How Can Behavioral Assessments Help You Make Better Hires?

Hiring new candidates to fill a certain role can often seem like a game of hit-and-miss. You hope you’ve made the right decision rather than costing the company more money, time, and resources by making a bad hire. But is there a way to take the guesswork out of it?

Modern technology offers many solutions for better hiring, including online recruitment software that automatically filters applications based on quantifiable factors such as skills, education and experience. However, you should combine these tools with behavioral assessments to make sure you’re hiring the right candidate for each role.

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Here’s how behavioral assessments can help you improve hiring decisions as well as increase retention levels within your organization:

1. Analyze Each Candidate’s Viability – The results from behavioral assessments can help you gauge the likelihood of each candidate’s ability to thrive within your organization based on “non-quantifiable” factors. Some examples include how well they might fit in with your company’s culture and work environment, how well they get along with others on the team, whether their work style matches what you need from them, their growth potential within the organization, etc. If you want to hire a good fit, these are as important as skills and experience.
2. Make Talent-Based Hire Decisions – Many times, candidates’ latent talents can make them a better fit than someone with identical quantifiable merits. For instance, you may have shortlisted two applicants for a position, and one of them seems more motivated than the other. This candidate is likely to be more productive than the other. Of course, it’s no use hiring someone who doesn’t have the required skills, so behavioral assessments should always be combined with technical ones.
3. Find Candidates with Specific Traits – Employers and team leaders find that a worker’s skills, qualifications, and experience sometimes aren’t enough to make them a good fit for their team. Most employees tend to perform better when they’re surrounded by like-minded individuals, or an environment where they feel more at home. Behavioral assessments can help you build a team that will work well together, based on preferred personality traits, temperament, and interests.
4. Structure the Interview Process – Traditional, unstructured interview methods rarely provide accurate insights into a candidate’s suitability. To reduce turnover, replacement costs and cost-per-hire through poor hiring decisions, it’s important to have a structured and well-planned process for interviewing candidates. Personalizing interview questions according to natural candidate behavior and behavioral requirements for each role gives you better insights into how well they will perform if they’re hired.
5. Fit Workers in the Right Position – People work harder if they feel like they’re where they belong. Technical or skill-based assessments can help you understand whether a certain candidate is qualified, but behavioral assessments can help you make sure they’re placed in the right position. For instance, if a certain applicant displays a high aptitude for leadership and problem-solving, they would be better suited for a position where they can guide others and help them be more productive.
6. Improve Hiring & HR Management – Along with improving pre-employment testing for candidates, behavioral assessments can also help boost employee development within the organization. For instance, if your Applicant Tracking Software includes survey questions about what motivates candidates, you can analyze this data to understand how to boost engagement with potential and current employees. Use the insights provided by employee management and recruiting software to give your workers the encouragement and training opportunities they need.
7. Maximize Worker Retention Levels – The insights you receive about employees through behavioral assessments can help you increase retention rates as well. For instance, these findings can be shared with managers and team leaders to help them understand the best way to provide feedback or coach team members. Since every person has a different preference, managers can personalize their style and approach for more effective communication. This also helps managers better connect with each team member.

eSkill has partnered with several behavioral test providers and is now offering a range of behavioral assessment tests for employment that measure candidates’ and employees’ full potential for success. This means, in addition to skills assessment tests, eSkill can now provide you with behavioral assessment tests that offer you an integrated approach to identifying a candidate’s capabilities. By including behavioral pre-employment assessment tests in your selection cycle, you will have an integrated approach from prescreening to job analysis, and you will be able to cover all your skills testing needs. Request an eSkill test demo here.