In recent times, skill testing has steadily been used by more recruiters to gain a competitive advantage in today’s job market.

This is simply because skill testing helps employers seek out the right candidates and ensure that they are hired on merit, rather than background.

What’s more, skill testing also helps recruiters to secure talents who tend to stay longer and perform better over the long term.

Here’s how employers and recruiters can use skills assessments to fill open positions, no matter how many applicants they are dealing with.

What is a skill test?

Typically, a skill test asks a variety of questions in different formats to see how candidates perform on-the-job tasks. A good skills test includes questions that are capable of being answered by someone already doing the job and can accurately measure key performance metrics.

Questions should also be specifically tailored to relate to the responsibilities of an open position. Many skills tests include immersive experiences, like coding challenges or job simulations, to mimic how a candidate performs when faced with a real-life scenario.

Other types of job-readiness evaluations deploy validated psychometric assessments to identify those in-demand soft skills such as motivation, conscientiousness, resilience, and emotional intelligence.

While skill tests often cover task-related abilities, some pre-employment assessments integrate the less tangible capabilities – things like teamwork and leadership..

How skill testing works

Skill testing works best when the questions being asked are specifically crafted to the role that is being filled. When designing a skills test, look to combine different types of questions to get a 360-degree view of how a candidate will perform in different scenarios.

Research by American giant Deloitte suggests this sample process for selecting and implementing skill testing questions:

Define the “human elements” needed to perform the job.

Compile questions that will measure and predict these human elements.

Use the data gathered to empower the next round of the screening process.

Evaluate the efficacy of the hiring assessment to ensure the questions delivered the best result.

Ultimately, the best use for a skills assessment is to help recruiters move away from the resume and allow candidates to prove they are the real deal.

Running a skill test

In designing a skills test or pre-employment assessment, there are a few specific steps to take in order to thoughtfully structure your questions.

These tips can help with candidate engagement and lead to high rates of completion:

Your skills test should include between six to ten questions to give you better insights.

A few questions should require text answers; start with a text-based response in the first question, rather than a video or immersive question.

Include an “immersive” style question, in which the candidate edits a document, spreadsheet, or presentation.

To retain a candidate over the entire experience, start with easier questions and build up to more difficult ones later in the assessment.

Try to minimise the use of timers to account for technical difficulties and give the candidate the best chance of success.

Avoid timing video responses; there are too many technical issues that can result from a candidate trying to film a one-way video interview. If you do wish to set a time limit, make sure it’s at a minimum of five minutes.

Skill testing during hiring

Research by Harvard Business Review revealed that skills tests should come early in the hiring process. According to their study, “Many service companies, including retailers, call centers, and security firms, can reduce costs and make better hires by using short, web-based tests as the first screening step.”

Such tests efficiently weed out the least-suitable applicants, leaving a smaller, better-qualified pool to undergo the more costly and personalised aspects of the process.

However, the issue many recruiters face is that the volume of candidates makes it impossible to carefully consider each person’s ability.

As such, smart algorithms and AI tools can turbo-charge candidate assessments by scoring results quickly and removing human bias from the equation.

For example, Vervoe’s algorithm scores candidates using a multi-layered approach. Candidates are ranked based on how well they performed, rather than filtered out if they didn’t achieve a certain benchmark.

The top candidates easily rise to the top; but no one misses out on being considered for the next round. When used early in the hiring process, skill tests can select a more diverse pool of applicants to continue onto the next phase.

This article first appeared in Vervoe.

At Vervoe, their mission is to fundamentally transform the hiring process from mediocracy to meritocracy.