Everything You Need to Know About Skill Testing

[hasan]

What is a Skill Test?

A skills test is an assessment used to provide an unbiased, validated evaluation of a candidate's ability to perform the duties listed in the job description.

Typically, a skills test asks a variety of questions in different formats to see how candidates perform on-the-job tasks. A good skills test includes questions that are capable of being answered by someone already doing the job and can accurately measure key performance metrics. Questions should also be specifically tailored to relate to the responsibilities of an open position. Many skills tests include immersive experiences, like coding challenges or job simulations, to mimic how a candidate performs when faced with a real-life scenario.

Other types of job-readiness evaluations deploy validated psychometric assessments to identify those in-demand soft skills: things like motivation, conscientiousness, resilience, and emotional intelligence. A personality assessment varies from a skills test in that it predicts how a person will behave in a specific scenario, rather than their ability to complete a task.

How Skill Testing Works
Skill testing works best when the questions being asked are specifically crafted to the role and needs of the team hiring the new candidate. In designing a skills test, combine different types of questions to get a 360-degree view of how a candidate will perform in different scenarios.

There are a variety of ways to set up a skills test – and we'll get into the mechanics of how to actually run the assessment in the next section. But, designing a thoughtful aptitude test takes some initial foresight on behalf of the hiring manager and team.

Research by Deloitte suggests this sample process for selecting and implementing skill testing questions:

• Define the "human elements" needed to perform the job
• Compile questions that will measure and predict these human elements
• Use the data gathered by the skills assessments to empower the next round of the screening process
• Post-hiring, evaluate the efficacy of the hiring assessment to ensure the questions delivered the best result.

Ultimately, the best use for a skills assessment is to help recruiters move away from the resume and allow candidates to prove they are the real deal. Crafting the right series of questions should be a collaborative process between the recruiting team and the team hiring the new employee. Here's how these teams can set up and run a skills test.
How to Set Up and Run a Skill Test
In designing a skills test or pre-employment assessment, there are a few specific steps to take in order to thoughtfully structure your questions.


Based on our work with over 8,000 customers, we recommend following these best practices in setting up and running your skills test. These tips can help with candidate engagement and lead to high rates of completion.

• Your skills test should include a minimum of six questions; somewhere in the eight to ten range is best.
• At least a few questions should require text answers; start with a text-based response in the first question, rather than a video or immersive question.
• Include an "immersive" style question, in which the candidate edits a document, spreadsheet, or presentation.
• To retain a candidate over the entire experience, start with easier questions and build up to more difficult ones later in the assessment.
• Try to minimize the use of timers to account for technical difficulties and give the candidate the best chance of success.

We also suggest that video responses not be timed; there are too many technical issues that can result from a candidate trying to film a one-way video interview. If you do wish to set a time limit, make sure it's at a minimum of five minutes.

Running a skills test through Vervoe, or any other platform, is relatively straightforward. Vervoe's skills assessments let you select questions from a library of assessment tools, or design your own questions based on the specific needs of your company. The Expert Assessment Library offers questions and trials created by experts in their fields, meaning they have at least 3+ years of experience in their specific area of expertise. The assessment library contains various skill tests from various industries including admin and office, customer service, human resources, marketing, sales, software development and more. You can preview questions from any of the assessments and add them seamlessly through the Vervoe platform.

Now that you know how to set up an assessment, when should you deploy this tool during the hiring process?

Using Skill Tests During Hiring
Timing is everything when it comes to adding a skill assessment to your hiring process.

Research by Harvard Business Review revealed that skills tests should come early in the hiring process. According to their study, "Many service companies, including retailers, call centers, and security firms, can reduce costs and make better hires by using short, web-based tests as the first screening step. Such tests efficiently weed out the least-suitable applicants, leaving a smaller, better-qualified pool to undergo the more costly personalized aspects of the process."

Skill tests should be used to screen candidates in, not out. The issue many recruiters face is that the volume of candidates makes it impossible to carefully consider each person's ability. Smart algorithms and AI tools can turbo-charge candidate assessments by scoring results quickly and removing human bias from the equation.

Vervoe's algorithm scores candidates using a multi-layered approach. Candidates are ranked based on how well they performed, rather than filtered out if they didn't achieve a certain benchmark. The top candidates easily rise to the top; but no one misses out on being considered for the next round. When used early in the hiring process, skill tests can select a more diverse pool of applicants to continue onto the next phase.

Do new hires like doing skill tests?
By most accounts, candidates appreciate the opportunity to showcase what makes them great at their job. Orica, the world's largest provider of commercial explosives, integrated skill-testing into their interview process to the delight of their job candidates. In revamping the interview process for graduate students looking to join the Orica team, recruiters consolidated their online evaluation components into one platform, Vervoe. The skill assessment combined questions focusing on skills, logic, and values.

An average of 86% of candidates completed the online process, and the reviews were mostly positive. Here's what the candidates had to say about the skills test:

"The tests required total engagement and thought, and were a clear demonstration of what makes Orica different from any other company."

"I think the questions were very diverse and it allowed me to showcase myself, my skills and abilities in different ways."

"It gave me an opportunity to showcase who I am as well as challenge my skills"

This is just one example of how a skill test can change the entire interview process for a potential new hire. In a job market where people spend an average of 11 hours a week looking for a new job, it's easy to get burned out, fast. Every job description starts to look the same; every interview begins to feel stale.

What are the benefits of a skill test?
The benefits of a skills test aren't limited to the candidate experience.

Recruiters looking to hire diverse, high-performing teams with better efficiency and consistency can use pre-employment tests to their advantage. Skills tests are a better predictor of performance than resume screenings or traditional interviews alone. Resume screenings are bad for three reasons. First, studies suggest that it's common for candidates to lie on their CV. The person you think you're hiring may not actually possess the qualifications you think they do.

Skill tests vs. interviewing
In conclusion, we'll leave you with few thoughts on skill tests compared to interviews.

First, interviews, in general, need a total overhaul. Recruiters have been asking the same, outdated interview questions for decades. Many candidates get overwhelmed by the performance anxiety inherent in the interview and may make (forgivable) mistakes. Nevertheless, many recruiters like the security of meeting someone before making an offer.

Many recruiters seek the same insight from a group interview or case study that they would get from an individual skill test. Unfortunately, using these methods can't give you the same valuable information as a straightforward aptitude assessment. Case studies can be too conceptual; rather than seeing how a candidate will approach the work listed in the job description, case studies ask abstract questions. The goal of asking "how many tennis balls can fit on a Boeing 757" is not to see if the candidate can guess the right answer, but to see how they approach the question and reason through their response.

But this knowledge doesn't always serve a recruiter with the best predictor of on-the-job success.

Group interviews provide more insight – into a candidate's teamwork, leadership, and communication, for example. Yet, in a group scenario, extroverts tend to dominate. It can be difficult to see how each candidate performs as an individual while trying to consider the group at once.

In summary, skill testing is all about understanding whether a candidate can do something or knows something. It's about verifying their ability to go the distance with your company. Pre-employment assessments differ slightly in that they focus on predicting how a candidate will behave in certain scenarios, not what they can do. By combining questions from skills testing and pre-employment assessments, recruiters can get a more.

Source: https://vervoe.com/skill-testing/#:~:text=are%20dealing%20with.-,What%20is%20a%20Skill%20Test%3F,listed%20in%20the%20job%20description.