Pre-employment Testing: Its role in the final decision to hire

You have made it through the final rounds of interviews, you have acquired finalist status, the job offer is almost in your hands but there is just one more thing – pre-employment testing.

The role of pre-employment testing varies greatly across employers. In fact not all employers use testing in the hiring decision. For those employers that do use it, the weight it holds in the decision also varies.

The good news is that if you are asked to undergo testing, you know you are a finalist. Testing can be very expensive for employers so they wouldn’t ask you to go through the process unless they were seriously interested in you.

Pre-employment testing can range from an hour to a day long. Sometimes it is all on the computer and sometimes you are interviewed by an organizational psychologist. It can occur on site at the employers or off site at the testing agency.

The kind of test varies also by types of job. Typically they are a combination of aptitude tests, or general intelligence and personality tests. Sometimes an “in-box” exercise is included which tests your decision making and prioritization skills.

Employers use the results of these tests often to see how you fit with the role you are being considered for and how well you fit in with the team.

A few tips I offer clients who are undergoing pre-employment testing.

1. Try not to take the test on the same day that you have interviews, it can be too exhausting.

2. Do not try to outsmart the test. There are factors built in to standardized testing to test for this.

3. Understand how much the test results are weighted in the hiring decision.

So don’t be intimidated by pre-employment testing, view it as just one step closer to that job offer.

Good Luck