Sometimes making a hiring decision can feel a bit like playing darts, trying to hit a bull’s eye, while wearing a blindfold.  How do you know if someone is going to be a fit for a position until they actually start in the position?

Besides doing comprehensive interviewing, using some form of assessment can aid in your decision-making and add some peace of mind that you’ve made the right decision to hire someone.

Confirm Someone’s Skills

Assessments can be skills-based; for example, ensuring someone has the right accounting knowledge, or ability to use certain software.  In order to determine how well a candidate needs to do on an assessment to be deemed successful, it can be a good idea to have current, well-performing employees in the same or similar roles take the assessment to get a sample score.  Based on that sample, employers can define a range of acceptable scores that candidates need to meet in order to be hired.  We offer our clients the use of the Performance Assessment Network (PAN), which has over 80 skills-based assessments available ranging from accounting to managerial to sales knowledge.

Assess Behavioral Tendencies

Behavior-based questions have long been a go-to format for determining how people might behave in a certain situation, but this might not be the best method, as a candidate’s answers may be too well rehearsed, exaggerated, or unclear.  A behavioral assessment can add further clarity to how we might expect someone to behave.  One of our favorites is the Predictive Index® (PI).  What makes the PI unique is that prior to reviewing a candidate’s results, a Job Assessment or Job Profile is created to determine what behaviors are needed for a particular position in a particular company – every job profile is unique.  Once the assessment is complete, a candidate’s results are compared to that specific job profile and if a close match, it’s likely that the candidate will be satisfied with the behaviors needed for the position and that the candidate is capable of meeting position behavioral requirements.

Determine Cultural Fit

As behavioral and competency assessments evolve, companies have the opportunity to create fully customized assessments that can measure virtually any characteristic, including cultural fit, or unusual job requirements.

If your hiring method could use some improvements, or if you’d like some additional transparency about whether a candidate is a suitable fit, consider incorporating an assessment prior to making an offer.

At Purple Ink, we are able to help with any of your assessment needs and can be an affordable add-on to your current recruiting process!