Testing Candidates

It is normally best for testing to take place between first and second interview for two reasons.

Firstly, it is a waste of time and resources testing candidates who do not pass the first interview.

Secondly, you might like to explore the test results with the candidates at the second interview. There are are several type of test you should consider.

Ability Test : There are probably most appropriate when recruiting inexperienced staff. They are generic in nature and will normally cover basic skills such as numeracy and literacy.

In Tray Exercises: These tests are extremely powerful as they test candidates ability to perform specific aspects of the job and, as such, a well developed test can help to provide an accurate assessment of a candiate's current competence level. Common examples include a translation excercise to test foreign language skills, database compilation and interrogation excercise to test IT skills and a workload prioritisation excercise to test organizational skills. More traditionally, you might be familiar with the old copy of typing excercise to test typing speed and accuracy and, increasing, presentations are being used in the recruitment process to test among other things. communication skills.

Psychometric Test:

These are frequently and wrongly referred to as personality tests. Psychometric test do not just test personality, they test preferences and character traits. This area is a key dimension of recruiting the right person. However, most psychometric test used in the recruitment process are potentially flawed in that they are solely based on self completion questionnaires. This fact does not make them invalid. Indeed they are extremely useful tools so long as you do not rely on them in isolation. The best way to use this test is in conjunction with the interview so that you can verify what the test is indicating during the interview.