Employers are likely to be more effective at hiring and retention when they customize pre-employment assessments to reflect job realities and company culture and use multiple assessments to evaluate candidates, according to a March 20 report from global HR advisory firm McLean & Co.
“Not only do well-aligned assessments offer candidates a clearer and more authentic picture of their future role, enhancing their overall experience, but they also help hiring teams make confident, unbiased decisions,” Karen Mann, McLean’s senior vice president of human resources research, learning and advisory services, stated in a media release.
The report, “Design Pre-Employment Assessments That Improve Hiring Success,” outlines steps HR and hiring managers can take to develop effective pre-employment assessments.
At the outset, hiring teams should identify high-impact roles, their essential competencies and focus on positions historically hard to fill, the report said.
Next, create assessments directly aligned with these competencies, and then test and validate the assessments to confirm they accurately predict job performance, are unbiased and consistently measure the desired competencies.
Finally, integrate the assessments into the talent acquisition process and continuously evaluate how the assessments improve hiring decisions and organizational outcomes.
In an example of how a customized, multi-assessment strategy can improve hiring decisions, the report points to challenges hiring teams may face filling a financial analyst role.
According to the example, candidates are given a business scenario and asked to role play how they would present the information to employees and senior leaders at a company meeting and answer questions from the attendees. From a candidate’s response, hiring teams could more realistically assess the candidate’s presentation, communication and critical thinking competencies, the report said.
Recently, employers have turned to skills-based assessments to tackle talent shortages amid rapidly changing job requirements.
Digital communications corporation Cisco has seen success doing so, according to a November 2024 report from advocacy group OneTen.
In 2021, Cisco began shifting from a traditional degree-based model to a skills-focused model that incorporates competencies, experience and potential, regardless of a job candidate’s educational credentials. The skills-first strategy expanded Cisco’s talent pipeline and led to a 96% retention rate among skills-first hires, according to the report.
But for the strategy to be successful, employers need to have a clear vision, empower their leaders and create a supportive budget, the report said.
Since company culture reflects the character of people within an organization, assessing character attributes can also help with hiring, according to the author of an October 2024 report published in the MIT Sloan Management Review.
However, employers should keep in mind several points if they decide to include character assessments in their evaluations, the author said.
For instance, looking at isolated elements of character — such as courage or drive alone — can lead to a limited perspective. Also character assessments should be conducted as a separate interview, and allow for more free-flowing and personalized conversations than typical structured interviews, the author noted.
