As stated in a previous post, pre-employment testing can be an important aspect of scoring the best candidates for your startup. Apart from attracting excellent talent, it also helps enhance your new business’s productivity, performance, and objectivity. Making a wrong hiring decision will not just cost you a bad experience. It can affect your entire start-up’s team, leading to reduced productivity and loss of money in so many ways. 

But, to ensure that you reap the best of the benefits of the process, you must use top pre-employment testing. First, it will ensure you align the screening process with your brand’s culture and needs. Second, you will use a test whose data is valid and not outdated. 

What’s Pre-Employment Testing 

Simply put, it is the process through which HR professionals ensure they get qualified candidates through a series of assessments. It allows employers to consider more than a candidate’s resume.

The Top Types of Pre-Employment Testing For Your Startup

That said, not every pre-employment test available in the market is ideal for your startup. 

Below are some of the top tests to consider:

1. Job Knowledge Test

It is the first and most important test, especially if you are looking to fill a technical position in your startup. It helps you measure a candidate’s knowledge and skills in a particular subject matter, like accounting, finance, IT, data analytics, among others. 

On the flip side, you might turn down an excellent candidate for not considering their learning capabilities. Some candidates might be qualified on paper, lack the proper knowledge in a particular niche, but are fast learners. This makes them ideal because they can learn on the job and meet all your expectations. 

2. Personality Questionnaire 

A personality assessment allows you to gauge if the candidate aligns with the role and the company. This is where you can tell whether they stand for the same culture as your brand. 

For example, you might want to consider an assertive and extroverted candidate for a sales position instead of an introverted candidate.  

There are 5 common tests you can use for personality assessment:

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• The Caliper Profile 
• The Disc Behavioral Territory 
• The Hogan Personality Inventory 
• The SHL Occupational Personality Questionnaire 

3. Integrity Test

Just because a candidate meets all the job knowledge, personality, and cultural tests don’t mean they are necessarily the best. 

While the personality assessment might shed some light on the candidate’s character, you can mix up the pre-employment testing process with a test that digs deeper into their character. 

How is their integrity? 

Are they disciplined? Can you trust them to run your business while putting the company’s interest at heart first? Many a time, startups and established brands have run out of business courtesy of dishonest employees. You certainly don’t want your startup to be part of the statistics. 

However, keep in mind that a candidate might lie in such a test. For instance, some integrity tests require candidates to answer whether they have ever stolen or been arrested. Not many candidates will provide the correct answer, especially if there is no criminal record.

4. Emotional Intelligence Assessment

This test helps you test an employee’s ability to manage their emotions and work closely with the rest of the team. For example, you’d want to get an employee who can communicate their feelings or help diffuse a situation where another colleague or customer is experiencing frustration. 

When you test a candidate’s emotional intelligence, you can tell whether they are:

• Team players — can they collaborate with others, regardless of their personality differences? You’d want to invest in an employee who works hand-in-hand with everyone to achieve your startup’s goals and visions with little to no hiccups. 
• Empathetic — do they understand other people’s situations and are willing to help them whenever they need assistance?  
• Adaptability — can they adjust to the needs and demands of the business without affecting the business’s goals? For example, Covid-19 turned the world upside down, and employees had to work from home. You need to check whether an employee adapts to such abrupt changes seamlessly. 

As much as these are the top pre-test, you should not rely on only one. To ensure that you maximize the chance of getting the best candidate, you should use a mix of these tests when looking for talent.