hiring processes

Why You Should Continue Restructuring Candidate Screening

October 26, 2020 by Michael Callen

The COVID-19 pandemic caused firms to restructure candidate screening. While HR departments initially were concerned about being exposed to the virus by hosting on-site testing and interviews — or being responsible for exposing others — it wasn’t long before they shifted to an entirely virtual approach.

Now, job applications are almost universally handled online. Pre-employment assessments are taken and conducted remotely. Interviews happen courtesy of Zoom and Skype. Digital communications like AI job outreach programs enable recruiters to reach out to candidates, and texts and chatbots connect some job seekers with HR representatives. Some firms are even leveraging analytics tools to identify key applicant information.

Ultimately, the role technology plays in the hiring process has gone from an exciting new option to an absolute necessity. Everything has changed, and it will likely keep changing well into the future. So what’s next?

Candidate Screening in the Future

As we move forward, firms will continue to find ways to innovate with regard to their candidate screening processes. Adopting cloud-based software that functions both internally and externally should be a major focus, and so should casting a broader net and engaging with more applicants. As always, analyzing the results of this new approach to see what is effective and what has room for improvement is vital at every stage.

How can HR teams build on these changes for the future? Here are three ways to spark further innovation:

1. Gain a better knowledge of your candidates.

By making technical assessment tools a focus point of your hiring processes, you’ll ensure you’re never in the dark about a candidate’s potential performance or abilities. These pre-employment assessments let you understand candidates’ strengths and weaknesses and then compare them to one another. Ultimately, you can make data-driven hiring decisions based on performance-related metrics.

2. Offer an improved candidate experience.

Creating a positive candidate experience is an essential part of business success. Because the hiring experience is the first interaction most applicants have with your company, you want to offer an excellent first impression and engage them well. By positively welcoming candidates, you compel them to care about your brand — and perhaps become brand ambassadors and high-quality hires.

3. Cut costs.

Using different types of pre-employment tests can also help you cut hiring costs. Candidates can take these tests from anywhere they have an internet connection (and at basically any time). As a result, internal resources that you would typically use for every step of the hiring process — from application to testing — can instead support other initiatives.

To be certain, the pandemic has caused extensive devastation and disruption. But by learning from the changes and focusing on the positive possibilities ahead, we can break away from old paradigms and create new ways of operating that are more effective than ever before.

Criterion Validity and Pre-Employment Testing

October 1, 2020 by Michael Callen

Skill and ability tests should accurately reflect a business’s needs and the critical duties required on the job. Ensuring that this is the case is known as test validation.

There are many reasons employers should make a point only to administer tests specifically validated for positions in their organization. Doing so ensures that candidate selection decisions are effective (utility), but it also provides a defense that employers have justified the specific testing in their hiring processes (defensibility).

The Differences Between Content and Criterion Validity

When developing hiring assessments, there are two main types of validity: content and criterion.

Content validity shows the connection between the test, the skills or abilities necessary to perform well on the test, and the duties required to succeed on the job. Essentially, it indicates whether candidates can perform essential job duties. While this is useful information, tests are capable of so much more.

Meanwhile, criterion validity goes beyond mere ability by statistically predicting success in certain job performance areas. In many ways, it takes content validity to the next level.

It’s important to note that criterion validity does not always exist — and it isn’t always necessary. Knowing that a person can type, for instance, is important when hiring a new member of your office administrative staff. That said, the ability to type is not necessarily predictive of overall success in that role.

Sometimes, though, one can use test scores to look into the future and predict how likely candidates are to be successful. Criteria such as job performance ratings, customer satisfaction, conflict management, training time, and even attendance can often be correlated to scores. In these cases, criterion validity is a worthwhile consideration when crafting a selection plan.

How to Establish Criterion Validity

Employers looking to improve their pre-employment testing and determine whether it’s capable of tracking criterion validity should consider auditing their current assessments and comparing them to known performance metrics. Fortunately, establishing this test validity only involves a few steps:

1. Identify key performance dimensions. Start by determining which key parameters and performance dimensions are essential to the job. Consider all critical, job-related aspects — especially those that differentiate great performers from the rest.

2. Ask current employees to take an assessment. Have incumbent employees who currently work in the role for which you are hiring complete the assessment you will use with potential hires. Use a broad range of performers (from underachievers to high-performers) to learn as much as you can from the analysis.

3. See what statistical relationships exist. Correlate test scores to different job performance areas using Excel or statistics software like SPSS. A correlation of 0.20 or greater — with a 95% or better certainty — is considered to be statistically significant.

If you can follow the above steps and find a correlation between your testing and job performance metrics, you have established criterion validity.

How TestGenius Can Help

The TestGenius platform is perfect for conducting pre-employment testing with incumbent employees (for establishing test validity) and job applicants.

TestGenius works with employers to develop more effective testing solutions to help them gain greater utility from their assessments. We are also currently seeking partners for ongoing validation studies in the retail and emergency services markets. If you’re interested in participating in a similar study in these markets, or if you would like to propose beginning a new study in your own space, please contact our team.

Why Businesses Should Keep Using Online Pre-Employment Testing Long After COVID-19

September 24, 2020 by Michael Callen

When the COVID-19 pandemic began (and changed life as we knew it), the economic impacts were unprecedented. While many businesses struggled, others faced increased demand and had to adapt their processes and operations to meet the moment.

Part of that shift involved hiring processes, as more business often meant the need for more employees. For many HR departments, moving to online pre-employment testing was a way to source new hires while adhering to social distancing guidelines that make in-person assessments nearly impossible.

Now, as businesses around the country reopen, employers are evaluating the current state of testing as it pertains to the new rules of operation. With 72% of job seekers expressing hesitance about returning to physical office spaces and almost 40% of employers putting measures in place to reduce employee capacity and maximize the distance between workers, many don’t know what to choose: return to in-person pre-employment testing or continue with online exams?

Let’s dive into why online pre-employment testing should remain a staple of hiring processes; we’ll then answer some lingering questions employers might have about how to use it moving forward.

Determining the Role of Technology in Your Hiring Process

Online testing isn’t new. It is only new to those employers forced to use it in light of the pandemic. Some still have questions and reservations; many worry about applicants cheating by either having someone else take the test for them or using technology to help them find answers. Just like applicants can make their skills sound better on a résumé, employers fear that some candidates could try to make themselves look stronger on assessments than they actually are.

There is no doubt employers should be vigilant — but that’s true regardless of whether testing occurs in-person or online. It’s critically important to ensure that these assessments truly test the skills needed for a position so that the time and resources put toward advertising are worth it in the end. Employers in the U.S. spend roughly $4,000 and 52 days hiring a new worker, and that investment shouldn’t be wasted.

Part of ensuring that online pre-employment testing remains safe and protects your investment, then, is using a testing platform like TestGenius that lets employers test 100% online or 100% in-person if they want to — we also provide a hybrid option that combines in-person test proctoring and online testing. This hybrid approach enables employers that have limited time and resources the ability to assess candidates remotely. Further, employers have found that merely threatening to give a proctored confirmatory test to those who advance in the process is enough to discourage cheating.

Embracing Online Pre-Employment Testing

Viewing online pre-employment testing solely in the context of the pandemic limits the ability to see just how much of an asset it can be in hiring processes long after the pandemic is under control. As businesses develop plans for post-COVID recovery, skills testing will become even more crucial.

Hiring the right talent will be more important than ever, and pre-employment assessments should play a key role. When adopting online pre-employment testing or incorporating an online-proctored hybrid, it’s essential to take full advantage of technology in the hiring process while remembering these three things:

1. Keep connecting. Making online assessments one of your primary methods of screening applicants can feel a bit like you’re distancing from prospects — even after social distancing becomes unnecessary. Trust that you still have the ability to connect with employees or candidates and build relationships with them. Develop a plan for touch points to help ensure engagement remains high and authentic.

2. Trust the results. You may feel wary of online test results when comparing them with in-person results, but there’s no need. Online assessment results are scientifically sound. Trust that you’ll become more comfortable with these findings as you see them bring an influx of great candidates over time.

3. Remain agile. Flexibility has been more necessary than ever over the past few months, and that won’t change. Being agile and ready to pivot when circumstances change should be a top priority as you implement this new kind of testing and prepare to meet any changes the future might bring.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered numerous aspects of the business landscape, including the shift toward using online pre-employment assessments. Long after the virus is under control and the world moves on, online pre-employment testing should remain a key part of your hiring processes.

Try a demo of one of the most flexible skills testing applications on the market to see how it can strengthen your hiring processes.