Job Skills Assessment Tests: 20 Important Facts you need to know

The job skills assessment test has been developed by professionals as an excellent predictor of a candidate’s ability to execute tasks needed for a role. The test helps you achieve your goal of selecting the most competent candidates.

Some employers may require that you also take a job skills assessment test to prove your abilities, even though it’s essential to detail both soft and hard skills on your resume.

A job skills assessment test can be useful at any phase of your career like when you begin your career, come back to work, or advance your career.

You can build up transferable skills you are good at over time through work, life, education, as well as volunteering and applying them to a range of jobs.

You may want to take the job skills assessment test to help you discover what stimulates your interests, identify your skills, and find out what you can do with the skills you have.

Usually at the initial step, once you’ve applied for a job, your abilities, personality type, and judgment skills are confirmed by the employer using the job skills assessment test.

20 Important Facts about Job Skills Assessment tests you need to know

Here are important facts and tips about the job skills assessment test you need to know to give an excellent performance in it:

1. What is a job skills assessment test?

A job skills assessment test is designed to help recruiters measure the skills of their job candidates and employees to ensure that these candidates and current employees possess the required skills to successfully execute their tasks.

A job skills assessment test is most commonly used in the hiring process by most employers to assess whether candidates have the skills necessary to carry out different and essential aspects of a job.

Several employers who want to narrow down their list of candidates to know which ones will be invited to a job interview and the ones to be eliminated ask their applicants to take the job skills assessment test.

2. What you should know about the job skills assessment test

The job skills assessment test is used to determine candidates’ preferred temperament style and their aptitude in certain areas such as numeracy and verbal skills.

You need to know everything you must learn about the job skills assessment test, such as what a job skills assessment test is and how to choose the best skill assessment tool.

The entire hiring process of the job skills assessment test is necessary to know.

3. Why do companies use the job skills assessment test?

Companies use the job skills assessment test to evaluate the types of skills you’ll need for a specific job.

For example, tests that show you understand ideas and concepts that are often visualized with the use of diagrams and imagery are presented to candidates applying for an IT role.

When big enterprises are looking for specific personalities and behavioral traits for a certain position, they make use of the job skills assessment test to find suitable candidates.

The following reasons why employing organizations use the job skills assessment test are listed by the Society for Human Resources (SHRM), such as:

• To appoint new employees
• To assess current employees for various roles
• To discover employees with high leadership potential
• To make comparison of talents in an organization against environmental or industry standards
• To understand talent strengths and gaps
• To develop employees’ long-term value.

4. Categories of job skills assessment test

There are many categories of job skills assessment tests, including:

• Personality tests
• Psychometric tests
• Integrity assessments
• Job knowledge tests
• General mental ability assessments
• Situational judgment tests.

5. How is the job skills assessment test compared to other assessment methods?

There are a lot of methods used by employers to evaluate their potential or existing employees’ skills.

Some of these methods are popular and have been listed here for measuring job candidates’ or employees’ skills:

• Resume reviews
• Job interviews
• Reference checks
• Job simulation exercise, including presentation, writing assignment, mock sales call, etc.
• Job skills assessment tests.

A job skills assessment test should produce an obvious score, rating, description, and category.

That’s just why the test can define and assess candidates’ and employees’ skills and abilities in a more impartial way.

In addition, the job skills assessment test has many benefits as well compared to other assessment methods and will help since current employees would like to present themselves in the best possible way.

6. How common is the job skills assessment test?

In the last few years, the percentage of employers who use the job skills assessment test has grown greatly.

Eighty-two percent of companies these days use some form of a pre-employment skills assessment test.

Furthermore, job skills assessment tests guarantee a great candidate experience. From their homes, candidates can access and solve these skills assessment tests online at the time most convenient for them.

7. How to decide on the appropriate type of job skills assessment test?

There are various types of job skills assessment tests that evaluate diverse soft and technical skills.

Knowing which one to use depends on the particular job position you are looking to fill and the skills required to successfully perform in that role.

You need to first define the most relevant skills for the position you are looking to fill in order to choose the appropriate type of job skills assessment test. That’s just the simple thing to do to achieve this aim.

What other things should you know about hiring the right candidates?

When hiring the right candidates, you should also select the types of individuals that will be compatible with your company culture.

You may create and conduct employee onboarding sessions for each new employee in order to realize this.

You can use the response of these individuals to the session to analyze their temperament and psychology towards your company culture.

Therefore, ensure you assess not only their skills when measuring job applicants, but also personality, motivation, and culture fit.

9. How to choose the appropriate job skills assessment tool

It seems quite difficult to select the best job skills assessment tool with so many different providers and tools in the market.

With the aim of helping you make the right decision and find the job skills assessment test tool that will perfectly fit your needs, the tips here will guide you:

• Define your goals and needs

You should ask yourself a few questions if you really want to select the right job skills assessment tool.

These questions include:

– Do you want to assess the skills of your existing employees or your candidates?

– Are your objectives to identify skill gaps in your current employees or to employ the best job candidates?

– How many people do you plan to assess on a monthly and yearly basis?

• Describe the skills you want to assess

Describing the skills you want to assess in your employees or candidates is the second step in choosing your ideal job skills assessment tool.

You should ask yourself whether you want to assess soft or technical skills or both.

There are job skills assessment tools that offer an additional test for both soft and technical skills, although some are specially designed in either soft or technical assessments

After you have made a list of the specific skills you want to assess in your candidates and employees, you’ll start your search by finding a skill assessment tool that provides all the job skills assessment tests you desire.

• Define the characteristics of your ideal job skills assessment tool

There are a few questions you need to ask yourself in order to define the characteristics of your ideal job skills assessment tool. These include:

– Should your ideal job skills assessment tool be systematically validated?

– Can your ideal job skills assessment tool be combined with your applicant tracking system (ATS)?

– Does your ideal job skills assessment test provide 24/7 customer support by telephone or email?

– Does your ideal job skills assessment tool provide the opportunity to customize the skills tests?

– Should your ideal job skills assessment tool offer a great candidate experience?

Also, consider budget limitations when purchasing a job skills assessment tool. This will help you a lot.

• Research the market

You will need to browse the top job skills assessment test providers’ websites and compare them against each other as part of researching the market.

You may create a list of your desired job skills assessment tool characteristics defined in the first three steps. Thus, you can compare various job skills assessment tools much easier and faster.

• Decide between your top three choices

Lastly, take the top three job skills assessment tools from your list for a test drive. Ensure you gain an advantage of these tools as most of them offer a free trial or a demo, so you can compare and measure competing job skills assessment tools from actual experience.

10. Recommended job skills assessment tools

The best job skills assessment tools you can find in the market are included in this section. These include Kandio, eSkill, Devskiller, ThriveMap, Harver, Psycruit, Interview Mocha, The Hire Talent, Codility, Plum, Xobin, Mercer Mettl, Owiwi, and HackerEarth.

11. Hard skills assessment test

This assessment is part of the job skills assessment test used to evaluate an individual’s skills in a particular field, such as math, typing, or software development.

When completing commonly performed work activities, the results of the hard skills assessment test provide valuable information about the capacity of candidates.

12. Work sample test

A work sample test may sometimes be referred to as ‘realistic job previews’ designed as some tasks that employees are expected to carry out in their position, such as technical coding tests, situational judgment tests, and case study presentations.

The results of these tests typically indicate a candidate’s real job performance due to how closely they simulate the actual responsibilities related to the role being applied for.

13. Personality test

A personality test is used to assess specific aspects of a candidate’s personality that can be really useful when selecting employees for a role that requires a specific behavior.

For instance, a well-extroverted individual would be suitable for a role that involves customer interaction, such as sales.

14. Cognitive ability test

A cognitive ability test measures how candidates would perform in more unexpected situations different from the work sample test that measures how applicants would perform in expected, daily scenarios.

This is achieved by assessing a person’s ability to think conceptually when using verbal and numerical reasoning skills.

15. How can employers choose job skills assessment tests?

Several factors should be put into consideration before choosing a job skills assessment test.

Below is a list of steps you must take before making your decision to choose a job skills assessment test:

• Determine their objectives

Employers must first determine what they want to achieve before choosing the best test for the organization.

They should know whether they want to assess present employers or candidates. Is their motive to employ individuals with a particular skillset? These questions will help them guide their decision-making process.

• Decide which aptitudes they want to assess

Employers need to further decide which skills they are hoping to assess, whether soft or technical skills. Some tests specialize in measuring specific skills, although some tests assess both.

• Think about the characteristics of their ideal assessment

Recruiters must decide what they want from the assessment company. For instance, they need to know if the questions are meant to be customized or whether the assessment needs to be scientifically validated.

Their choice will be guided by their preferred characteristics of the assessment’s logistics.

• Research the market

The employer can then start researching the market for their ideal job skills assessment test, after determining their goals, which skills they want to assess, and the characteristics they’re hoping the test will have.

16. Understand yourself by discovering your core skills and careers

In the job skills assessment test, try to answer questions about the things you like to do or are good at. When you understand yourself you can work out what careers you may enjoy working in.

As soon as you complete the test, you will see certain suggestions about roles you may enjoy based on your answers.

17. How much does it cost to take the job skills assessment test?

The job skills assessment test costs approximately $108 to take – as a limit of one assessment per listing. The test, which is available to all your candidates, is cost-effective and provides the kind of solution you desire.

18. Why do you need the job skills assessment test?

Here are some reasons why you need the job skills assessment test. The test will help you in the following ways:

• Filter from a large applicant pool for those who are serious and possess the appropriate skills
• Save time by identifying and interviewing only the appropriate candidates
• Utilize important and constant criteria to objectively filter for the best candidates
• Hire the best by finding out who has the appropriate skills to do the job the best way.

19. How to make job skills assessment test part of your hiring process

It can be enticing to choose a few tests that seem appropriate for your open role and publish them when creating a job skills assessment test.

However, for optimal results, you need to take a more strategic means when integrating the job skills assessment test into your hiring process to ensure you’re assessing for all the appropriate things and hitting your overall hiring objectives.

Here are some tips that will help you make this assessment test part of your hiring process:

• Identify your present gaps and needs
• Determine your hiring goals
• Get the right job skills assessment tool
• Develop a job skills assessment test for your open role
• Offer your job skills assessment test to job candidates
• Modify and regulate your job skills assessment test over time.

20. How much time is given to take the job skills assessment test?

It depends on a number of factors to know the amount of time required for taking the job skills assessment test, including how many tests are administered, the number of questions the employer decides to include, and the time the employer has given to complete the assessment.

Job Skills Assessment Test Practice Questions and Answers

You need to practice sample job skills assessment questions and answers to get familiar with the format of the test you are about to take.

Some of these sample questions and answers have been elaborated here for your knowledge and understanding.

Question 1

What word can you use all the letters in the box to form?

The correct answer is STRATEGIC

A lot of words can be formed with the given letters. The best word would be the one that includes all the letters. Consider a sequence and start with the corners. The sequence is counterclockwise.

Question 2

Which one doesn’t fit in the group?

A 4×6 shape with grey squares on the inside and white squares on the outside was split into 2×2 shapes and 3 of the shapes shown belong to the larger shape and one doesn’t. Which doesn’t fit in the group?

The correct answer is C.

The large shape is shown here, where grey boxes are on the inside of the larger shape

Using a few turns but still stay inside of the larger shape, the shaded part of the three boxes can form a shape.

The shaded parts that can form a rectangle shape are A B and D.

Question 3

In this sequence 5, 5, 10, 15, 25, , , determine which two numbers come next.

A. 30, 35
B. 35, 40
C. 40, 65
D. 75, 95

The correct answer is C (40, 65)

Observe the details of the sequence.

To get the third number, the first number and the second number are added.

5 + 5 = 10

The same process is done again with the fourth and fifth numbers.

5 + 10 = 15
10 +15 = 25

Therefore the same process should be applied to get the next numbers.

15 + 25 = 40
25 + 40 = 65
5, 5, 10, 15, 25, 40, 65

Conclusion

A job skills assessment test is designed to evaluate both candidates’ and employees’ skills required for effective job performance.

The job skills assessment test doesn’t focus on judging personality traits or knowledge; but rather it assesses real skills, most commonly referred to as soft skills and technical skills.

It’s compulsory that you find out what the job skills assessment test is. You need to thoroughly prepare for the test and practice sample questions and answers that portray the true nature of the assessment.