What is a skill based assessment test for employment?

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Introduction
Finding the perfect candidate for your job role is like looking for a needle in the haystack.

With an average of 200 candidates applying for a single job role, the recruiters feel ambushed and often end up making the wrong hire.

Skill-based assessment is the platform that can help you liberate yourself from all such problems, redeem your time for more challenging tasks and help you to choose the right fit for your job role.

What is Skill Based Assessment?
A skill-based assessment is a series of tests designed to evaluate the skills of a candidate to determine if they are the perfect fit for your job role.


But what about CVs and resumes? Aren't organizations supposed to judge and hire you on the basis of your career history and qualifications?


Yes and no! Yes to the fact that recruiters do judge you on the basis of your resume but the screening process doesn't end here.


Consider this! The applicant has mentioned all top-tier qualities and skills in their CV but are they really adept with those qualities? Can you trust them based on a piece of paper?


No right! But if you conduct an assessment for the applicant you can be 100% sure that they have the required skills and can be a good fit for your job role.


And with the availability of such a wide library of assessment tools, you get a 360-degree profile of the candidate using these tests.

The stats and figures confirm the same story:

• More than 78% of resumes are misleading and 46% are actually lies.
• 75% of HR professionals face difficulty in recruiting due to skill gaps in applicants.
• 36% of hiring managers are more satisfied with their recruits after using job skill assessments.
• Employers who use pre-hire assessments are 24% more likely to have workers who perform above expectations.

When to Use a Skills Assessment
Some people are strong in education, others are rich in experience. A skills assessment test does not tell how or when the candidate learned the skills but measures what the applicant can do.


The idea of using skill-based assessment tests is not only limited to hiring, they can be used for in-house training and upskilling of the employees as well.

1. Hiring: a skill assessment test can be used to shortlist the candidate that perfectly fits your job role.

2. Learning & Development: a skills assessment test is a quick and unbiased checkpoint that can be used as employees move along a learning path to make sure the training is effective.

3. Reskilling and Upskilling: to manage the talent gap of current employees, companies are encouraging them to learn a related or new set of skills.
Types of skill assessment
Skills are a veritable commodity for both hiring and development. Skill assessment tests measure the length and breadth of a candidate's knowledge and skills and their likelihood of succeeding at work.


To test the all-round abilities and skills of an applicant, the following types of skill assessments can be employed:

1. Psychometric Tests: Psychometric tests are psychological evaluation tools conducted to objectively assess a candidate's aptitude, personality traits, abilities, and intelligence levels. Whether for employment or career guidance, the psychometric test can help match an individual's personality and abilities to the right role or career.

2. Behavioral Tests: Behavioral tests are structured frameworks to assess candidates' behavioral competencies in a simulated work environment. Individuals taking these assessments demonstrate their behavioral skills in tasks that mimic actual workplace settings. Behavioral assessments are a crucial part of the evaluation process that aims to observe, understand, analyze, predict, or even rectify the candidates' behaviors.

3. Coding Tests: Coding tests are technical skills assessments that tech recruiters can use to single out suitable coders with the desired skills. These online skill assessments for hiring filter out unsuitable candidates early in the tech process, ensuring only the most competent professionals get to the next level. Using these technical skills tests, employers can easily assess the coding prowess of job applicants.

4. Aptitude Tests: Aptitude tests are standardized pre-employment assessments that help employers determine an individual's fitment for a role. These tools are an excellent way for recruiters to understand how applicants might tackle the challenges of the role for which they have applied, uncovering their strengths and weaknesses.

5. Domain Tests: Domain tests, also known as technical tests, are structured assessments administered to candidates (for technical and non-technical profiles) to evaluate their domain knowledge and aptitude required for the given roles. Such a skills test helps determine suitable candidates by placing probabilities in strict test environments to gauge whether they possess the knowledge and skills required for the position.

6. Communication skills Tests: Communication skills assessments evaluate the candidates' communication skills and focus on how well they understand the complexities of the language. These tests are broadly based on four evaluation parameters: pronunciation, fluency, listening comprehension, and grammar.

Benefits of assessment for hiring

• Reduced Bias and Discrimination: Bias based on race, age, gender, and affinity may creep along during the hiring process unconsciously because after all, we are just humans.
• However, skill-based assessment tests act as a neutral impersonal funnel that turns its back to any bias and filters applicants only on the basis of skill and abilities.
• Accelerates the Hiring Process: Employing skill-based assessments accelerates the hiring process because the recruiters don't have to sit poring through the resumes and their interviews to shortlist candidates. The tool prepares a graded list with the best-fit applicants on the top.
• Gives Consistency: Skill-based assessments test each candidate with the same level of questions and tasks which is nearly impossible during human interviews. This instills a sense of consistency in the entire recruitment process.
• Learning & Development: Skill-based assessments have been really useful in pinpointing the skill gaps of employees, making it easier to develop a relevant, personalized learning and development plan.

Skill assessment tests vs. other assessment methods / Skill tests vs. interviewing
Employers conduct competency based skills assessments to make the right hiring decisions. Some of the most common methods of assessing candidates' or existing employees' skills are resume reviews, interviews, employment tests, background investigations, etc.


However, there's no match for high-precision skills assessment tests. These are standardized, scientific, and formal means of identifying high-potential employees and deserving candidates. Intrinsically, skills assessment tests ensure authentic scores, ratings, and grading of the candidate. Hence, these tests are prepared to evaluate the candidates' skills and abilities comprehensively.


Skills assessments offer additional benefits over other assessment methods. For example, when evaluating through old-school testing methods, you cannot vouch for the candidates' genuineness. The facts presented in resumes, job interviews, and reference checks can be misrepresented. Such misleading results can create a quandary for recruiters because candidates might portray themselves in the best light to grab the opportunity.


Skills tests are quite effective in predicting performance when compared to traditional interviews or CV screenings. The results derived from skills testing are objective, factually relevant, and crucial in selecting a candidate – whereas a CV is not enough to make a hiring decision. Candidates can present misleading information on their CVs but not on a skills test.


Hear it from the experts themselves, it has been touted that the skills assessment market which was valued at $1.93 bn is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6% and be valued at $5.64 bn by 2030.

What is the Purpose of a Skills Assessment?
Leveraging job skill assessment tests for applicants can be advantageous because you know only what they have written on their CVs, which is not enough. Testing applicants in real-life job simulations can bring out the best in them and help you in choosing the right fit for your role. This was one of the reasons why skills assessments are necessary. Other reasons include:

1. To know about the candidate's actual skills: Resumes and CVs often list incomplete information which can be misleading for the employer. Conducting skill tests can authenticate the abilities that the candidate possesses.

2. Finding the right fit: Now that you know the abilities of your candidates, you can easily decide whether they are the perfect fit for your job role or not.

3. Assess candidates' cultural fit: The candidate you choose might be sound in technical skills but if he cannot communicate well and remain on the same page as the rest of the team, he can feel disconnected. Skill tests enable recruiters to determine candidates' cultural fit competently and effectively.

4. Addresses high-volume hiring: Skills tests come in handy when hiring at scale. By using an employability skills assessment as a pre-screening tool, hiring managers can differentiate between ideal and incompatible candidates early on and save substantial time that would otherwise be wasted on interviewing unqualified candidates.

How common is skill assessment testing?
Though skill-based assessment tests have been in the market for quite some time, they started gaining popularity in recent years since the pandemic hit us.


The percentage of employers who use competency based skill assessment tools has grown tremendously and according to the recent Talent Board's Candidate Experience Research report, more than 82% of the companies are using the technology.


The skill assessment tools have become technologically and scientifically advanced and also pocket friendly which is an add-on for employers.


Another reason why so many employers use skill assessment tests these days is that they guarantee a great candidate experience. Candidates can access and solve these skill assessment tests online from their own living room, at the time that suits them the best.

Why do so many companies use skill assessment tests?
Skill assessment tools have become the most affordable, reliable, and objective method for assessing candidates, but they have additional benefits as well. Employers use the tools:

• To hire new employees,
• To evaluate current employees for different roles,
• To identify employees with high leadership potential,
• To compare talent within an organization against industry or geographical benchmarks,
• To understand talent strengths and gaps,
• To develop employees' long-term value.

Skill assessment tests provide relevant information on both job applicants' and employees' ability to perform in the workplace.
As such, skill assessment tests are used by employers to make well-informed, data-backed decisions regarding recruitment, training, and promotion of job candidates and employees.

Source: https://www.hirequotient.com/hr-glossary/what-is-skill-based-assessment-test-for-employment