According to a Career Builder survey, a bad hire costs nearly $15,000 on average!
Sounds like a hefty figure, doesn’t it? Well, it is!
Let’s face it – hiring the best talent is one of the most complex tasks. It takes a lot of time, energy, and effort. Also, bad hiring can lead to real cost increases in terms of —
- The training invested in the individual, and
- The length of time they worked at the organization
Hiring right is hard but not impossible.
And, if you’re willing to make better hiring decisions, online skill assessment tests are the way to go.
In this guide, we’ll examine how skill-based assessments can make the hiring process more effective and efficient.
We’ll start with the basics and then discuss other crucial aspects, including the benefits, types, processes, and more.
What Is a Skill Assessment Test?
The definition of skill assessment in simple terms is this–
“It is a method of testing that assesses an individual’s set of skills required for a particular job role.”
In other words, online skill assessment tests offer questions that test the required skills and competencies that a candidate possesses for a particular job role. These tests work well for-
- Standard Hiring Process
- Telephonic Hiring Process
- Skype Hiring Process
- Campus Recruitments
Skill assessment tests reveal information about candidates’ skills, personalities, cognitive abilities, and workplace values. The results of the employment skills assessment tests define how suitable a candidate will be for a job role.
Watch: How to Create an Assessment Online
What Do Skill Assessments Measure?
Recruiters use skill evaluation tests to measure skills/attributes from four key assessment categories. Let’s take a quick look at each.
1. Hard Skills
Hard skills refer to job-specific technical skills and knowledge. These skills vary with the job profile you’re hiring for. For instance, reconciling bank statements is an important hard skill for an accountant, while it is irrelevant for a developer.
Aside from job profiles, these skills can also vary by seniority level. For example, accountants at every level are expected to be skilled at reconciliation, but preparing business budgets is not among the required skills for a junior accountant role.
2. Soft Skills
Soft skills are general skills that are relevant to a variety of job roles. For instance, time management is a must-have skill that helps with planning, scheduling, and productivity, regardless of the job profile.
Other important soft skills tested in online skill assessment tests include –
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Leadership
- Creativity
- Work ethic
- Interpersonal skills
- Attention to detail
- Adaptability
3. Aptitude
Skill tests can also be used to find out a candidate’s natural abilities, such as reasoning abilities, how quickly they can learn new things, and how well they can work under pressure. Some of the aptitude skills measured by these tests include –
- Logical Reasoning – Ability to think logically and use it to spot patterns, relationships, analogies, etc
- Numerical Reasoning – Ability to deal with numbers, numerical data, tables, and graphs
- Verbal Reasoning – Ability to understand and make deductions from written passages
- Abstract Reasoning – Ability to identify non-numerical and non-verbal patterns
- Inductive Reasoning – Ability to draw general conclusions from specific observations and information
- Situational Judgment – Ability to make ideal judgments and decisions when met with complex situations in the workplace
4. Personality
Apart from skills, job assessment tests can also be used to assess various personality traits. Personality testing of job candidates helps you gain a better understanding of them and ensures culture fit and high levels of productivity. Some of the personality traits assessed by such tests include –
- Agreeableness
- Emotional stability
- Conflict resolution
- Openness
- Social skills
- Extroversion
- Conscientiousness
- Leadership ability
With the availability of numerous online assessment software, it is easy for recruiters to create and share online skill assessment tests with their candidates in no time. And a lot of companies are doing it, too. Jump to the next section to learn why.
Why Do Companies Prefer Using Skill Assessment Tests?
Paper-based tests, which involve time-consuming manual grading, are now obsolete. Unlike this, online skill assessments are easy to create and share, and they give instant results.
Businesses that use online assessment software are 36% more likely to be satisfied with their new hire and less likely to make a $15,000 hiring mistake.
Modern companies prefer using online test maker software to test the skills of their existing employees and conduct pre-hire assessments.
Skill tests for interviews created with a test generator give more accurate results than paper-based tests.
Read our detailed guide to using online assessment tools, which talks about different types of assessments, how to use assessment tools, and more.
What Are the Different Types of Skill Assessment Tests?
Following are the five most commonly used types of assessment tests that recruiters use to assess and hire candidates:
- Hard Skills Assessment
Hard skills assessments measure candidates’ technical skills required for a particular job role, such as typing skills, software development, MS Office skills, and shorthand. Technical skills assessment tests give a fair idea of the candidates’ proficiency in completing role-specific tasks.
- Soft Skills Assessment
For employees to fit in and get along with other employees, they need to have certain soft skills.
For instance, skills like communication, time management, networking, teamwork, conflict resolution, etc., help measure how a person will thrive in the workplace and within a team.
- Psychometric Test
Psychometric/psychographic tests are used to assess a person’s personality traits, aptitude, and intelligence. They help in matching a person’s abilities to a particular job role. When hiring on a large scale, these tests can help filter out the best candidates with psychological evaluations.
- Personality Test
Personality tests assess a candidate’s personality and traits that are required to perform a particular job role. For instance, a highly organized person would be a great fit for a role that requires managing a team.
- Cognitive Ability Test
Cognitive ability tests assess a person’s ability to perform in certain situations. They are a set of scenario-based questions that test how a person would handle a situation using their cognitive skills like logical reasoning, perception, mobility, etc.
Read More: The Power of Cognitive Assessment Tests in Recruiting Talent
Whichever assessment you use, it will always yield strategic results and several other benefits that you can learn about in the next section.
What Are the Benefits of Using Online Skill Assessment Tests for Hiring?
One of the significant benefits is that they rule out the possibility of personal bias in hiring and ensure better decision-making. Candidates also get a fair chance to prove themselves beyond their résumé.
Here are some other significant benefits that you can realize by using online assessment software to create free online skill assessment tests:
- Reduce the Time Spent on Repetitive Tasks
You can create online assessments quickly and easily by simply editing assessment templates or ready-to-use assessments provided by the software you’re using. You can also automatically grade the answers, download reports, and quickly share results via email or link sharing to save a lot of time and effort.
- Hire Employees Who Excel
Detailed and custom reports enable you to predict high performers. For instance, two candidates may have identical scores on a test yet show dramatically different completion times. Candidates who not only correctly answer most of the questions but do so in less time are likely to be highly productive on the job.
- Cut in Cost per Interview
Using online skill tests also helps you save on your hiring costs by reducing the amount of time the HR staff needs to invest. For instance, you can use remote proctoring features, such as monitoring candidates with screen capture and video recording, when screening them. Doing so frees up your HR staff for other tasks.
- Reveal Test Results Instantly
Assessment software offers automated scoring and grading so that results can be revealed instantly. This means you can start comparing candidates as soon as they finish the test. You can also choose to display instant feedback for correct/incorrect answers.
- Decrease the Possibility of a Bad Hire
Online skill assessments help you eliminate unqualified applicants in the initial screening, which dramatically decreases your chances of making a bad hire. You can conduct multiple rounds of assessment tests to evaluate different types of skills and ensure you make the best possible hiring decision.
But the big question remains- Can you find better candidates with skill assessment tests?
If you hired candidates without testing them with an online assessment, who’s to say they’re not the best candidates? Also, who’s to say the candidate you hire, after testing, is, in fact, the best one?
There are so many aspects to these questions. But what matters is this – Skill assessment tests are a fantastic way to learn more about your candidates.
They let you understand the candidates’ applied skills, communication ability, aptitude, or anything else you wish to know. They help you in profiling. You can put more confidence in your employees if you hire them with the help of a skill assessment.
It’s not as if skipping a skill test will have you make a wrong decision, but you’ll know a lot less about the candidate, which can impact your hiring decision.
Online Skill Assessment Tests vs. Other Assessment Methods
Recruiters use a variety of assessment methods other than skill assessment tests to gauge the suitability of a candidate for a job role. They include—
- Resume review
- In-person or video interviews
- Pen-and-paper based assessments
- Job simulation
- Reference check
While each of these traditional recruitment methods has its benefits, they simply don’t measure up to skill assessment tests in terms of overall effectiveness. Here’s how—
- Skill assessment tests provide a data-driven analysis of each candidate, enabling you to conduct a much more objective evaluation than with traditional assessments.
- They also provide sharper and more accurate results by using automated scoring/grading to remove the possibility for bias or human error.
- They prevent candidates from misrepresenting their skill level in the interview.
- Online assessments can be taken any time and anywhere by the candidates. This helps in improving their hiring experience.
- They save time and cut down recruitment costs by eliminating the need for multiple rounds of interviews.
How Common Is Skill Assessment Testing?
Skill assessment testing is a key part of today’s hiring process, widely adopted by employers to ensure they select the best candidates. The 2023 Global Candidate Experience (CandE) Benchmark Research Report provides detailed insights into the prevalence and types of these assessments.
Prevalence of Skill Assessments
Most candidates encounter skill assessments during their job application process. Here’s a breakdown of the most common types:
- General Screening Questions: Encountered by 85% of candidates.
- Detailed Work History and Preferences Questionnaires: Encountered by 78% of candidates.
- Job-Specific Questions: Encountered by 58% of candidates.
- Behavioral and Personality Assessments: Encountered by 39% of candidates.
- Simulated Job Tasks: Experienced by 26% of candidates.
- Tests (e.g., reading, math): Taken by 16% of candidates.
- Case Studies: Tackled by 15% of candidates.
- Games or Puzzles: Encountered by 8% of candidates.
Usage and Trends
Job-specific skill assessments are the most popular among employers. In 2023, 46% of employers used these tests to measure candidates’ abilities directly related to the job. Additionally, 25% of employers used personality assessments, and 22% used cognitive ability tests.
Employers are increasingly relying on these assessments to make informed hiring decisions. Skill assessment testing has become a standard practice, streamlining the hiring process and ensuring the selection of the most qualified candidates.
How Do Employers Benefit From Skill Assessment Tests
A skill assessment test can undoubtedly help you achieve the right balance between applicants and the job that you are hiring for. Let’s look at how skill-testing with online assessments majorly benefits employers when hiring new employees.
- Verify a Candidate’s Claims
Research by Inc. has revealed that 85% of job applicants lie on their resumes. These lies can include anything from the skills listed to the diplomas secured.
This is why a skill assessment test is the right tool to verify if the candidates possess the skills they mentioned on their resumes.
Also, online assessment tools offer many settings to prevent cheating, such as—
- disabling tab switching
- randomizing questions and answer options
- pooling questions randomly from question banks
- setting a timer
- Save Time
It happens so frequently that a candidate appears for an interview, and it is found later that they are not as technically adept as the role requires. All the time spent in lining up the candidate to appear for the interview goes to waste!
Using a skill assessment test in the early stages of the hiring process can help you quickly filter out unqualified candidates without spending more time on them.
This way, you can rest assured that only those candidates who have the right skills for the job role move to the next selection stage. This, in turn, helps recruiters focus their time only on the best candidates.
For example, job skills tests, psychometric tests, cognitive tests, tests to check emotional intelligence, or sample job tasks tests can be conducted beforehand to know applicants better.
- Improve Efficiency
When you use a skill assessment test for job suitability, it not only helps you pick the right candidate but also reinvent the recruitment process. A traditional recruitment process would have the following stages where you:
- Call the candidates
- Hand them a paper-based test
- Grade their tests
- Call the candidates again to discuss the results
- Conduct a personal interview
Since most of the online assessments can be created and shared online via email, graded automatically, and provide detailed, downloadable reports, you can simply cut stages 1-4.
What’s more, a detailed report will help you filter the highest-performing candidates.
- Hire Only the Best
The skills that one job requires may differ from the skills required for another job. So, there is no standard format for how skill assessment tests should be drafted.
But there are a few abilities required for every job role like time management, decision-making, and cognitive thinking.
A skill assessment made using the right tool can help you screen candidates for all of these abilities and more to help you select the right fit. For this, you can create:
- Timed tests
- Assessments with interactive scenarios requiring complex decision-making
- Mix and match question sets to judge specific skills and more.
- Remove Personal Bias
Since a skill assessment test helps you make judgments with robust test analytics, the possibility of personal bias is eliminated to a great extent. The results that a skill assessment provides are accurate and evidence-based. It is an actual analysis of candidates’ skills and knowledge.
Unlike resumes and interviews, skill tests provide a more objective evaluation of a candidate’s skills. Many skill test creators offer detailed test reports and robust analytics that provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates, which can come in handy while accepting or rejecting them.
Now you’ve landed here because you want to avoid making a bad hire, so let’s look at how you can create the perfect skill assessment test in easy steps.
How to Create a Skill Assessment Test
We’re now going to walk you through the creation of an example skill test. There are two ways you can go about it. You can either:
- Choose a template from the assessment library
- Create from scratch
Let’s first learn the easy way. i.e., choosing a template
1. Pick a Ready Assessment
The easiest way to launch a skill assessment test is to pick a ready-to-use assessment and share it with your candidates.
The assessment library makes it super easy to create any type of online skill assessment, whether technical skill assessment, computer skill assessment, marketing potential assessment, sales skill assessment, or performance skill assessment. Over 100 professionally designed skill assessment tests are available.
Take a look at the steps you need to take to choose an assessment from the assessment library:
Step 1: On your quiz interface, click ‘Create a Quiz.’
Step 2: On the templates page, locate the Assessment Library to explore ready-to-use-skill assessments.
Step 3: Explore all the assessment categories and click the View button to choose your template.
Step 4: Click “Use this assessment” to use it as it is or edit it to suit your requirements, and you’re good to go.
2. Build an Assessment from Scratch
While picking a template is an easy way to launch a skill assessment test, creating one from scratch lets you get creative.
Step 1: Get Started
On your quiz dashboard, click +Create a Quiz.
Then, click Create Your Own.
Step 2: Add Questions
On your quiz interface, click +New Question to start adding questions.
You can choose from more than 20 question types.
You can either create your questions manually or use ProProfs AI quiz maker to generate your quizzes in seconds.
You can also import questions from any other skill assessment test you’ve created or even a spreadsheet by clicking the Import Questions button located at the bottom.
Or, simply pick questions from the question bank that has more than 100,000+ ready-to-use quizzes and add them to your assessment. To do so, just type your topic in the search bar and then select the questions you want to add to your assessment from the list that appears.
Here’s an example:
Suppose you’re building a marketing skills assessment test; then, you only need to type “marketing skills” in the search bar. The search will yield a list of questions related to marketing skills assessment.
From this list, you can select the questions you want to add to your assessment.
Similarly, you can add more questions.
Step 3: Automate Scoring
After you’ve added questions to your assessment, assign scores to the questions and automate the grading process.
Automated grading will help you save a lot of time and effort that you’d otherwise spend in grading each question manually.
To assign scores, locate Popular Settings on the left side of your quiz interface.
Open the drop-down menu and assign scores to your questions.
Watch: How to Automate Quiz Scoring & Grading
Step 4: Take Measures to Prevent Cheating
This step is very important. We understand how difficult it is to physically oversee each participant and prevent cheating.
You have to configure smart security settings that’ll help you prevent cheating. For this, you can:
- Randomize questions so that everyone gets questions in a different order every time.
- Shuffle answer options.
- Pool questions at random, so each person gets a different set.
- Protect your assessment with a password to avoid unauthorized access.
- Disable tab switching to stop candidates from looking for answers online.
Step 5: Design the Look & Feel
The last step in creating skill assessment tests is to design the look and feel of your assessments.
Choose a theme for your assessment from the Popular Themes menu located on the left side of your interface.
Since you’re creating this assessment for hiring candidates for a job role in your organization, you must also add your logo to the assessment. Adding a logo will give your assessments a touch of your branding.
Lastly, click the Preview button to see how your assessment will look to the candidates.
Go back to the editing window if you need to make any changes, or click the Save button to save the assessment and share it with your candidates via email.
The best part about online assessments is – all the reports are AI-generated. Reports make reviewing individual and group performances easier, such as the number of attempts taken, total time spent to complete the assessment, number of right or wrong answers, and more.
You can view the reports anytime, anywhere, and even download these reports in CSV/Excel formats or share via email.
Watch: How to Create An Assessment Online
So, that was a roundup of all the steps you need to take to build an online skill assessment test. In the next section, we’ve shared some tips that will help you nail the perfect skill assessment. Let’s give it a quick read.
10 Tips to Create the Perfect Skill Assessment Tests
As already stated, skill-based assessment tests can assist you in achieving the right balance between the applicant and the job you are hiring for.
Matching the right applicant to the right job increases employee satisfaction, improves productivity, and reduces employee turnover.
Here’s how to do skill assessments for building better teams:
- Test for Skills You Care About
The available standard tests make assumptions about what skills are important for various positions, but these assumptions may not match the skills you care about. When building skill assessments, take some time to write down the most important skills to you and then test specifically for those skills.
- Match the Tests to the Positions
Avoid using the same skill assessment tests for every position in your company. You will learn much more valuable information if you narrow the focus of your assessments. For example, if you’re hiring for a coder profile, you might want to avoid including questions that test candidates’ math skills and instead ask more questions on coding algorithms.
- Keep Your Tests Short
Rather than creating one long test for each position, write short tests to examine individual skills. Then, you can mix and match them depending on the job you are hiring for.
- Make Sure You Are Testing the Right Things
By the “right things,” we mean making sure that the test you give is a good indicator of the actual skills. This is called test validity, and if you are writing your test, it is worth taking some time to learn more about this important aspect.
- Ask Practical Questions
Since your goal is to find out what the job applicants can do, not just what they know, use as many practice questions as possible. Some skills—like math and proofreading—can be tested directly.
For others, use case studies and scenario-based questions and ask applicants what they would do in real-life situations.
- Test Soft Skills, Too
Don’t forget about soft skills. Problem-solving, critical thinking, communication—are essential for almost all positions.
- Don’t Make It Too Difficult
Keeping your skill assessment tests simple and easy is especially important if you are hiring for lower-level positions. Your test should certainly assess basic knowledge and skills relevant to the field but don’t expect applicants to know everything straight away (or approach all of the scenarios in the same way).
In addition, give them the resources they would have access to on the job. For example, if the test assesses their writing ability, let them have access to the Internet or a dictionary to check spelling and grammar.
Do you care if they know how to spell a word or just that they get it right in the end? They would be able to look up words on the job, so there is no reason they shouldn’t be able to do so on the test.
- Don’t Try to Be Tricky
The test should be a straightforward assessment, so stay away from trick questions. Your goal is to see what the applicants can do, not confuse them or put them in an uncomfortable situation.
- Keep Legal Requirements in Mind
Employee skill assessment tests are subject to the same rules and regulations as all other hiring processes. There are certain types of questions you can’t ask, and the tests can’t be discriminatory in any way. Before you use your test, have someone review it from a legal perspective.
- Use an Online Assessment Creator
Finally, use an online assessment creator to create the employee skill assessment.
By putting it online, you can easily distribute it to applicants, reuse and remix test questions as necessary, and take advantage of various online test maker software features, including automatic scoring.
How Employers Can Select the Right Skills Assessment Tests & Tools
With the right test generator, you can easily streamline your recruitment process and hire qualified employees who will add value to your organization.
On the flip side, choosing the wrong one can cost you lots of money and time, making it crucial to select a test generator that suits your needs.
Here’s how you can go about it in four simple steps.
Step 1: Define Your Assessment Needs
To select an assessment tool tailored to your requirements, you need to start by defining them.
For instance, you should be clear about the skills you want to evaluate in your candidates. That’s because some skill assessment tools may be specialized in testing technical skills, while others may be geared more towards soft skill testing.
Create a list of all the skills you wish to evaluate before you proceed to the next step. Also, find out how many candidates you will be evaluating on a monthly basis.
Step 2: Create a List of Important Tool and Service Features
Next up, you need to decide on all the features and characteristics you’ll need in your skill assessment tool. Here are some features that we believe are super-important when it comes to skill assessment tools.
- Ease of Use – Good online assessment software shouldn’t require any download or installation, and creating and sharing skill assessment tests should be quick & easy.
- Templates – A good tool comes with professionally designed templates that make the process of creating assessments 10x easier.
- Automated Scoring & Grading – Good assessment software supports automated grading and scoring. Imagine how much time you can save with this!
- White-labeling – Your skill assessment tool should support branding so that you can add logos and themes to your assessments.
- Anti-Cheating Functionalities – A superior skill assessment tool lets you randomize questions, shuffle answer options, set time limits, and disable tab switching so that candidates can’t cheat.
- Security Configurations – Ensure that the skill assessment tool you choose provides robust security configurations, such as protecting your skill assessment tests with a password and disabling printing, downloading, and copying.
- Insightful Reports – Your assessment software should offer insightful and easily digestible reports. Detailed reporting and analytics make it easy to compare candidates. Even better if you can also download the reports to review later.
- Responsive UI – Online assessments make the most sense when they can be accessed anytime and anywhere. So, look for a tool that lets you build mobile-responsive assessments.
Watch: How to Choose the Best Assessment Software
Step 3: Compare Your Options
Once you’ve figured out your skill assessment needs as well as the features that will help meet them, you can start researching the market for suitable options. Here’s what you need to do to ensure your research is quick yet thorough enough to make an informed decision.
- Go through this list again to narrow down your choices
- Browse through tool providers’ websites
- Check out user reviews on review websites, such as Capterra, Crozdesk, G2, etc.
Step 4: Try Out Your Top Options
Shortlist three or four skill assessment tools based on your research and take them for a spin. Getting first-hand experience is crucial for accurately evaluating any software.
Many skill assessment tools offer a free trial or demo of their premium features. Take advantage of this possibility to avoid spending unnecessary costs and time.
Free Skills Assessment Tests for Employers
Selecting the right skills assessment tools is only the first step in optimizing your hiring process. Once you have the right tools, leveraging free skills assessment tests can significantly improve your efficiency and decision-making.
Here’s how ProProfs Quiz Maker can enhance your recruitment strategy.
- Forever Free Plan
ProProfs Quiz Maker offers a forever free plan to access all essential features. This plan is perfect for creating short quizzes and conducting initial candidate screenings without any financial commitment. It’s an ideal choice for small businesses or organizations with limited hiring budgets.
- AI Quiz Generator
One notable feature of ProProfs’ free plan is the AI quiz generator. This tool allows you to quickly generate quizzes for skill assessments by simply inputting your requirements. The AI takes care of the rest, creating relevant and accurate questions in seconds. This saves time and ensures consistency and precision in your assessments.
- 100,000+ Free Customizable Quizzes
With ProProfs Quiz Maker’s free plan, you can access a vast library of over 100,000 customizable quizzes. These quizzes cover various skills and industries, allowing you to tailor assessments to your specific needs.
Whether you need to evaluate technical skills, soft skills, or industry-specific knowledge, a ready-made quiz can easily adapt to your requirements.
- Premium Plan With Expert-Designed Assessments
ProProfs offers a premium plan featuring over 200 skill assessments designed by subject-matter experts for those requiring more comprehensive evaluations. These expertly crafted tests provide a thorough evaluation of candidates’ abilities, covering both technical and soft skills.
Hire the Right Way Every Time
Skill assessment tests are easy to create and they provide the most accurate results. It is better to create an assessment test and use it to simplify the hiring process and save time than to follow the traditional method.
With the right assessment tool, you can rest assured that the candidates you hire will be a good fit for the job.
ProProfs Assessment Software provides all the features you can ask for in your skill assessment software. This includes 20+ question types, automated scoring, 200+ professionally designed and ready-to-use assessments, security & anti-cheating functionalities, and much more—all in a super-intuitive interface.
FREE. All Features. FOREVER!
Try our Forever FREE account with all premium features!
