbiased decisions.

Its test library, however, isn’t very robust and doesn’t include software development tests.

Find out more in our TestGorilla vs. CriteriaCorp comparison guide.

Conclusion: Our top 3 choices

Choosing a user-friendly assessment platform saves you time and money, helping you get tests set up and completed more quickly.

Our top three user-friendly picks are TestGorilla, Mercer Mettl, and Paradox. Mercer Mettl impressed us with its robust anti-cheating measures, while Paradox whizzes candidates through visual tests in under two minutes.

However, TestGorilla is the clear winner with its slick interface, a broad range of easily customizable tests, and collaborative scoring features. Sign up for your free plan today to get started.

Disclaimer: The information on TestGorilla competitors has been taken from the relevant competitor website and is accurate at the date of publication