9 Reasons Why Every Tech Company Should Implement Pre-Employment Testing

Do you use pre-employment tests in your hiring process?

Generally, pre-employment tests are designed to assess candidates on various skills and qualities such as cognitive ability, critical thinking, and personality, among many others.

In this article, we will take a look at pre-employment tests for programming roles and present 9 reasons why every tech company should implement them as part of the evaluation process.

So let’s get started.

Editor’s note: This is a guest contribution by software engineer and technical content writer Ismail Khursheed.

Why Do Companies Use Pre-Employment Tests?

Collecting candidate data early in the hiring process is crucial to understand if the applicant will be a good fit. The issue is that traditional resumes and interviews don’t always provide the full picture.

So, according to Psychology Today, approximately 80% of Fortune 500 companies use pre-employment testing to gather more data and build better teams. In turn, this leads to saving money and time while increasing productivity, decreasing turnover, and improving morale.

Pre-employment tests add objectivity to the hiring process by producing concrete results that can be standardized across all candidates. Employers can use this information to make more informed, defensible hiring decisions.

Why Do Some Companies Avoid Pre-Employment Testing?

Although many of the best companies worldwide use pre-employment testing, others still refuse to. Here are some of the reasons why companies don’t use pre-employment assessments:

It’s expensive
Simply put, some HR investments can’t bring enough ROI (Return on investment) to justify the cost, especially when hiring volume is low.
Leaked questions
Some tests are easy to get hold of and upload on the internet. Thus, candidates can game the system.
Not enough applicants
This is a valid concern for some businesses, but it also indicates that the organization’s recruiting strategy isn’t working.

9 Reasons Why Tech Companies Should Implement Pre-Employment Testing

If you’re considering implementing pre-employment tests but aren’t sure if it’s worth the time, keep reading. Let’s go over 9 ways pre-employment testing can help your company.

Convenience for Both Employer and Employee

Candidates can usually take the test at a time and location that is convenient for them. Similarly, employers can review and evaluate results asyncronously.

Offers Fair Opportunity

Everyone receives the same pre-employment test so they have an equal shot, rather than certain candidates receiving easier or harder tests.

Streamlining the Hiring Process

A single corporate role may receive hundreds of applications. This makes finding the ideal applicant challenging for recruiters and managers. Employment testing, on the other hand, can aid in speeding up the procedure. This allows you to focus on candidates that are most likely to excel in the role.

Increase Employee Productivity

Pre-employment screening tests allow you to maximize the chances of finding great candidates, therefore allowing you to build strong and more productive teams.

Higher Employee Retention

Employee testing before hiring not only helps you find someone with the right skills but also the right personality. By ensuring a better fit between new and existing employees, as well as putting the rigth people in the right seats, retention is likely to go up.

Increase Employer Defensibility

Federal regulations govern pre-employment testing. Because of their objective nature, these ensure non-discriminatory practices during testing and can increase legal defensibility should this be needed.

Lower Employee Turnover

Reduced employee turnover can have far-reaching benefits for an entire organization. According to a study conducted by the Center of American Progress, replacing entry-level personnel costs roughly 16% of their annual compensation, replacing mid-level employees costs about 20%, and replacing high-level executive staff costs more than 200% of their annual salary. This speaks eloquently about the costs of turnover and the critical role of pre-screening testing in the recruitment process.

Reduced Bias in Hiring

In hiring interviews, unconscious biases are common. Stereotyping, similarity, and even the halo effect are examples of these biases. However, a well-designed pre-employment skill test reduces recruitment bias by providing objective information on candidates’ relevant skills.

Provides Realistic Job Expectations for Employees

Incorporating realistic job previews into assessments has the added benefit of allowing candidates to self-select out of the process if the job requirements are not what they expected.

What are Some Best Practices Companies Use for Pre-Employment Tests?

The main purpose of pre-employment testing is to go beyond basic job knowledge to identify possible candidates who will benefit your team. Comprehensive candidate selection processes will assist you in weeding out unqualified individuals, allowing you to avoid disastrous hires and negative business effects. Here are some best practices companies use to streamline their hiring process:

Select the Right Tests for the Job

There are numerous types of tests and the combination you select is determined by what you want to learn about your potential employees. Use the wealth of information in your team to determine what’s most important. You can use this to create baseline job profiles based on your top performers and employ related tests in the hiring process.

Establish a Fair Approach

Early testing allows for a more standardized and fair approach, providing reliable data and an objective view of each candidate. This reduces the possibility of showing a conscious or unconscious bias against any candidate for the wrong reasons. It’s natural to prefer hiring someone with whom you can connect. However, the person with whom you share many interests is not always the best candidate for the job.

Use Tests Developed by Professionals

While you can create your questions, errors can be costly. Third-party companies with a breadth of experience creating pre-employment tests can help you identify the traits to test for and design relevant questions for them.

Final thoughts

In today’s competitive market, it is critical to select the best candidates for your organization as efficiently as possible. As you can see, pre-employment testing benefits both you and the employee. It will save you time and money and help you hire candidates that will be happy in their new position.

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