Buyers Guide

Table of Contents

• What is Pre-Employment Testing Software?
• The benefits of Pre-Employment Testing Software
• Typical features of Pre-Employment Testing Software
• The cost of Pre-Employment Testing Software
• Considerations when purchasing Pre-Employment Testing Software
• Relevant Pre-Employment Testing Software trends
  

What is Pre-Employment Testing Software?

In this highly competitive job market, pre-employment testing software allows recruiters to hire the best suited talent by evaluating and assessing the capabilities of each candidate using various types of skill-assessment tests. 

Different types of pre-employment tests could include:

• Job knowledge tests
• Personality tests
• Cognitive ability tests
• Soft skill assessments
• Situational judgement tests
• Emotional intelligence tests

With pre-employment testing software, a recruiter can measure a candidate's job skills, aptitude, and temperament prior to interviews or hiring. It gives recruiters a complete picture of a candidate beyond what is written on the resume and helps them weed out unqualified people in the early stages.

The benefits of Pre-Employment Testing Software

Recruiters experience many benefits when they take advantage of pre-employment assessments to screen job candidates. Some of the most significant ones are: 

• Boosting efficiency of the recruitment process: A prerequisite for an effective recruitment process is to get the most qualified candidates from a vast pool of potentials. Modern pre-employment testing tools help recruiters to screen for the right candidates at an earlier stage, which also provides them with a lot of information about the candidate. It saves recruiters from screening resumes manually and boosts the overall efficiency of the recruitment process.
• Weeding out hiring bias: Recruiting candidates by using a pre-employment testing tool can prove to be a boon for all those deserving of the position. This software can help to screen for a candidate’s basic skills and personality traits rather than background and demographics. This will allow organizations to hire candidates with good aptitude and other skill sets apart from numbers and references mentioned on their resumes.
• Quicker and accurate employee hiring: With the pre-employment testing tool, recruiters can assess and rank candidates on how well they will mesh with the company and the job role, which drastically improves the chances of making the right hiring decision. This also helps to reduce employee turnover at the company.
• Improving quality of new hires: Pre-employment testing software shortlists candidates based on the required skill set and various assessments. Recruiters can maintain a database of shortlisted candidates that they can quickly hire for possible openings in the future. With the list of already evaluated candidates, recruiters can screen the candidates faster, which accelerates any future hiring process and allows you to onboard the correct candidates.

Typical features of Pre-Employment Testing Software

Here are some of the most common features of pre-employment testing software:

• Candidate management: Build, track, and maintain relationships with candidates.
• Tests/assessments: Create tools to measure student retention of learning material and lessons.
• Aptitude testing: Measure for aptitude to uncover talents, reveal strengths, and assess performance.
• Automatic grading: Automatically score assessment results.
• Online tests: Administer exams online via computers or other electronic devices.
• Personality testing: Identify work styles and characteristics to determine behavioral fits.
• Skills assessments: Observe employees over a period of time to gain an understanding of their ability to perform certain tasks.

The cost of Pre-Employment Testing Software

Most products are priced on a “per month” basis. They can be divided into three pricing tiers based on their starting price.

Price ranges*:

• $129 - $184
• $184 - $350
• $350+

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering that was found on vendor websites on November 27, 2019. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentile of the pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.

The above list summarizes pricing for the base plans of most products. An enterprise product, which is priced higher, may include some additional features such as task design report, application tracking system (ATS) integrations, and advanced seat management.

Considerations when purchasing Pre-Employment Testing Software

Software buyers should keep the following factors on top of mind when selecting a pre-employment testing tool:

• The skills to be assessed should be predefined: The pre-employment testing software comes in different forms, be it for technical skill assessment, soft skills assessment, position based assessment, or a mix of these. Be sure that the software you are buying should be able to assess the exact skills for which you need to evaluate your candidates. It is recommended to prepare a list of necessary skills that a candidate should have, which will help in choosing the correct software.
• Integration with applicant tracking system (ATS) will lead to seamless recruitment experience: Many organizations invest heavily into ATS/human resource information systems (HRIS) that help in streamlining the recruitment process. For a seamless recruiting process, it is imperative that the pre-employment testing software should be able to transfer the collected assessment data to these other systems with ease. Invest in software that will seamlessly sync up the HR process with psychometric data. It will contribute to improved quality and standardization of the overall recruitment process.
• Level of customizations available: Employers should look out for options to design their own custom aptitude and skill tests to closely match the standard tests with the job role they are hiring for. With an easily customizable pre-employment testing tool, employers will be able to modify questions in the tests, as per their specific requirements. They can also promote their brand by customizing the tests with their brand logo, color scheme, and themes.

Relevant Pre-Employment Testing Software trends

• Gained momentum in gamified assessments will lead to engaging candidate experience: Turning something tedious and boring into something fun and appealing can entice candidates to engage in the vetting process. Gamification is doing exactly that by infusing psychometric science into gaming elements. This can be done in multiple ways including mobile games or in the form of simulation tests. One psychometric communication game will help recruiters predict how candidates will react to real-life situations. In this highly competitive market, gamification will prove to be a boon for recruiters.
• AI will be pivotal in making new hires: Artificial intelligence (AI) is helping companies ramp up their productivity and performance. It can help recruiters in pre-assessment employee testing by calculating the scores of open-ended personality questionnaires and providing AI chatbots for situational judgement tests. With this kind of technology in place, there will be a complete overhaul of traditional recruiting practices in the years to come.