Recruiting with a time-management assessment
Time management is a much-sought-after skill and quality. But when a candidate lists “excellent time-management skills” on their resume, how can you be sure their version of good time management is the same as yours?
Hiring managers and recruiters are short on time, and when they receive hundreds of resumes all listing the same skills, shortlisting candidates can be a tedious task. Time-management testing is a necessary activity for companies that are serious about hiring only the best candidates who can effectively manage deadlines and plan their workload with business goals in mind.
When should you test candidates’ time-management skills?
If time management is a key skill for your open role, you should perform candidate testing at the beginning of the recruitment process. In fact, time-management tests are best administered at the top of the hiring funnel, which means giving candidates the test after you source them and before inviting them to an interview.
Testing candidates early on not only helps you to identify top candidates quickly but also streamlines the recruitment process as a whole.
Each candidate will be asked the same set of time-management-related questions, meaning that once the results are in, you’ll be able to access a side-by-side comparison of each candidate. This ultimately helps you pinpoint those who meet your requirements for shortlisting and those who you can exclude from the hiring process.
Add extra tests to your skills assessment
Although time management is an important skill, it’s not the only skill you should evaluate candidates on. Adding extra tests to your skills assessment helps you gain deeper insight into your candidates’ broader skill sets, capabilities, and profiles.
Depending on the role you’re hiring for, consider adding other tests to the assessment, including:
• Other situational judgment tests, such as communication, negotiation, and leadership tests
• Cognitive ability tests, including numerical reasoning, attention to detail, problem-solving, and critical thinking tests
• Personality and culture-add tests, including Enneagram, Big 5, and 16-types tests
• Role-specific tests that evaluate candidates’ abilities in distinct roles, like an accounts-payable test or a project-management test
Creating a comprehensive assessment that tests candidates’ full set of skills gives you a much fuller view of their profiles as a whole.