By: Brian Johnson
The best of hiring managers and human resource professionals will admit they have made a bad hire at one point in their careers. These bad hires can cost thousands of dollars. In recent study by Careerbuilder, 41% of companies say a bad hire has cost them at least $25,000; 25% of companies say a bad hire has cost them over $50,000. Each time they make a bad hire companies must have learned something about their hiring process and their culture. These experiences lead to trying to find a better understanding of what works for their company. This can be achieved through creating assessments for specific job openings.
Assessments are used often in our process. We find they save time in the hiring process and save money by making the right hire first. What many don’t know is how best to approach their assessments. While a general assessment can be done, we find it best to tailor your assessments to the specific candidate profile. Each candidate will have different skill sets and personality traits that will thrive in that given situation. With thePrevue HR Systems Assessments we use, benchmarks are created for each job by abilities, interests and personality. All three can be used in tandem or used singularly to emphasize areas of significance. Ability assessments are great for implementation jobs like programming or trade skills. Interests assessments are great for sales professionals and analysts. Personality assessments are the most widely used. This is not only a good assessment to see if a candidate is the right cultural fit, but if they do decide to hire this individual, how best to integrate them into the company.
In our process, we work with hiring managers to develop key benchmarks for a given position. We then use those benchmarks to build our assessment around what an ideal candidate should be. After completing the initial interviews, qualified candidates are then asked to complete the assessment. These tend to be completed before or after the 2nd interview. The assessments can then provide an objective view of the candidate and confirm the hiring managers evaluation after the interview.
As you noticed we mentioned a couple interviews as part of this process. Assessments should be used as a complement to the interview process and not an initial screening tool. Even in the world of advancing technology, the human interaction still holds weight in the hiring process.
If you would like to learn more about using assessments in your hiring process, please contact a CorTalentrepresentative.