The Benefits of Implementing Pre-Employment Testing in the Hiring Process

Finding good employees is always challenging for companies today, but keeping them can also prove difficult. Did you know that 65% of Gen Z workers leave their jobs after just one year?

Every employee lost must be replaced, and this process costs time and money. As a result, many companies are now investing in finding the right employees to avoid low retention rates.

Pre-employment testing is the best solution. Your company’s success relies on finding the right employees; testing helps you solve this problem.

Continue reading as we explore the key benefits of implementing an effective pre-employment testing program in your company.

What Is Pre-Employment Testing?

Pre-employment testing is a strategy employers use to evaluate job applicants before hiring them. Small, medium, and large companies use these tests, and most find them helpful when hiring employees.

The testing occurs before hiring a person and may include one or more assessments. You can customize this strategy to meet your unique needs and goals by choosing the types of tests you use.

These tests evaluate the many qualities and characteristics applicants possess. The purpose is to find employees with the traits your company needs. With thorough pre-employment tests, you can find the ideal candidates.

You can choose from numerous tests, each designed to assess different qualities. Some test a person’s cognitive abilities, while others evaluate behavioral styles, job skills, personalities, and physical abilities. Here are some of the test options:

DISC Profile Testing

DISC testing assesses a person’s personality and determines their unique personality type. The purpose is to determine how one might act in the workplace.

DISC profiling characterizes people within four profiles: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. Everyone has a combination of different levels of each of these traits.

This test helps you learn if an applicant would fit well within your organization. It’s based on things such as their confidence, sincerity, competency, and persuasion abilities.

Office Skills Tests

An office skills test tells you how competent an applicant is with using standard office equipment and software. The test reveals the level of skill a person has with general office knowledge.

Leadership Tests

Leadership tests are helpful if you need employees who can lead. These tests reveal how well a person can lead with effective results.

Business Values Tests

A business values test helps you learn what motivates applicants. You’ll discover more about how a person thinks and the methods they use to communicate with others.

Improved Productivity and Performance

Pre-employment tests provide insight into an applicant’s potential job performance. When using tests, it’s important to use criterion validity. This helps you choose the best tests for your desired outcomes.

One goal of pre-employment tests is improved productivity and performance. If the tests you use can accurately predict a person’s performance, you’ll benefit from hiring people who score well on the tests.

The hiring process begins with accepting an application and resume. You spend time reading these things to determine if a person’s skills match what you’re looking for, but you won’t get much more than that from a resume.

Pre-employment testing offers the extra things you need. You can review the test scores and choose the person who fits closest to what your company needs.

The tests offer accurate results. Therefore, you’ll choose the person who rates the highest and is most likely to succeed in your organization.

If so, they’ll perform well in their job roles, and your company will profit.

Streamlined Hiring Process

Pre-employment tests also speed up the hiring process. Timing is critical when replacing employees. You need employees quickly, but skipping steps in the hiring process may lead to hiring the wrong person.

Testing your candidates provides a clear answer. It helps you find the most qualified individuals quickly. While you can and should still interview clients, you can spend the rest of your time scheduling their tests.

You’ll also be able to set up minimum scores and specific criteria for the tests. Doing this allows you to weed through applicants faster.

You can cross off candidates that fail to meet your standards and pursue the ones that do.

Finding the best candidates faster provides several benefits. First, it reduces the lost work from missing a valuable employee. Secondly, the tests help you find the right candidate the first time.

Consider how much money and time you lose from hiring someone that doesn’t work out with your company. Testing your candidates helps you avoid this problem.

Reduced Employee Turnover

Employee turnover is always an issue companies watch closely. Each time you lose an employee, there is a process to replace them. This process takes time and money, and the loss of an employee means a loss of productivity.

Therefore, the goal is to keep every great employee you have. Keeping your employees reduces employee turnover and a loss of productivity. As you can imagine, finding the right employee the first time minimizes these issues.

After a candidate completes the required testing, you’ll receive the results. You can review the results and instantly to see which candidates fit the role. You may have just one to choose from or several after getting the results.

The bottom line is that reducing your employee turnover helps your company save money. Losing an employee costs money in multiple ways, but much of the costs are for the recruitment of the employee’s replacement.

Pre-employment testing increases employee retention rates. It also saves money, improves your company morale, and allows you to continue your operations without interruption.

Increased Legal Defensibility

Employers must follow employment and hiring laws when hiring new employees. Breaking any of these laws can lead to legal problems, but did you know that requiring pre-employment tests helps you avoid these issues?

When you create your hiring protocol and include pre-employment tests, you create the criteria for choosing employees. If you use the same criteria for every new hire, you avoid unintended bias or discrimination.

This is because you base your hiring decision on established data points relevent to the success of a person in that role. For example, you might require specific scores from these metrics because you know that means this person has the ability to meet or exceed your expectations. If an applicant’s score falls below this standard, you cross them off your list and move on to other candidates are more qualified for the role based on this established data, not your opinions.

You then have proof of why you chose not to hire the person. This proof comes in handy if someone sues you for discrimination.

Workplace Safety

Some roles within your organization might require a demonstration of safety awareness or safety “dna.” Many safety cultures have established protocols on how to do the job in a specific manner and the desired candidates need to low-risk in areas of : distractability, thrill-seeking, resitance to rules, and more.

If you have jobs like this, offering a pre-employment safety attitudes assessment will help you find someone who can succeed in a safety oriented culture. Testing for this reason serves several purposes:

Helps you find someone with the natural hard-wiring for safety
Helps your company avoid workplace injuries
Reduces workers’ compensation claims

Avoiding workplace incidents is vital for your company’s operations and bottom line.

Improved Company Culture Fit

Many companies strive to create certain workplace cultures and environments. Achieving this is easier if you hire people who fit within your specific goals.

Testing candidates helps you find people who fit. You can look for people with certain personality traits.

For example, do you aim to have a team-player environment? If so, look for candidates with traits that correlate well with this goal. These individuals will fit into your culture more than people who aren’t like this naturally.

Additionally, when you hire people with personalities that fit your culture, they’ll enjoy working there. They’ll fit in and feel at home. As a result, you might improve your employee retention.

Implementing Best Practices

Pre-employment testing is popular today because it’s effective. However, you must complete a few steps before implementing a testing policy.

Find the Right Assessments

Research companies that offer pre-employment testing. Ask them what tests they offer and elaborate on what the tests do. Find a reputable company that offers the test types you need.

Research the Tests

Next, research the actual tests to determine if they’re effective. Ask the company how reliable the results are and if they meet all the Equal Employment Opportunity laws.

Complete Other Due Diligence

While these tests are helpful and effective, you should use other strategies to select employees. Interviews are one of the most helpful steps, as they offer one-on-one discussions.

Create Standards

Finally, always set standards when using pre-employment tests as part of the onboarding process. The standards are guidelines you follow when using the results to choose or not choose a particular candidate.

Enhance Your Hiring Process Through Pre-Employment Testing

Pre-employment testing is the answer if you want:

Increased performance
Reduced turnover
A safer working environment

Through pre-employment testing, you can find better employees and better employees lead to higher profits. If this is your goal, look no further.

Success Performance Solutions helps you measure up job candidates. Our services have helped companies for over 25 years through accurate pre-employment tests and much more.

Reach out today to find out more about our services and how they can help your company.