A Beginner’s Guide to Pre Employment Screening
Posted by IntroMagic Team on January 4th, 2022
The ongoing pandemic has created global unrest and hit the business world at its hardest. This crisis has upturned HR workflows. The makeshift from face-to-face interviews to online examinations is a challenging affair that has increased in manifolds. Formulating strategies to hire the best fit candidate is a must and one such plan of action is pre employment screening.
As employers are extra careful and cautious, pre-employment testing tools help them fish out the best suitable candidate from the pool of talent.
Poor performers, bad hires not only cost the company a hefty amount but also affect in-house teams and their performance.
Since resumes and portfolios are not enough to get insights of a candidate’s skills, pre-employment screening tests and tools are reliable, faster and a sustainable strategy to screen potential candidates. Recruitment and assessment tools go hand-in-hand in today’s virtually-driven world.
- Statistics reveal that nearly 87% of recruiters affirm that candidates misrepresent themselves on resumes and job applications.
With interviews going all virtual and digital, making certain that you receive the right information is a major task. Pre-employment assessments take an edge and help in making accurate decisions.
These tools are available online and create a blueprint of the candidate in the most objective manner. Alongwith saving the company’s time and money, a pre employment tool has the ability to assess candidate’s cognitive skills, hard and soft skills, job knowledge, personality traits and situational judgements.
When we say the pandemic hit the recruitment process hard, it means that traditional practices of hiring are no longer adequate. From the time when a senior employer could analyze candidates from their body language, technological tools today are the need of the hour and an authentic mode of verification.
What is Pre Employment Screening?
Pre-employment screening is a series of assessment tests that allow the employer to screen potential candidates from the pool and find the best match. These tools consist of different tests, varying in shape and size, that assess candidates’ skills, knowledge, cognitive abilities and individual behavior.
Remote working has become the new normal. Video conferencing tools like Zoom and Teams have bridged the gap of communication but physical contact remains distant.
While these tools prove beneficial for the hiring process, eliminating unsuitable applicants still remains a question unanswered. Well, interviewing every candidate is, afterall, a costly affair.
Thanks to pre-employment screening services and tools, evaluating suitable candidates with the right skills is an easier task.
- The main objective of pre-employment screening is to receive relevant information, before conducting an extensive interview process. This is an effective and efficient method to weed out unqualified candidates and carry forward with the deserving ones
- Job screening also increases comfort level between the employer and employee, as they become familiar with each other before commencing other levels of the interview process.
- Right from application review to making final hiring decisions, pre-employment testing gives a sense of confidence that you have selected the most suitable candidate for the position. This eliminates the risk of bad hires, unnecessary expenses and wasted time.
Why is Pre Employment Screening Important?
Hiring season is one of the most expensive and time-consuming periods for a company. Even then, as a result of bad hires due to one reason or the other, a company gets forced to bear double or even triple the expenses in terms of time and money in an attempt to correct the mistake.
It results in valuable loss of time by both the employer and the employee. This is a prime reason why pre-employment screening is considered to be of utmost importance for both the company and the job-seekers.
Pre-employment screening also sets the pace for the working environment of an employee by introducing them to the company culture for the very first time.
A company can choose to make their pre-employment screening process as comprehensive or as restricted as they deem fit. While the employment process by itself can be very exhaustive, paying special attention to the pre-employment screening can prove to be extremely rewarding by filtering out the best possible candidates for an establishment.
To confront the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses globally had to react in decisive and flexible ways. And while employment hasn’t been that high on the list it still is part of some of the costlier affairs. This is where pre employment screening comes into the picture and makes sure that the resources are put into the right place.
Pre-employment screening is the process or the set of processes undertaken by the company before the final interviews to shortlist the best and most suitable candidates for the role.
This involves sifting through the pool of applicants based on their basic qualifications and some other vital attributes that would make them a good fit for the role they are applying to. It also makes sure that an applicant is dedicated enough for the role.
It saves a lot of time and energy being expended on unworthy candidates in extensive in-person interviews.
As mentioned earlier, the employment process in itself is very time-consuming and expensive, so to make sure that only worthy candidates are a part of the process, a pre-employment screening is imperative and advisable for companies as part of their hiring procedure.
Types of Pre-Employment Screening Methods
Pre-employment screening is a centralized process to gather accurate and relevant information during and before hiring. As an interviewer, it is important for you to know about pre-employment tools and how to leverage its technological competence to your benefit.
Based on the type of job profile, select the test type that unveils the most relevant information and the candidate’s ability to perform in the desired role.
Pre-employment screening are categorized into three types- pre-interview screening, interview screening and post-interview screening.
Some tests are designed to test the applicant’s mental prowess and cognitive ability, while others are intended to test a person’s behavior and see if he/she meets the set norms of expectations.
The tests within each category vary according to the industry; you can select methods that best suit your requirements and job application.
How Candidate Assessment Tools Can Ease Your Work?
Just like SAT scores simplify admission procedure in colleges, results from pre-employment screening helps narrow down suitable candidates and ease down hiring for HRs and talent acquisition experts.
Finding the best fit employee is significant; not just skill fit but also team-oriented and stable as well. To hire right in the most efficient manner, candidate assessment tools are the ones to leverage and streamline your requirements with job seekers’ skills.
Besides evaluating relevant cases like cognitive abilities, soft skills, individual character and cultural fit behavior, pre-employment screening gives multiple other reasons to recruitment experts for using these tools in their hiring process.
- Firstly, pre-screening candidates via assessment tools helps in creating a pool of candidates solely based on skills. Allowing job-seekers to shine based on skills and aptitude not only serves the requirement right but also saves time and money in the process.
- Secondly, scores from pre-employment tests give the employer the confidence of making the right decision. Consider these points an added advantage when evaluating the candidate. Alongside, tests that assess soft skills and behavioral traits most likely provide an outline of how the candidate will fit in the culture and team. This helps the managers, in person, to get a better understanding of how the candidate will act when onboard, about their work approach and ways to motivate and boost them.
It is advised to consider using candidate assessment tools as the data procured from the tests helps build a skill-oriented workforce.
How?
The insights gathered from employment screening helps in developing diverse and successful personnel. This enables the employers to understand the candidate’s behavior in the work environment. Besides, it also helps determine the best team for the hired employee to fit in.
Benefits of Using Pre Employment Screening Software
Finding the perfect candidate for the job is a critical and time-consuming process. It is always great to leverage technology, especially when investing for a best fit hire.
Choosing a pre-employment screening software for the hiring process is an added advantage and a transparent medium of applicants data collection.
“Better the hire, better the company’s accomplishments.”
Benefits of using screening software are myriad, few amongst which are as follows:
- Efficiency and productivity: When a recruiter includes pre-employment screening in the hiring process, he/she tends to take greater advantage of time in assessing most suitable candidates over a pool of applicants.
- Open-minded hiring: Studies prove that when you have a skill-oriented database, the result is more diverse. Use of screening software creates a reserve of data that speaks diversity in form of gender, experience, ethnicity and more.
- Talent pool for future hires: As much these tools save time, they enable the recruiter to create a talent pool of qualified applicants for future hirings. The screening is more scalable, reliable and efficient.
- Quick engagement: More you screen the applicants, the quicker it becomes to conduct interviews and fill roles faster. Pre-employment screening is a must-have tool, especially concerning remote hiring and virtual conferencing.
- Successful results: Finding the best talent who fits the role right is what you need after all. Thanks to screening software, the recruitment process is much faster and helps fill jobs in less time. Hence, better team performance and organizational success.
Pre Employment Testing Best Practices
If you are thinking of including a pre-employment screening tool in your recruitment process, consider employing these practices to get the most out of these tools and graph up your hiring scale.
- Test data validity: various validity measures can be used to validate data in pre-employment tests. While criterion-related validity showcases results to predict job performance, tests that demonstrate construct validity enables the recruiter to compare results with similar other tests that assess similar constructs like intelligence.
- Vendor research and selection: taking in account the type of industry you are placed in, do a detailed research on the availability of various vendors for you. Check their formats, services availed, screening tests, customization options, onboarding process, customer support and clear all queries beforehand. Be sure of what you are investing into.
- Customization: aligning pre-employment screening services with your brand gives edge when conducting interviews. Customize the tests according to your preferences and add elements like brand logo or color theme to make the screening process more personal to the brand. Make your brand’s screening process an interactive experience for the applicant.
- Responsible testing: when it comes to implementing pre-employment tests, be careful in selecting the most appropriate method to test the required skills for the job. Relevance is the key. Keep them short and precise, especially considering the time constraints because not every candidate is able to complete the test within a limited time frame. Sometimes, time requirements eliminate suitable candidates by a minute or two.
- Test at the right time: while many companies conduct pre-employment testing after resume screening, others remain hesitant in early testing and conduct them later in the recruitment process. The main objective is to gather relevant information to make an informed decision. If there’s a large pool of applicants on call, employ testing at the initial stage itself to narrow down the search and shortlist the best suitable candidates.
- Tests as guiding light only: be thoughtful and use pre-employment tests as a tool to guide your decision. Never be fully dependent only on test results. Combine them with other selection methods like interviews, assessments and trial days to make an informed decision.
FAQs: Pre Employment Assessment Tools
1. What is a pre employment screening tool?
A pre-employment screening tool is designed to simplify the hiring process. This software tool enables the recruiter to customize, conduct, evaluate and derive results from various test types and make the best fit hire for the organization. Employment of such tools eliminates the risk of making bad hires.
2. Why is pre employment screening important?
Picking the right candidate from a pool of talent is an overwhelming process. It is important to invest in hiring tools to simply the search and make an informed decision. And that’s where pre-employment screening serves the purpose right.
It enables you to shortlist suitable applicants, make confident decisions, envision job performance, pick culturally fit candidates and most importantly, build a diverse and responsive workforce.
3. What are the benefits of including a pre employment tool in the recruitment process?
Among the various benefits a screening tool provides, some include efficient hiring,higher productivity, unbiased screening, cost-effective successful results, quick engagement for future hirings and scalable screening.
4. What are the different types of pre employment screening services?
- Pre-employment screening is categorized into three major categories:
- Pre-employment screening: application testing, preliminary interview, aptitude and personality tests
- Interview screening: official interview followed by behavioral and critical reasoning tests
- Post-employment screening: background verification and reference checks
5. What are the best pre-employment assessment tools?
Among the various tools available online, choose the one that suits your brand requisites and align with the objective you are looking to fulfill. Each tool offers something different. So learn more about their features to make an informed decision.
