According to the Aberdeen Group, more than 2/3 of top companies use pre-hire assessments. But not all assessments have the same purpose. Do you know the differences between them?
Here are three types of assessments that you can use to narrow down candidates to the very best fit:
- Skills Assessment. Because certain jobs require certain skills, these assessments test for technical or professional expertise. You wouldn’t hire a plumber or an electrician if they didn’t have the skills to do the job. For jobs in the corporate world, you can test a candidate’s proficiency in software like AutoCAD or Photoshop, for example, or assess their general understanding of financial or business concepts.
- Cognitive Assessment. Sometimes called aptitude tests, these assessments measure a candidate’s verbal, critical thinking, or abstract reasoning skills. On a cognitive assessment, you might find logic or reading comprehension questions, or non-verbal items like patterns to test a candidate’s mental abilities.
- Personality Assessment. These assessments measure the innate traits and tendencies that influence behavior at work. Depending on the job type, you might measure things like sociability, work pace, persuasiveness, detail orientation, etc. Where other types of assessments tell you if a candidate is capable of doing the job, personality assessments also predict a candidate’s level of satisfaction and potential for success in a given work setting.
And the best part? You don’t have to choose just one! Now that you know what kind of insight you can gain from each type of assessment, take a look at your current process to see if there are any gaps. Depending on the job type and level within the organization, you can layer on assessments for the most complete picture of a candidate’s current skill set, job competencies, work potential.
This post is part of our FAQs series, where you can learn about the inner-workings of our assessments, as well as best practices to help improve your hiring process.
