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In 2018, 82 percent of surveyed companies reported using a form of skills assessment testing.
Online skill assessment tests are highly useful because they streamline the hiring process.
Not only can they make the process more efficient, but they decrease opportunities for hiring biases, and they can test core skills beyond formal education credentials. Here’s how to get the most out of your skill assessment software.
1. Organize and Measure Your Hiring Campaigns
Standard online skill assessment tools have organizational features such as test comparison dashboards, interview reminders, candidate evaluation lists, and specific job lists.
Naturally, online skill assessment tests are there to help you hire more efficiently.
Your online skills assessment tool may also include key performance indicators that help you measure the success of your hiring campaigns and help you improve future hiring experiences.
You can use this e-assessment software from TestReach to get a comprehensive idea of test metrics, but your basic features are related to test completion rates and applicant experience scores.
Your test completion rate indicates how engaged your applicants are with your hiring campaign.
Applicant experience scores are also valuable because they indicate whether your business positively interacts with applicants.
Other KPIs, such as average completion time, indicate whether you should change the length or rigor of your tests. This can also affect applicant experience scores and let you know if your tests need improvement.
2. Craft Your Own Hard Skill and Industry-related Assessments
To test these hard skills, you need assessments that ask direct questions related to specific tasks or industries.
Online assessment softwares often include templates for various industry-specific tests. However, you may want to customize your own questions if you want answers tailored to your business.
For instance, in the software industry, there’s a platform called Codility which tests applicants’ ability to write code.
Hiring managers can invite applicants to take a Codility test through a link. The applicants can then write code on the Codility platform and automatically receive an assessment score.
For hiring managers who need expert coders, Codility is an effective and objective method for testing those skills in real time.
3. Use Soft Skill Assessments
While hard skills are critical, soft skills often determine an applicant’s secondary talents and skills that supplement their hard skills.
Typically soft skills include areas such as cognitive ability, personality, clear verbal or written communication, and technical skills.
So how do you test these features when there aren’t distinct answers or scores?
Assessment software can simplify this type of testing through unique questions that related to your business.
For instance, apps like ThriveMap offer “day in the life” simulations that you can customize to assess each applicant’s unique approaches to tasks for a specific job.
Your software should also allow you to customize specific questions not included in templates. These are particularly useful for questions that reflect your business’s work environment culture, expectations, or company mission.
4. Use Applicant Tracking Software
Some online skills assessment test software allows you to implement applicant tracking software with your testing software.
Here are some of the most helpful characteristics you can expect from applicant tracking software:
- Dashboard with applicant skill ratings
- Skill filters to compare applicants by specific skills
- Calendar with interview date/time comparisons
- Templates or customization for job offer letters
With applicant tracking software, you can test and compare applicants all in the same place.
When to Use Skill Assessment Software
If you have a high volume of applicants or you simply want an easier way to handle applications, online skill assessment tools can help you.
Apps and software are great tools to simplify the hiring process, but they can be used for so much more.
We’ve got other articles to help you get the most out of them, so feel free to check them out!
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