Understanding Talent Assessments
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Modern working life is evolving rapidly, emphasizing the importance of soft skills alongside traditional hard skills. As companies adapt to these changes, they are increasingly relying on innovative methods, such as talent assessments, to identify top talent. These assessments play a crucial role in employee management by evaluating candidates comprehensively, ensuring they possess the skills and traits necessary for success in a dynamic work environment.
What is a talent assessment?
First of all, talent assessments are nothing new in and of themselves. They have been around for quite some time; however, many companies still rely on more traditional methods when hiring, such as resumes, educational background, and hard skills. While they still have their place in the hiring process, progressive companies emphasize soft skills, potential, and cultural fit as hiring criteria and have implemented talent assessment tools to measure these elements during the hiring process.
A talent assessment can take many forms, but in short, it is a practice of evaluating your future workforce, your candidates or your current employees, for a promotion. Work samples, job simulations, and psychometric testing are all examples of different talent assessments.
Why use talent assessments?
Talent assessments capture information about candidates that is difficult to assess from resumes or interviews alone. Psychometric testing is an objective and reliable way to measure candidates' soft skills, personality, behavioral styles, and mental abilities, during the hiring process. This helps employers make better hiring decisions and reduce employee turnover.
Let's look at some benefits of using talent assessments in your hiring process.
Identify the right fit
Using assessments that reflect the requirements and competencies needed to succeed in a role will help you find the right candidate for the job and your company culture. For example, our extensive research at IceHrm has shown that the best salespeople share traits like perseverance, empathy, appetite, and focus. They have strong stress management skills, can handle rejection, and build trust. Measuring these elements with personality assessments will guide you in the right direction when deciding which candidate to hire.
Predicting job performance
Psychometric assessments are the next best thing to a crystal ball. While future job performance can never be perfectly predicted, high-quality insights into your candidate's strengths, motivations, skills, and values and how they map to a job profile are at the core of a good prediction.
Reduces hiring bias
Cognitive bias occurs when people make decisions based on stereotypes, attitudes, and beliefs. Cognitive bias, or unconscious bias, creeping into the hiring process can cloud your judgment and cause you to evaluate candidates based on things that are irrelevant to job performance. This can lead to costly bad hires and a negative candidate experience.
While unconscious bias cannot be completely removed from the hiring process, psychometric assessments are a big step toward more objective hiring. Standardized assessments are designed to objectively measure the various characteristics of candidates and provide a level playing field for all applicants.
Improve the candidate experience
In today's competitive talent market, a great candidate experience is a must. You want to engage all of your candidates, and good communication throughout the hiring process is the cornerstone of a great candidate experience. But in the end, you'll only hire that one top candidate for the role. Providing valuable feedback to all candidates will make them feel comfortable with the process and positively perceive your brand.
IceHrm's Candidate Feedback Report is a helpful tool for considering personal development areas and future career decisions, and provides value to all candidates.
Types of Talent Assessment Tests
Personality Assessments
Personality assessments, or personality questionnaires, help understand candidates' preferences, behaviors, and motivations at work. Leveraging these traits will give you valuable insight into each candidate and assist you through the interview, selection, and onboarding stages.
It's important to distinguish between well-researched trait-based personality assessments and type-based assessments like Myers-Briggs. Assessments that measure individual personality traits rather than personality types have the highest predictive validity, allowing you to accurately compare candidates in the hiring process.
Cognitive Ability Tests
Cognitive ability tests measure various characteristics of candidates' cognitive abilities and skills. These include numerical and verbal ability, abstract reasoning, and problem solving. Research has shown that cognitive ability tests are the best predictor of future job performance. Using ability tests in conjunction with personality assessments and structured interviews will give you a comprehensive view of candidates' strengths and suitability for the role.
Situational Judgement Tests
Situational Judgement Tests (or SJTs) are psychometric tests that examine how candidates respond to typical work-related situations in a specific role. Candidates are presented with workplace scenarios that relate to the challenges they are likely to face in that role if hired. Situational Judgement Tests provide employers with valuable insight into candidates' decision-making style and responses to challenging situations, while also providing candidates with a realistic preview of the job.
Talent assessments offer a robust approach to hiring, focusing on soft skills and job fit. IceHrm's tools, like personality and cognitive tests, enhance accuracy and candidate engagement, ensuring optimal hiring outcomes.
