The organizations make the best hiring and selection decisions with the aim of increasing the productivity and reducing the absenteeism among the employees of that particular organization. Hiring of wrong people can have huge kinds of negative effects in terms of the organization’s image and productivity as well and can even waste huge amount of rupees and efforts as well. Pre employment assessment provides some tools to the organizations so that there can be best decisions on their behalf while hiring people. They need to be properly implemented so that there are no risks and issues. The things used must be specific, valid, legal and as per the requirements of the jobs.
These are the fixed and standard methods to measure the skills, abilities and competencies of the employees who are to be hired and placed on the specific jobs. The following are some types of tests which are used to employ people and to provide answers to various questions of the recruiters. Some of them have been explained as:
- The IQ related things: one can measure the intelligence using this. These are not much difficult and include the general ability tests which can be used so that people can be hired on basis of mental and mathematical abilities.
- Things related to the physical abilities of the candidates: these involve the physical traits and endurance related qualities of the people to be hired. Usually this is undertaken in the case where there is the requirement of people who are involved in the tasks of loading and unloading the things.
- Aptitude related things: this includes the traits based on which a person learns new things and jobs are provided on such basis that how fast a person is to learn a new thing taught to him which can prove beneficial to him on the actual job.
- Personality traits: these include the learning, motivation levels, attitudes and the relationships among the people. The job performance can be easily judged using these kinds of the tests.
- Integrity based things: these are done to measure the undesirable behaviours like dishonesty, drug consumption, alcoholism, etc. both overt and covert kinds of tests are covered in these kinds of tests which help to judge the people. Usually these are interpreted by the candidates and they always try to provide the diplomatic answers instead of favouring someone.
- Related to polygraphs: these also are related to the truth based questions but these are considered more valid and are even based on some regulations. Now these tests are not allowed to be used while employment tests.
- Health related tests: basic health check-ups are performed here so that the prospective employees are medically fit and even basic functions like bending and lifting are also performed in order to check if they are fit for the job or not. Testing for illegal substances is not covered under the scope of the medical examination.
How to determine the things required by the recruiters:
The tests have the sole purpose to define the things which are to be required by the people so that they can be rightly placed on the right job. In the early stages the tests are implemented and then the measures are defined in order to check if the things are on the right track or not. The implementation is a quite difficult task but there are certain things that must be taken care of in case one wants to implement the tests. They have been discussed as follows:
- The employee’s knowledge: these are the specific skills possessed by the employees. One can evaluate this by questions only. One can use various kinds of tests which are available so that the things can be accurately predicted.
- Skills of the employees: these are the set of things that are required by the people to perform the job. Some of them can be very easily judged just be seeing his or her performance but some of them have the implementation issues. The things to judge all the people must be standard based and the criteria must be well developed in advance so that there is no element of biasness present in the whole scenario.
- Abilities of the candidates: such things can be judged by the demonstration effect which means that how nicely a person is able to grasp and take the things. Further this is based on the learning abilities of the people. Some safety concerns are to be thought upon in case there is some physical work. There can be even the general mental ability tests in these kinds of situations so that the abilities can be well judged and predicted.
- Some other attributes: these include some special traits possessed by the people and these can be judged only when one performs the job in the real workplace.
Selecting the best test:
One must select the best among all the options so that there are no issues in the later stages. One must fulfil the legal and the laws of the land so that one can achieve the goals which one wants to achieve effectively and efficiently. These may be expensive and time consuming in terms of their implementation. One can even use various guides and experts in some fields so that they can suggest the best. One can even use the commercially available tests so that the goals are well achieved. One must select the pre employment assessment which best caters to the needs of the specific organizations so that they can implement the things well. These must be cost effective and reputed and must possess high levels of accuracy. These must fulfil and be in compliance with the laws. The more the tests follow the legal aspect the more they will be considered better and accurate. A more reliable test will help to have more of the consistency so that the overall goals can be achieved. There are also some general considerations like cultural differences and other personality related aspects of the people who have to appear in the test and these must be well considered for the success of the tests.