6 Common Questions About Pre-Employments

6 common questions when setting up or reviewing your pre-employment process

Pre-employment assessments have been in use for quite some time now and are becoming a popular facet of the hiring process. The tests offer an efficient way to gather insight into the capabilities of prospective employees. They can allow you to filter a pool of candidates and choose the candidates best suited to your company’s culture.

Hiring the wrong person for the wrong job can lead to higher turnover rates, a lose-lose situation for both the employer and employee.

Setting up the pre-employment process

Setting up and managing the pre-employment process can seem complex and confusing for most people. To ensure successful integration, recruiters should understand the organisation’s objectives and the limitations that must be accounted for and managed during the implementation process.

A careful review of the existing hiring process is critical. It gives recruiters the ability to identify gaps in the current hiring practices and key factors for success. However, properly selecting, implementing, and evaluating pre-employment can be a pretty daunting prospect for most people.

Below are some of the most commonly asked question about pre-employment assessments:

1. Does a GP need to perform a pre-employment assessment? 

Do you really need a doctor to assess you? 99% of the time, the answer is no. So why pay the savage hourly rate. Don’t let the shiny clinics fool you; the quality of the assessment is what’s important.

2. Are pre-employment assessments expensive? 

Generally, the cost of pre-employment testing is largely dependent upon the size of your organisation. Still, if you get to the point, the assessments can be quite affordable. That’s why it helps to have a deep understanding of company culture and objectives and ensure your tests are specific to the job role.

Don’t under test but definitely don’t over test. If you overestimate the testing protocol, you may never recruit, costing you both time and money, not to mention the expense of another pre-employment assessment.

3. How do I calculate a return on investment for pre-employment assessments?

Pre-employment testing is an important part of the risk management process. Not only does it improve the quality of hire, but it can also significantly enhance your bottom line. The best way to evaluate the ROI of your pre-employment process is in terms of productivity and quality, employee turnover and absenteeism, resource utilisation and risk of legal challenges.

A quality pre-employment strategy should result in incremental revenue from increased productivity and sizeable cost savings from reduced employee turnover and legal compensation.

4. How do you ensure pre-employment assessments are fit for purpose? 

Before setting up a pre-employment assessment, you should build a proper foundation on which to base implementation. Carrying out a Job Task Analysis (JTA) can help you identify the various elements –knowledge, skills and abilities–required to perform the job.  

• Ensure you have an up to date JTA.
• Ensure your JTA represents the role accurately.
• Find the most physical component of the job and test to these limits.
• Find testing protocols that have normative data that has been tested.

Once you have created a job profile with a complete description of the skills, work activities, and abilities associated with a given position, selecting the most suitable tests becomes easier.

5. Does it become harder to recruit when you make pre-employment assessments mandatory?

Pre-employment testing has long been touted as a hiring hurdle. But while it may constrict your talent pool, it ensures that you create a healthy, capable and productive workforce. Getting prospective employees to participate is actually easier than it seems. If you demonstrate the value of the assessment and ensure that the process is user-friendly, employees will be more open to the process, ensuring buy-in and success.

6. What are the other benefits of pre-employment assessments?

Pre-employment assessments offer wide-ranging benefits that streamline the hiring process and strengthen an entire organisation by increasing the likelihood that new employees will be successful in their positions.

A comprehensive pre-employment assessment can allow you to align your employee selection process and desired business outcomes such as increased productivity, higher customer satisfaction, and increased employee retention. Pre-employments also help reduce organisation’s onboarding time and expenses ensuring a more efficient, less time-consuming hiring process.

In addition to helping your company achieve various business outcomes, pre-employment testing can also enhance equitability and your organisation’s employee selection process’s legal defensibility.

At Recovery Partners, our team is dedicated to providing accurate pre-employment assessments for a range of industries. Our qualified assessors can help you efficiently and effectively set up and review your pre-employment process.

Our services are available in multiple locations nationwide. For more information, you can make enquiries here.

Our consultants love to have a chat, so go ahead and give us a call on 1300 OHS RTW (647 789) or email enquiries@rrp.com.au