Pre-employment screening tests are likely being used by you, whether you’ve already begun to do so or not, to gather important data that you simply cannot find on an applicant’s résumé. In other words, you employ them to support smarter recruiting decisions. For instance, even though a candidate may claim in their resume that they have experience utilising Microsoft Excel to develop extensive reports and data visualisations, you won’t understand the breadth of their abilities unless you hire them.
Pre employment screening UK test may also be used as an important initial step in preventing hiring bias because they are objective. Whenever combined with interviews and job experience, these outcomes also provide supplementary contextual information.
You’ll have a deeper understanding of your candidates in this manner. Utilising pre-employment screening testing has clear advantages. Nevertheless, there are a few frequent errors that many businesses make that might make pre-screening tests worthless. In this article, we’ll go through the six most typical pre-screening errors and how you can prevent them.
1. Giving Candidates the Incorrect Pre-Screening Tests
It might seem clear which exams you ought to request applicants to do when assigning pre-screening tasks to them. For instance, it seems reasonable to suppose that if you’re searching for a data analyst, you could offer them a Power BI test or another examination that evaluates their proficiency with data.
It could be attractive to give identical tests to all applicants, regardless of the position, for convenience’s sake. But when the time comes to make a final recruiting decision, typical pre-employment screening tests are of limited value. For instance, personality tests are excellent for learning more about the motivations of your prospects, but you shouldn’t rely on the results of these tests to determine who to hire.
Making a profile for every position you’re looking for can help you choose the best pre-screening. Consider the qualifications required for the role carefully when you write the job description. Afterwards, choose the tests in accordance.
2. Not Taking Into Account Cultural Fit or Soft Skills
Soft skills are frequently a crucial component of many professions across numerous sectors, even though we mentioned above that personality tests shouldn’t be the sole criteria that you use when rendering hiring judgements.
Pre-screening for both is an essential component of your recruitment strategy because the perfect candidate for any position must possess the right combination of hard and soft abilities. Additionally, you probably already have a notion in mind of the kind of individual who ought to take on this position.
Nevertheless, a lot of businesses are switching from the idea of culture fit to culture add. A culture-add attitude understands the value of recruiting individuals that complement the norms and values of your company while also contributing something unique.
Test The adaptable culture add test from Gorilla gives your hiring decisions a new dimension by assisting you in finding candidates that will not only uphold your company’s fundamental values but also make it successful. You may hire people who will contribute to your organisation for years afterwards by using this exam along with other soft skills assessments in addition to hard skills assessments.
3. Relying Solely On Data
Data is everything, and automation is fantastic. It is important to use objective data, such as information gleaned about an applicant via a pre-employment screening exam, but it shouldn’t serve as your only source of knowledge. Utilising such data in conjunction with subjective data, such as education, personability, credentials, and interview results, provides the most comprehensive analysis.
Tests ought to be utilised as one tool in the recruitment toolkit, not as the sole means of evaluating prospective employees.
4. Not Taking Neurodiversity into Account
The majority of pre-screening exams are thought to provide applicants with an equal playing field, with each applicant being given identical questions to answer and receiving a score that can be compared with others.
Nevertheless, issues with pre-employment screening tests not accounting for the various requirements of applicants who might be disabled or neurodivergent have been reported. Appropriate changes have to be made even during the pre-screening phase as corporate inclusion policies increasingly take the requirements of employees who may be regarded as neurodivergent or disabled into account.
5. Selecting the Incorrect Tests
All assessments used by businesses during the hiring process must be connected to the job. All exams must be validated, this entails rigorous testing to demonstrate that they are accurate measures of performance. When choosing the pre-employment screening tests that are employed in the hiring process, consider the abilities, characteristics, personalities, and behavioural traits that are required for the work.
This is because the reliability of the aptitude test is only as effective as the test’s applicability. A warehouse worker probably won’t need to take a typing test, while an administrative assistant may not be required to take a mechanical comprehension test.
Final Words
For businesses looking to develop a trustworthy and qualified workforce, avoiding the most typical pre-employment screening errors is essential. Employers may minimise risks while making educated recruiting decisions that enhance the performance of their teams and businesses by putting a priority on rigorous background checks, and open communication with candidates, including adherence to legal requirements.
