I’m about as big an advocate for skills-based hiring as you’ll find, but I’ll also be the first to admit that there are plenty of ways to do skills-based hiring badly. 81% of employers are using some form of skills-based hiring in 2024 – an impressive number – but the “some form of” part of this sentence is crucial. Why? Because I suspect that the majority of that 81% aren’t doing it very well.
This highlights a crucial next step in skills-based hiring development. We’ve seen it rise rapidly in popularity, we’ve seen the US federal government commit to hiring for skills, and we’ve seen companies remove degree requirements but not actually change how they hire. From where I’m standing, it’s clear that next we need a greater focus on getting skills-based hiring right. Here are my quick-fire tips.
Don’t cause unnecessary anxiety
We surveyed over 1,000 employees this year and found that 15% of them prefer a hiring process that doesn’t include skills-based assessments. When we asked them why, 57% of them told us that it was because of test anxiety, 52% said that it was because they ended up taking assessments that weren’t relevant, and 30% said it was because they took up too much time.
So, firstly, do what you can to alleviate test anxiety. You can’t control someone’s feelings towards a skills test, but you can create transparency around the process and make it less intimidating for your candidates. Asking them to complete a test without giving them any info as to why, for example, or without being transparent about salary, is a no-no. Explain why the test is important and worth their time. Make it clear that accommodations are available, and let them know that they’ll be able to see their results even if their application hasn’t progressed.
Keep it relevant (and multi-measure)
Create relevant, multi-measure assessments (i.e. assessments that measure multiple job-relevant skill areas). This one is as important for you as it is for your candidates – if you’re not using multiple job-relevant skills tests, the results simply will not indicate job success.
A solid job analysis is the underpinning of any effective hiring process, and you’re wasting everyone’s time if you’re not getting this right. Validating one skill area alone is not enough; an effective assessment must paint a holistic picture of what your candidates can do relative to what’s needed on the job.
Use personality tests carefully
Personality tests are a valid way to get to know a candidate – who they are, how they see the world, and how they respond to things. But they shouldn’t be used to make hiring decisions because they don’t measure job-relevant skills. To keep things skills-based – rather than personality-based – you should only use the results of personality tests to inform how you interview and onboard candidates. Using them otherwise is wrong and there are legal consequences.
Test timing matters
Keep your timings down. At TestGorilla we recommend our customers keep their assessments below an hour. Not only is this respectful of candidates’ time, but it also adheres to science-backed assessment best practices – cognitive load theory (CLT) suggests that our working memory, or the mental space where we process new information, has limited capacity when processing new information. Overloading this capacity – which longer tests may inadvertently do – can lead to decreased performance or even inaccurate assessment outcomes.
Automate assessment evaluation
Your approach to skills-based hiring will likely differ depending on how many applicants you’re dealing with, but we do know that 41% of employers struggle with evaluating a large number of assessment results. There are plenty of tools at your disposal that can help with this. Most third-party pre-employment testing platforms have benchmarking tools that will automatically rank and shortlist candidates.
Validate skills first
Last but not least, the real key to saving time, cutting hiring costs, and removing bias is to test for skills before you screen resumes. Data shows that employers are happier with their hires when they do this, and it ensures your candidates have a chance to show their skills before you make a judgment based on their resume (as we know, degree qualifications and years of experience are poor predictors of job success).
If you’re using pre-employment testing tools to validate skills, then you also get more for your money this way. Our customers don’t actually send assessments to as many candidates as we’d like – the average is something like 5 candidates per assessment, indicating that employers are primarily using our tests after resume screening and/or interviews.
It’s actually something of a myth that candidates don’t like being tested first. What they don’t like is irrelevant tests, a lack of transparency and communication, and unnecessarily long assessments. If you’re getting those things right, try using skills tests before you screen resumes. I promise you won’t regret it.
