You're likely to encounter at least one pre-employment behavior assessment if you are actively job hunting. Employers use these career tests and background checks to get to know you. Pre-employment tests can make or break an applicant's application. Many companies use these tests to match the personality traits of the person they are looking to hire for a particular job.
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What kind of results can companies expect from pre-employment testing? It is important that you have realistic expectations and goals for the results of a pre-employment program. By using professionally-developed, validated testing instruments, employers are adding objective, data-driven metrics to the hiring process. Employers can make incremental improvements to their hiring process and reduce the chance of making bad hires. It should dramatically simplify the hiring process and result in demonstrable improvements to a company's productivity, turnover, training and hiring costs. This streamlining should yield tangible benefits - an ROI Calculator can show the company what returns it can expect to implement testing.
Data for the AMA are based upon surveys from its members, which tend to be larger organizations. Criteria Corp believes that small and medium-sized companies should be able to take pre-employment tests. Our mission is to make these assessments available to all organizations.
It is important to be realistic about what you can expect from pre-employment screening. Testing is not a perfect tool. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Testing companies that advertise "99.9% accuracy" and claim that they will never make another bad hire again are either not familiar with the science behind testing or misrepresenting it in order to sell their products. Employers will not make another bad hire by incorporating tests into their hiring process, but they will make fewer. There is no perfect test. While some people may not test well, others may do well. Although tests have been shown to be more reliable than interviews or resumes in terms of predicting performance, employers should remember that no one selection method is perfect.
Pre-employment tests should not be considered a part of a complete set of criteria that are used to assess applicants. This includes resumes, interviews and job experience. The best pre-employment tests are used at the beginning of the hiring process to identify candidates who may not be a good fit. Organizations that use tests make their final decisions based upon many factors. However, tests should only be considered one component of the overall decision-making process. Companies should expect that tests will streamline and improve the process of hiring, not replace it.