Finding the right talent can be tricky. In such a competitive job market, hiring teams find their inboxes flooded with emails, and taking out time to filter all those can be a cumbersome task. But somehow things need to be done in the right way. Employers use skill assessment tool to measure the abilities and skills of candidates during the hiring process to determine if the candidates are a good match for the position. These tests assess the technical skill, soft skills, personality, and other traits required to successfully perform the tasks. Even if you have showcased both your hard and soft skills in your resume you may still have to give the test. Knowing about this test can help you prepare and clear them. In this article, we have described the type of skill assessment tests and strategies for taking these tests.
What is a Skill Assessment Test?
A skill assessment is a test that is used to evaluate the skills and abilities of candidates. The tests are designed in such a way that they help in determining the necessary skills required to perform various tasks in a job. In some companies, employees are asked to give the test for promotion. Skill assessment test happens during the hiring process where questions are designed as per the responsibilities performed in the job. The main purpose of using these tests is to shortlist the best candidate for the interview.
Types of Skill Assessment Test
There are different types of skill assessment tests that companies use during their recruitment process:-
1. Hard Skills Assessment Tests
Hard skills are one of the most difficult things to access a candidate during the hiring process accurately. While a resume gives a good insight into a candidate’s experience, it doesn’t give insight into a candidate’s performance in the workplace. A hard skills assessment test is used to evaluate a candidate’s skills in different roles such as finance, software development, marketing, customer success, graphic design, etc. The result provides information about a candidate’s expertise in a particular skill. This helps the recruiters decide what skill expertise is required for the job position and shortlist candidates accordingly.
2. Soft Skills Assessment Tests
Soft skills refer to the interpersonal characteristics of an individual. They are qualities individuals need to work, lead, and interact with others. Some examples include communication, leadership, problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, and organizational skills. Soft skills are far more subjective and are harder to quantify and assess. Identifying and improving soft skills in employees who excel in hard skills is a good investment for a variety of reasons. Skills that include emotional intelligence and conflict management in candidates are good for maintaining strong and healthy relationships with clients and coworkers.
3. Personality Test
A personality test is a tool used to assess human personality. Personality testing and assessment refer to techniques designed to measure the characteristic patterns of traits that people exhibit in various situations. Personality is something that we informally access and describe every day. When we talk about ourselves and others we refer to different characteristics of an individual’s personality. For instance, an introverted person can be a good fit for a role that requires a lot of active listening such as a counselor.
4. Cognitive Ability Test
Cognitive ability testing is an instrument designed to measure the candidate’s cognitive functions such as learning and reasoning during the selection process. Such tests pose questions designed to test applicants’ potential that will be used to solve work-related problems. They do this by evaluating a person’s ability to think abstractly when using numerical and verbal reasoning. The test is also called a cognitive screening test or cognitive assessment.
5. Psychometric Test
A psychometric test is an assessment done to evaluate a candidate’s behavioral style and mental ability. This test helps to understand the candidate’s suitability for a job position by matching their aptitude and personality traits with those needed to perform the job. This type of test is often conducted online. This way the employer can easily collect and analyze the results of the test to identify the candidate’s behavioral characteristics which is not possible in face-to-face interviews.
6. Combinational Test approach
Some employers choose to combine several assessment tests instead of only one. This provides more efficient results as they will eliminate the dependency on only one assessment. But the main disadvantage of this approach is that it will take more of the candidate’s time.
How to Choose the Right Skills Assessment Tool
Skill assessments are evolved from the traditional pen and paper tests to far more sophisticated and automated tools. This not only makes distributing skills tests easy but also allows you to collect detailed data about each candidate. In some cases, one might prefer to create custom skill assessments if they are in a particular niche industry. That’s one of the most important features to look at when selecting the right skills tool.
Here are some points to consider while selecting a tool:-
1. Easy to use- If you are technically challenged it’s important to choose skill assessment tools that are easy and uncomplicated to navigate. It should have a nice and clean design. This will help you start things faster and easier for the hiring team to modify the tests.
2. Ready-made quiz template- If the software has ready-made templates then you are halfway there. In that case, you only have to put questions in it.
3. Branding- Whether you are hiring new employees or testing the current employees your skill assessment tool should be able to showcase your unique branding. If it is not able to do so then the test will seem to be generic.
4. Automatic Grading- Giving the results of every candidate’s assessment is a tedious task, especially in bulk hires. In automatic grading, you don’t have to use your brain while grading the candidates as they will be graded according to their performance.
Here have a look at some top skill assessment tools which will help you in finding the best candidate for your organization:-
1.Ducknowl
Ducknowl is a top comprehensive platform for skill assessment tests. It provides a diverse range of skill assessment features that can help recruiters in the evaluation process. Recruiters and HR teams spend countless hours screening candidates for jobs. Still, the best candidates do not come to the surface. Ducknowl allows you to save time and make higher-quality recruiting decisions with additional features, such as video interviewing, talent assessment, video job descriptions, resume screening, audio screening, and video texting. It allows different customized parts according to your liking. Ducknowl reduces your screening time by 70-80% and digitizes the process with inbuilt features like resume sorting, keyword matching, video screening, skill test, proxy prevention, and results sharing. It has a clean design which helps recruiters easily navigate around the software.
The advanced recruitment system not only allows you to map out but also optimize your entire recruitment process. It gives full liberty to the recruiters to personalize the test according to their company standards. Ducknowl’s video interviewing software costs based on how many video interview screenings you will use. However, you don’t have to pay for our subscription right away. It can easily be integrated with Zoho, Jazz, Greenhouse, etc. It has seven popular online assessment tools that can measure candidates’ skills, abilities, and knowledge.
1. Software Development
This group of tests helps you assess the software development skills of the candidate such as the ability to write code, business analysis, project management, and cloud computing. It offers customized coding assessments for applicants to choose from
2. General Aptitude
It helps in assessing candidates’ skills in mathematics, communications, logistical and analytical thinking. They also help in evaluating a candidate’s verbal skills, such as fluency in grammar, verbal reasoning, and problem-solving skills.
3. Computer Literacy
It helps in evaluating the candidate’s knowledge of Microsoft Office and typing skills.
4. Business Intelligence
It helps in evaluating the candidate’s knowledge in business intelligence such as data analysis and Power BI.
5. Management
It evaluates the management skills of candidates with great leadership skills.
6. Sales and Marketing
They analyze the marketing skills of a candidate such as SEO, sales, or digital marketing.
2. Vervoe
Vervoe is a skill assessment software that fulfills the needs of most parts of the industry. The platform has thousands of skill assessment tests that are customizable. Vervoe also helps the employees in demonstrating their skills that are useful for the team which in turn helps the team leaders to develop training that can improve areas of expertise. This software provides an automatic grading function when candidates give tests it will give insights into their performance which help the recruiters in the hiring process. It has the following features:
- 1000+ skill assessment tests
- Customizable tests
- In-app branding
- Free trial
3. EdApp
Edapp is a skill assessment software that offers a wide variety of features that helps recruiters in the evaluation process. The most interesting part is that it provides ready-made templates for quizzes in which you just have to drag and drop your content. You have full control over when to send out your quizzes. You can either distribute them at scheduled intervals or send them in one go. Some other features are:
- Cloud-based tool
- 80+ customizable templates
- Online quiz maker
- Analytics
- Free trial
4. Eskill
Eskill is a skill assessment tool that offers to virtually screen large amounts of candidates including IT, sales, and marketing. For these industries, it offers a wide range of test types like pre-employment and video response questions. It also offers customizable templates to choose from. Some of its features are:-
- The software can easily be integrated with your HR management system.
- Large library of skills, behavioral and video responses with the ability to customize your own
- Branding and customization
- Flexible pricing plans
Read More: How to make the most of virtual hiring?
