When it comes to hiring, many employers use pre-employment assessments to try and evaluate whether candidates are the right fit for specific job openings. From job knowledge and physical ability to personality and emotional intelligence, these tests can cover a variety of areas and appear in a variety of formats. But which types of assessments are right for your organization, and how should you use them?

In this blog, we’ll go over everything you need to know about candidate assessments so you can effectively find and secure top talent for your organization.

Who?

Since most assessments are priced by the head, some organizations only assess candidates for highly compensated positions where employers can feel confident making these larger investments. However, by only evaluating candidates for highly compensated positions, employers are losing out on the benefits they could unlock throughout their entire organization if they used that approach for all positions. In fact, quality assessments can make a dramatic difference at lower levels, where churn causes the most problems for organizations.

So what do these assessments look like, and what benefits can they bring?

What?

As previously mentioned, candidate assessments can cover a variety of areas such as job knowledge, skills, integrity, physical ability, personality, and emotional intelligence. Each type of assessment should have a specific goal.

Personality testing in particular has become an increasingly common part of the hiring process. You may have heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator^®, the DiSC Assessment, or the Caliper profile. However, there are hundreds of personality assessments out there, all with varying levels of quality. That’s because many assessments simply test for the wrong things or use questionable logic to analyze responses.

Fortunately, there are candidate assessment tests, such as GoodJob’s PATH Assessment^®, that reimagine the hiring process so employers can get it right the first time. Oftentimes, assessments rely solely on psychological concepts instead of leveraging data science and artificial intelligence (AI), which the PATH Assessment does. On top of that, most tests evaluate a candidate’s general personality rather than their specific workplace personality, the latter of which more effectively examines a candidate’s traits and behaviors in terms of who they are in the workplace. This is the specific goal of the PATH Assessment: to evaluate whether a candidate would fit within the company’s culture and whether their behaviors and traits would be an advantage for a specific position, all so employers can predict on-the-job behaviors and potential.

When?

Organizations can effectively leverage candidate assessments by implementing them at the right point in the hiring process. Oftentimes, employers will administer an assessment to a candidate at the end of the hiring process. Unfortunately, when this is the case, the results of the assessment are usually downplayed or outright ignored because of the amount of time and resources the employer has already spent on the candidate in question. Also, you can’t know if the perfect candidate was eliminated before you even started interviewing.

Approaches like these don’t save many steps in the interview process and probably won’t change anyone’s mind about a hiring decision. With the PATH Assessment, candidates sign up for GoodJob’s platform and take the assessment first. After an employer posts a job with a short description and key details, GoodJob instantly matches them with the top applicants on their platform based on their comprehensive recruitment system. Employers can then sort, filter, and rank all of their applicants and choose the best fit without ever combing through a giant stack of resumes. Best of all, the PATH Assessment chooses the best candidates without the effects of human bias, based on intrinsic traits.

How?

Now that you understand the who, what, and when of candidate assessments, it’s time to review the hows. How long are these tests? How much do they cost per person? How do employers get candidates to take them? And how can we trust their results?

Candidate assessments range in length, with some tests taking up to several hours to complete. Ideally, candidate assessments should be quick and easy, taking approximately 10-20 minutes, so candidates can stay engaged and answer questions accurately. The cost per person can vary as well, ranging from $10 to $75 each, depending on the provider. GoodJob’s PATH Assessment takes less than 10 minutes to complete, and it’s free to take.

When it comes to getting candidates to take these assessments, it’s crucial for employers to communicate the goal behind them—whether that’s assessing overall culture fit or predicting on-the-job success. In addition, employers can provide transparency to their candidates by sharing their assessment results so they can see how well the jobs would fit them.

And in terms of trusting the results of candidate assessments, you have to understand how the tests were created. For example, the PATH Assessment was created by scientists at Harvard and Stanford. It’s much more accurate than other candidate assessments because although it’s based on psychology, the assessment leverages data science and AI, as mentioned earlier. Plus, by focusing only on workplace personality traits rather than general personality traits, the PATH Assessment is more reliable because it places a person’s values and traits within a relevant context.

Simplify the Hiring Process with PATH

When it comes to the workplace, personality matters—but not in a way in which it’s important to be “nice” or “easy-going.” What we mean is that there are specific traits and behaviors in a person’s workplace personality that better suit specific jobs.

While most personality assessments test the wrong areas or use poor logic to analyze responses and draw conclusions, the PATH Assessment organizes employee traits and behaviors into four modes: purpose, approach, thinking, and habits. Far from the average personality test, the PATH assessment leverages data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to match candidates for the traits most advantageous to specific roles.

Are you ready to simplify your hiring process and find qualified job-seekers who fit your company’s culture? The PATH Assessment will reveal who candidates are in the workplace—what drives them, how they interact with coworkers, how they problem solve, and how they take action. Click here to learn more.