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Employment Testing
Hiring new employees is a difficult task.
In a short time, with very little information,
you must asses an applicants fit with a job's
requirements and the culture of your company.
There are a variety of tests that you can
help you screen job applicants, such as the
following:
- Skills tests assess an applicant’s knowledge, skills,
or abilities in a specific field. Typing
skill is one example. Knowledge of computer
programming languages is another. The list
of fields that can be tested is virtually
endless.
- Aptitude tests judge general abilities and intelligence,
rather than skills in a specific field. Some
of these tests are geared towards helping
you understand how quick a learner the applicant
might be when faced with a new job or unfamiliar
challenges and/or what types of jobs might
be best suited for them.
- Psychological and personality tests try to uncover other important facets of
the person, such as leadership
qualities,
initiative, creativity, competitiveness,
cooperativeness, conscientiousness,
introversion/extroversion,
ambition, and so forth. Persons
with the
requisite skills and/or aptitude
may be inappropriate
if they will be unhappy on
the job, if they
are difficult to manage, or
if they cannot
interact properly with fellow
employees and
customers.
Before implementing a job test for applicants,
seek legal counsel to understand what sort
of testing is or is not allowed by local,
state, or federal law. Pay particular attention
to limitations on testing imposed by the
Americans With Disabilities Act.
If the test that you want to administer is
legal, be aware of its limitations. Few,
if any, tests are foolproof. Skills tests
tend to be the most reliable. The results
of psychological and personality tests can
be most open to interpretation. Aptitude
tests
tend to fall between these extremes of certainty.
In all cases, inspect closely the statistical
proof from the testing service about the
test’s effectiveness. |
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