Talent assessments are an excellent tool for recruitment, hiring, or identifying coaching and development opportunities. But, with thousands of options available, it might not be clear which assessment is suitable for your organization.
Choosing the right candidate can be easier and more effective with talent analytics, whether sorting through hundreds of new candidate applications or re-evaluating a merging workforce during an acquisition. Talent assessment tools can help by putting the most qualified and engaged candidates at the top of your list – and on the path to success with professional development.
There are countless traditional methods for assessing talent potential, from preliminary interviews and personality assessments to skill and talent-based assessments. These can give managers insight into how a candidate fits into your organization. In addition, they can further develop your team and find knowledge gaps within the organization.
Top reasons for assessing talent:
Creating a talent assessment strategy will help you know your organizational needs deeper, with more meaningful information. Interviews and meetings can only tell you so much about a person, especially when anxiety or self-doubt get the best of us. A talent assessment process provides a greater chance of learning more about your candidate’s abilities they may not even be aware of.
A talent assessment is a short objective evaluation that helps employers match job roles with qualified candidates. Custom tests can concentrate on various qualities and characteristics such as work styles, skills, knowledge, or broad personality traits. Employee talent assessment tests may include hypothetical scenarios, word matching, puzzles, or broad-spectrum questions.
Common organizational uses for talent assessments:
Recruiting and hiring managers can use talent assessments for external hires and existing team members who may be ready for a new role. Or managers can use them to guide employee coaching.
There has been debate over the validity of talent assessments as they become increasingly popular in the hiring process. Some believe that personality assessments are easy to manipulate, thus making cognitive assessments more valid. However, this is untrue, and when companies carefully select the personality assessments to use, they will gain valuable insight to hiring and developing their team.
When used within the limits of their design, valid assessments are remarkably efficient and cost-effective tools that improve the accuracy in employee selection, can address inequality in hiring and promotion decisions, and support individual and group professional development programs. Most notably, predictive assessments can accurately provide information about a candidate’s ability to be successful in their role.
Pre-employment assessment tools can highlight the candidates in your recruitment pipeline that are ready for more in-depth interviews. Bringing these assessment tools into the hiring process either as part of the application process or after preliminary formal interviews can quicken the hiring process through data-driven decision-making.
What do candidates think of pre-hire tests? There are hundreds of assessment methods for hiring. Talent assessments can vary in length, but a recent study by Gartner found that candidates most trust assessments that they can complete within ten to thirty minutes. It can also improve their experience in the hiring process and encourage feeling more connected to the organization.
Assessment methods for hiring might vary depending on your organization or industry. However, with a clear vision of what you and the company need in a candidate, an organizational talent assessment can narrow the list of candidates qualified to meet your needs.
Talent acquisition assessment tools can measure employees’ success, engagement, or talent fit during the transformative times of company mergers and acquisitions. In these situations, predictive assessments help evaluate organizational capacity and engagement as teams merge, informing more equitable talent management decisions.
Gathering good data makes it possible to explore and answer questions about your team and their performance. For current employees, talent analytics tools and other online assessments can clarify who is capable and ready for a new role in the organization. Regularly, they can be a foundation for talent reviews, coaching, and succession planning.
Once you’re ready to bring talent assessment tools into your hiring process, you must know the many options and possibilities of these tests. With hundreds to choose from, you’ll want to consider a few factors to know which assessments align with your company and goals best.
Describe the factor to consider for choosing a talent assessment tool. Why should this factor be considered? Emphasize the importance of this factor and how it can benefit the company if regarded. Validity is the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure.
A test must be valid to apply and interpret the results accurately. There are three approaches to generating evidence of validity:
The high cost of open positions and high turnover make talent assessments a savvy HR investment. Unfortunately, talent screening is costly and time-consuming. Practical talent assessments will expedite the hiring process and ensure your top performers are engaged and on the right track.
Adverse impact is when a decision disproportionately impacts a protected group – even unintentionally. Protected groups in the United States include those of a specific race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or other members that fall under the Equal Employment Opportunity law.
Employment opportunity equity is an important consideration when determining the best assessment tools for hiring. Beyond meeting Equal Employment Opportunity compliance regulations, companies that prioritize diversity and equity are more likely to have a greater amount of candidates applying for roles, and lower employee turnover.
Diverse thought leads to better strategies, new ideas, and greater employees satisfaction as people are willing to work hard and advocate for companies where they feel seen, valued, and respected.
Incorporating talent assessments into the recruitment and hiring process requires planning and support from your team and the company. Without a proper plan to execute any changes, you likely won’t have candidates applying that are qualified for the roles you’re looking to fill.
The steps listed below provide clarity from beginning to end so that you can feel confident with how to start conducting talent assessments at your company.
Talent management assessment tools deliver deep insights you can’t necessarily reach through interviews or resumes. Though this information helps teams hire quicker with better candidates for specific positions, it can be challenging to implement a new strategy.
Fortunately, there are solutions to the most common challenges companies face when considering using talent management assessments.
Incorporating an effective talent assessment strategy into your hiring process creates new pathways to success for members of your organization across multiple levels. Managers, department heads, or organizations set goals that are easier to achieve when the right people are in the best-suited role for their skillset. Multiple factors, including talent assessments, supply an edge to this process.
Using talent management assessment tools can lead to stronger candidates matching opportunities that align their career goals with their skill sets. The process can also reduce friction in the hiring and onboarding processes for managers.
Incorporating talent assessment tools into your hiring process may seem confusing when choosing between predicted talent, personality traits, developed skills, or engagement assessments. However, finding quality candidates for open positions is easier with these assessments; you can find stronger job fit and satisfaction amongst your new hires.
With over 400 studies proving our methods’ validity and reliability, Chally can help you find appropriate assessments to make the hiring process more precise, streamlined, and accurate. Find top-quality candidates to onboard and enable your organization to continue to grow with our Predictive Talent Assessment or Predictive Engagement Assessment.
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