Hiring mistakes cost employers thousands annually. Data compiled by Undercover Recruiter shows that if a mid-level manager who earns $62,000 is terminated after 2.5 years, it costs the company $840,000. This includes hiring costs, salary and benefits, and severance pay, as well as disruption to overall productivity and lost business opportunities.
The average company spends around $240,000 to recruit and onboard a new hire. If the employee is not a good fit for the job and leaves, that money is lost, and the organization must incur additional hiring and onboarding costs to find a replacement.
Recruiting qualified candidates to fill critical job roles is a challenge because of the talent shortage, and organizations need to find and hire top employees to remain competitive in the marketplace. As a result, many are implementing job skills testing solutions that allow them to create customized pre-employment tests for all their open job roles.
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Why Customizing Pre-Employment Tests is Important
As most HR leaders will attest, all organizations have their own way of doing things. A job at one company will likely have different skill requirements than the same position at another company. This means standardized, “one-size-fits-all” pre-employment tests are often ineffective.
How to Customize Job Skills Tests
The eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM offers HR professionals several customization options to tailor job skills tests to perfectly match each of their positions. Here are descriptions of these options.
This test doesn’t always have to be for new employees joining the company. You can arrange these aptitude tests even for old employees to test their credibility for the next promotion. However, we would suggest giving them enough executive, or leadership training to help them prepare for the tes. Now, coming back to pre-employment skill test:
- Revise Ready-to-Use Job Skills Tests: The eSkill Assessment Library contains hundreds of job- and subject-related skills tests. It is possible to use them as is or select one that best fits your needs and modify it by deleting questions that do not pertain to the job role. For example, if you were hiring an entry-level Java programmer and saw that some of the questions in the Java Skills Test were too advanced, you could easily delete them.
- Create Multi-Subject Skills Tests: In some cases, you want to assess applicants in several areas. This option is ideal in these situations. You select the job skills and topics you want to test, set the difficulty level and test length, and eSkill builds an assessment that meets those criteria. For instance, if you were hiring data entry operators and needed candidates with strong Excel® and good math skills, you could select the Excel and Basic Math skills tests, designate the topic areas and difficulty level for each, and eSkill would build the skills test for you. You always have the opportunity to review assessments and add or delete questions as needed.
- Choosing Your Own Questions for Pre-Employment Tests: With the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM, you can build customized assessments by selecting questions from multiple skills tests and adding your own questions. This is an excellent option for organizations that test applicants’ knowledge of policies and procedures critical to job performance. For example, if your manufacturing company is legally required to have employees and new hires complete safety training, you can choose questions from ready-to-use skills tests such as Safety Procedures and Workplace Safety and add questions unique to your organization.
Customization Success Stories
Global organizations depend on job skill testing solutions to improve recruiting and training. The following success stories show how two companies used customized pre-employment tests to streamline hiring and training and reduce hiring costs.
- ELIA Transmission Belgium (ELIA)
ELIA Transmission Belgium (ELIA) is an electrical power distributor headquartered near Brussels. European Union (EU) law requires technicians working on hazardous high-voltage electrical distribution sites to complete safety training. The test content is specific to high-voltage safety and ELIA quality certification and testing requirements. So, certification officers must add over 1,300 proprietary questions and create tests in French, Dutch, English, and eight other languages. So, ELIA chose the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM because it allowed them to develop customized skills tests and add their own questions.
- Ryan LLC
Ryan LLC provides tax assistance, consulting, and advocacy services to companies in the real estate, oil and gas, business services, transportation, and utility industries. The HR team tests candidates on multiple subjects and topics, which was expensive because they had to pay for tests individually. It became cost-prohibitive when many positions required candidates to complete up to five assessments. Ryan LLC implemented the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM so the HR team could create one pre-employment test that would cover all job and subject areas for each job role.
Customization Improves Hiring Outcomes
Every organization has unique needs, and standardized pre-employment tests are not always effective. Therefore, HR teams need to use assessment solutions that allow them to create customized job skill tests for each job role.
Do you want to see how customizing job skill tests can simplify your recruiting process and minimize hiring mistakes? Contact us to request a demo.