Job-Fit Assessments: A Key Component of a Successful Hiring Strategy
Picture this: you’ve got two strong candidates in front of you. Both have excellent resumes and successful phone screen interviews – they’re both fully qualified for the role. But what is best about each of them? Are there any red flags that you haven’t uncovered yet? Moreover, what if it wasn’t just two candidates, but 10, 20 or 50?
This is where job-fit assessments can come in handy.
What is a Job-fit Assessment?
Job-fit assessments are used to help employers evaluate candidate skills and knowledge to determine whether they’re a good fit for a position. It can provide insights about a job applicant beyond the traditional academic and experience information you see in their resume. It’s not only useful for pre-employment testing, but also for self-assessments and employee development.
According to a 2019 LinkedIn report, 57% of recruiting professionals use soft skills assessments, and 60% believe these assessments will make a great impact in the upcoming five years. Other methods include skill tests, work samples, structured interviews or job trails and simulations.
Why Do You Need a Solid Job-Fit Assessment Strategy?
Creating an assessment that is transparent, objective, unbiased, and most importantly, aligns with the company’s objectives is important for three reasons:
- To make sure you are hiring the best candidates. Top talent is hard to find. So much so that 57% of job openings that aren’t filled during the first month may remain unfilled for three or more months.
- To avoid costly mishires. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, a bad hire can cost 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings. The costs increase if you include the cost of poor performance, reduced productivity, and the effect it has on your team.
- To eliminate bias from the hiring process and build a culturally diverse workforce. A 2018 McKinsey report found that companies with gender and racially diverse teams are 25% more likely to have above-average earnings and profitability than companies that don’t.
What’s Included in or Alongside a Good Job-Fit Assessment Strategy?
Defining your business’s job-fit assessment strategy is just as important as executing it. Here are some things that you can consider:
Have clear objectives and criteria. What does “top talent” mean for you, your company, and the role? Defining competencies or benchmarks for hiring can help you identify gaps between your current workforce and future needs. It establishes confidence in knowing that you progressed through a standardized recruiting process and chose applicants based on defined metrics.
Establish an effective hiring process. While job-fit assessments are a key component of the data-driven hiring process, the process itself goes beyond the assessments. Before those are conducted, a job posting is written, then post and promoted before you can finally move onto the candidate selection process. A well-defined hiring process is cost effective and streamlines how you find and qualify candidates.
Keep your candidates updated on their application status. Communication with prospective employees is often overlooked but maintaining contact throughout the entire process helps you build a strong employer image. This is crucial for attracting top talent as 55% of job seekers will avoid a company after reading negative reviews online and 72% report sharing their negative experiences on social media.
Job-fit assessment tools and strategies are a key component of a successful hiring strategy. You can use a wide array of tools and tests to evaluate your candidates – you can even combine them! All in all, taking the time to develop a process that is dedicated to looking for people with the skills you need and have the desire to work for you will help you save time and money in the long run.