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How Reducing Time to Hire Can Help You Attract Top Talent

August 19, 2020 by Michael Callen

On average, it takes employers 36 days to fill an open position. A time window this long is problematic — it’s costly to businesses and can cause HR and recruitment professionals to miss out on great candidates.

As a result, reducing time to hire is crucial for employers and recruiters alike. While employers fill positions based on specific, immediate needs, recruiters would rather fill those needs as quickly as possible. In a tight employment environment, applicants will often shop around and compare their options; this makes it all the more critical for hiring professionals to follow an efficient hiring process.

Beyond just securing great applicants, recruiters should understand the importance of creating a positive candidate experience. Candidates want a transparent, seamless hiring process; it reduces the anxiety of applying and gives people a positive impression of the company at which they’re interviewing. If the process is too drawn out, they’re more likely to look elsewhere — maybe even the competition. Ultimately, a faster hiring process gives you a better chance of securing top talent.

However, 56% of respondents to HireRight’s “2019 Employment Screening Benchmark Report” said reducing time to hire was their most notable employment screening challenge. In other words, there’s still significant room for improvement when it comes to timely hiring. Fortunately, this can be done with a specific hiring tactic: remote or unproctored pre-employment skills testing.

Saving Time With Unproctored Pre-Employment Skills Testing

Remote pre-employment skills testing presents HR professionals and recruiters with knowledge of which applicants are capable of performing key duties — and they can do it from the comfort of their own homes. Unproctored testing not only shows who has the skills to perform specific tasks, but it also ensures hiring managers spend time with the right candidates who are most likely to succeed.

In addition, having a group of candidates who have already taken a skills test is a fantastic way to hire more efficiently. Consider that the average job opening gets 250 applications. It would take a hiring manager weeks to sort through those candidates, but skills testing can help expedite the process by paring down the list of applicants the only those who are truly prepared for the position.

How to Make Your Hiring Process More Efficient

Employers determining how to reduce time to hire should start by understanding a few key things. For example, how long did each stage of the hiring process take? Note the steps taken during each phase. Then, determine how much time passed between when a candidate responded to a job opening and when you reviewed his or her résumé. In each stage, set a time-to-hire metric to make the process more efficient.

With that information, you can create a structure. Without a structured hiring process, it’ll take significantly longer to make hiring decisions. Outline the candidate journey, factoring in the time skills tests might take — and the time you could save if those tests were unproctored and done remotely. On average, proctored tests can add several days to the timeline; unproctored testing might add only a short amount of time, so it’s prudent to account for that in your structure.

Another important aspect of reducing your time to hire? Your company website’s career page. Applicants will note if your site is optimized for mobile use, and they’ll notice whether it represents your brand and organization well. Having a user-friendly and accessible portal motivates prospective applicants to search for jobs directly on your website instead of spending hours on job boards — where there is far more competition.

As you work toward reducing time to hire and implementing more efficient hiring processes, consider the key role that remote pre-employment skills tests could play in making that possible. Taking steps to build an excellent career page, solidify a structure and timeline, and set time-to-hire metrics are all incredibly important tasks and can be strengthened by adding skills testing to your hiring strategy.

Contact us today, and we’ll share the candidate experience with you to show you how easy it is to use TestGenius and reduce your time to hire.

Your Favorite Candidate Bombed the Skills Test. Now What?

May 20, 2020 by Michael Callen

It’s not uncommon for HR professionals to find themselves in sticky situations when conducting hiring processes. Candidates who share excellent résumés and impress during interviews often seem like the right choice — until they fail the skill and ability test or, worse yet, fail to perform on the job. When organizations see this happening, what is the appropriate response?

This question highlights why skills testing needs to be a bigger component in hiring processes. Skills-based assessments provide hiring managers with a different view of an applicant that goes beyond what a résumé or interview might show because they ask the applicants to complete tasks similar to those found on the job.

Why is that important? There is no doubt that both interviews and résumés are crucial when evaluating an applicant, but neither can paint the whole picture of a person’s capabilities. Résumés allow hiring managers to get acquainted with a candidate’s background and experience, but they’re often embellished.

Similarly, interviews are excellent barometers to evaluate an applicant’s communication skills and “presence,” but research indicates they’re terrible predictors of job performance. It’s challenging to get a full picture of candidates’ abilities during an interview because they genuinely desire to convey that they’re qualified when talking with hiring managers. And some hiring managers aren’t natural interviewers, which results in conversations being based more on overall impressions than how equipped a candidate might be for a role.

Skills tests provide a real-time display of a candidate’s aptitude. They enable hiring managers to see beyond the highlight reel of a résumé and engaging conversation during an interview to determine whether a candidate can perform critical duties on the job — and perform them well. In fact, the intel gained from these skills tests is the perfect complement to interview insights.

How Ability and Skills Tests Fit Into the Recruitment Process

Hiring managers have to take into account the results of failed pre-employment assessment tests, especially if they feel these candidates are a great fit and should still be considered. While it’s possible to lower cutoff scores, one must apply this new standard to all applicants.

Fairness must prevail, and standards must be equally applied. When applicants fail these skills-based tests, they’re deemed incapable of performing well based on their execution. Using tests to establish “minimum competence” can quickly cause awkwardness if a hiring manager wants to hire someone who is not ready and able to perform the job.

As with any pre-employment test, a skills-based assessment has to be chosen and administered with care. Not only do these assessments have to be legal, valid, equitable, and reliable, but they also need to be developed by experts.

Typically, skills tests are co-developed by industrial-organizational psychologists who are well-versed in industry research and best practices and by tenured subject matter experts (SMEs) who have an intimate understanding of the at-issue position. Together, they’re responsible for developing the content of the test as well as setting pass/fail cutoff scores for each assessment. TestGenius, for instance, has a function that aggregates SME opinions regarding job-relatedness and minimally qualified scores (cutoff scores), which allows tests to maintain a high degree of utility and establishes validity.

Skills tests can be critical components of efficient and effective recruitment. On average, a corporate job offer will attract roughly 250 résumés. A “test battery,” including a résumé screen followed by a skills-based assessment, is an effective — or high-volume — way to reduce the overall number of applicants while concurrently highlighting individuals who have the highest likelihood of success on the job.

What Employers Are Looking for in Assessment Tests

With all of this information in mind, what is the right way to apply the results of skills tests? Typically, those who fail pre-employment assessment tests never make it to the interview stage.

Skills-based tests are typically used in a strict pass/fail manner. Predetermined cutoff scores for tests can help identify candidates who don’t meet the minimum qualifications for a position and prevent them from advancing to the interview or getting the job. This isn’t the end of the story, though. Every person applying for a job should be given equal opportunity. It’s possible to lower the score cutoff for a candidate when the conditions call for it, but they need to be reduced universally.

For instance, in times of high demand, there may not be sufficient numbers of adequately skilled applicants. Testing helps to identify potential skills gaps so that employers can more readily determine the potential effectiveness of training or other remediation.

The results of assessment tests should be used in conjunction with other parts of the hiring process — like interviews or résumé screenings — all of which are tests in and of themselves. Each component should provide insight into different aspects of a candidate’s profile.

For instance, a candidate might excel in specific skill areas but ultimately not be a cultural fit for the organization. Conversely, candidates might test as slightly weak in a particular skill but still be minimally qualified. However, hiring managers can consider whether that weakness might be developed over time if the candidate is otherwise exceptional.

Ultimately, managers value more than just function: Traits like adaptability, self-awareness, and ability to inspire often factor into hiring decisions. Hiring assessment tests enable managers to use real-world scenarios to see whether potential hires can perform and to what degree they possess these overarching qualities that make employees — and workplaces — great.

To learn more about the skills tests we offer at TestGenius and how we can shape and strengthen your hiring process, click here.

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