Know Your Employees

Pre-employment Tests have been made very popular in the last century by the multinational companies. Nowadays, both large and small organizations use this kind of testing to pick out the suitable candidates for a particular job profile. These tests are conducted to assure that the prospective employees fit in with the organization’s structure and work environment, and can identify with the values and goals. Since the current job culture involves working for long hours in tandem with a large number of colleagues, it is extremely crucial that each employee be comfortable enough to reach his or her potential. This ensures not only a healthy work environment, but also assures the long term productivity and financial success of the organization.

Pre-employment tests can be of various kinds:

* Skills tests
* Aptitude tests
* Psychological tests
* Personality tests
* Honesty tests
* Medical tests
* Drug tests

Aptitude, psychological and personality tests are conducted to gain valuable insight into the candidate’s general abilities, personality, and psyche. However, it is necessary to screen these tests scientifically to ensure validity.

Honesty tests are not viable under a lot of circumstances and are generally avoided by employers. This is particularly true in the case of businesses that provide armored car services, alarm or guard services, or ones that manufacture, distribute, or dispense pharmaceuticals.

Medical tests are generally conducted only after a candidate has been made an offer to join the organization. However, to prevent a violation of the law, it must be ensured that all the employees in a similar work profile be required to undergo the tests.

Drug tests too should be conducted only in cases where the employee is recruited for a job that involves public safety.

Personality testing, inspite of certain drawbacks, can prove to be tremendously useful in screening applicants for employment. It is based on the premise is that if the test scores correlate with the job performance, it would be economically beneficial for the employer to recruit employees based on that test. Validated pre-employment tests provide a more objective evaluation of a candidate, and can be a lot more effective than structured interviews or behavioral interviews.

The personality tests, tests of general intelligence and job-knowledge tests are used for various purposes such as:

* Training and development
* Customer service testing
* Career assessment
* Reducing employee turnover
* Leadership development
* Applicant screening

Good pre-employment personality assessments can be a great way for the organizations to choose prospective employees.

By: ajay shringi

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McQuaig offers a proven web-based package of behavioral assessments for pre-employment testing.