Introduction:
The basic idea behind pre-employment testing is to identify the best candidates and make hiring decisions faster, easier, and completely bias-free. Keep in mind that the focus of a startup should not be to treat every candidate as equal but instead be split into multiple targets.
So before you conduct pre-employment assessments for your startup, do your research. Research what type of person you need based on your startup’s specific requirements. It is vital to understand the exact set of tasks you expect a candidate to perform in your company to design the right pre-employment tests for startups.
What is pre-employment testing?
Pre-employment testing is a critical part of the startup hiring process as it helps you evaluate candidates’ skills and abilities. The wide range of screening tools offered by various companies allows you to determine the level of work dedication, problem-solving ability, and personality traits of the applicant, which are required at every stage of business growth. Make sure your business is hiring the best among hundreds of candidates, and take advantage of pre-employment tests for startups listed on this site.
Testing has been proven to help innovators innovate, startups succeed, and grow at four times the rate of non-innovators. Our tests provide objective data that can be timely and effectively used in your hiring decisions. This is a great way to fast-track your hiring decisions.
What are the types of pre-employment skill tests in startups?
The act of pre-employment skill test is relatively new to the domain of startups. Today, startups prefer to hire candidates on an ad hoc basis. As a result, their requirement for the roles is less, and the skills they need are specific to the candidates. Hence they do not consider their pre-employment skill tests as a final before being accepted for a job role. However, before going forward to make a successful hire, startups usually test candidates on multiple parameters. The tests are meant to determine three things about the candidate, which are as follows,
1. Soft skill test
2. Hard skill test
3. Cognitive ability test
Soft Skill test:
Soft skill testing is done in rare cases and mostly involves getting the candidate familiar with the work environment. In such tests, a candidate makes aware of the working style, company culture, and much more. So, yes, you can assume that the exam will be related to your field of study and profession.
Therefore as a startup, it is important to check the candidate’s passion for the work needed for the role and an appropriate skill set. The test should be relevant, fair, and in line with industry standards.
Hard Skill Test:
Hard skill-testing plays an important role when it comes to hiring. Such tests assess the needed skills for your open role. These skills tend to be easy to evaluate as they are more technical. Hard skill tests include programming, coding, analytics, SEO, and data science.
Cognitive Ability Tests:
Pre-employment cognitive ability tests analyze a candidate’s mental skills and assess various aspects of their thinking. Recognizing the value and benefit of pre-employment skills testing, startup founders should consider this an essential tool in evaluating a candidate’s cognitive abilities, personality, and suitability for the job.
So then, it is clear that pre-employment cognitive ability testing is beneficial for startups, especially considering how costs are low and the return on investment may be high. Even if you are going to abandon the idea of using cognitive ability tests in your company, it will not hurt to conduct a trial period. The work environment will change each day, so I recommend you periodically re-evaluate whether or not skills testing is good for your company.
These tests consist of multiple-choice options that combine questions from various areas to assess your candidates’ cognitive aptitudes. Cognitive ability tests are useful for both senior and junior roles. For senior roles, the tests might measure your applicants’ capacity to make swift, practical decisions, and for junior positions, the tests evaluate your candidate’s ability to develop quickly and learn new skills.
Why is pre-employment testing important for startups?
Nowadays, screening tests are an important part of the recruitment process. But the recruitment process involves so many more aspects than only hiring a candidate. As a recruiter, it not only saves cost and time and startup turnover but also many other factors to consider. Following are the factors to focus on:
Candidate Hiring Experience
Brand Image Building using the recruitment process
Avoiding bias based on Color, Religion and Gender
Maintaining the privacy of your candidate’s data
Considering other legal compliances
All the above factors are essential in recruitment and will help you achieve your goals. Goals like finding you a candidate as per your requirement with insights into the candidate’s profile.
However, there are many reports out there where students have admitted to cheating on their resumes. This is another reason why pre-employment plays an important role in recruitment.
Conclusion:
In general, most startups use traditional tests for pre-employment testing. Most of these traditional tests are designed so that the candidate has to get 100% correct answers. But many new-age tests available today take into account a candidate’s skill and confidence level according to the role.
Hiring the right people is one of the most important things a company can do. If you have too many weak links, it’s hard to win in the startup race. A talented team makes all the difference in building a strong and successful organization.
