How to choose assessments

It can be challenging to know which tests to choose for a given position, often because there are several considerations that need to be taken into account. How many applicants will we have? How long do we have for the process? Who should be involved in the recruitment process? In this article, you will get some advice on how to go about considering this and choosing tests for your process.

Start with the job analysis

As a first step, we recommend that you carry out a good and thorough job analysis to assess which abilities, skills and personal characteristics are most important for the position. Your goal should be to find out what it takes to succeed and thrive in this position. Be thorough in this analysis, because it will make the rest of the process much easier when you have a common thread and know what you are looking for in the candidates.

Recommended reading: How to do a proper job analysis

From job analysis to tests

When you have sufficient information about the job requirements, you can start considering how to assess these. Some things, such as education, can be assessed through CVs. Other things are more difficult to map without using reliable test tools.

When to use ability and skill assessments

Ability and skill tests are time and cost effective tools for assessing general mental abilities (GMA). From research, we know that GMA is one of the best predictors of future job performance. At the same time, this might not be important to assess for all job roles. In the job analysis we may have found, for example, that it’s more important to assess behavioural competencies given the short time span we have for this particular process.

Ability and skill tests are ususally relevant if you want to assess how candidates solve problems and understand complex ideas, plan, learn or reason when solving tasks. The results they get tell us, among other things:

• whether the person will need more or less time to deal with complex issues

• whether the person will be more or less accurate when processing new information

• whether the person will need more or less support from their colleagues

• whether the person will be able to quickly familiarize themselves with new working methods and technological changes

Most people use 2-4 ability tests in a process, but consider the total test time to make sure it is not too long. We also recommend that you choose ability tests that candidates will experience as relevant to ensure a good candidate experience.

Recommended reading: 5 tips for a better candidate experience

When to use personality assessments

Personality assessments allow us to map the candidates' likely behaviour, and are therefore very useful for assessing many of the personal qualities that are often requested in a job analysis. Perhaps collaboration, managing pressure and making sound decisions (all competencies related to ADEPT-15) are important qualifications for this job, and we can then map how the candidates assess themselves in these areas.

In addition, personality assessments are excellent to use in conjunction with structured or semi-structured interviews. You can then use the results as a conversation tool to conduct a competency-based interview. The result of using personality assessments in this way is that you get two evaluations: how the candidate assesses themselves in an area, and how you (based on the interview) assess the candidate in the same area.

If you use our competency models, we recommend that you try to limit the number of competencies you include, and ideally only choose 3-4 essential ones. There are several reasons for this. Among other things, it takes a lot of time to assess each competence in an interview, and most people spend 10-20 minutes per competency - which can make interviews with many competencies very long. It is also statistically more difficult to find someone who scores highly in all competencies the more competencies you include. For this reason, be a bit strict in your assessment of whether all competencies are equally important.

When to use motivational assessments

Assessing motivation is best suited at the very end of the recruitment process. These assessments tell us something about what motivates and drives each individual candidate at work. When you have your final candidates we are already relatively confident that they will succeed in the job role, but will they thrive?

Motivational assessments can be used as a conversation tool to clarify expectations between the employer and the potential new employee, and if you have the time and resources to include this in the process, it will be very useful for both parties. The results from the assessment and interview can also be used in connection with the onboarding of the new employee and will thus be an important tool for the immediate manager.

Contact us if you want to discuss

Sometimes it can be nice to just discuss a bit about a job role and which tests to choose. Maybe you want to use ability tests but think your candidates will oppose them, or maybe you are struggling to choose between two competencies and can't quite make up your mind. Our support team can assist with this, and you are most welcome to contact us for a chat.

Contact us by e-mail: kontakt@aon-assessment.com

Contact us by telephone: 22 36 10 35