It is no secret that smart people make better employees. The talent that has the intelligence to understand what needs to be done and is not afraid to take on challenges is no doubt the best hire you can do for your company. But how do you pick one from the pool of candidates? One of the best ways available is through aptitude tests.
There is a correlation between job performance and aptitude so you should consider using these tests in your pre-employment assessment approach. Aptitude tests can add a layer of efficiency to the hiring process as they can lead to an increase in retention rates, but at the same time decrease the use of company resources and money. A cognitive test used in the recruitment process can help to evaluate the ability of the candidate to think on their feet.
So no wonder aptitude tests have become so popular with recruiters – since they can help to hire better employees. Actually, more than 75% of organizations use at least one type of pre-employment skill test in the hiring process. Aptitude tests are used to determine and measure the cognitive skills of the candidate and help to make the recruitment process easier to navigate.
What are aptitude tests?
With aptitude tests, you can measure how the candidate thinks, not only the knowledge they possess. You can measure their attention to detail, their problem-solving skills, verbal reasoning, critical thinking, logical reasoning, reading comprehension, numerical reasoning, decision-making skills, and solution generation.
These tests can help you filter out the candidates that are unable to retain newly learned information and are having a hard time processing information efficiently.
Different types of aptitude tests
Usually, aptitude tests consist of multiple-choice questions, mathematical and logic puzzles, and reading comprehension questions. They can either test one aspect or use a challenge to test a combination of all skills.
These tests will help to evaluate a candidate’s reasoning, verbal, and quantitative skills, so you can discover the logical ability and thinking pattern.
How to hire the best tech talent using aptitude tests
First, you need to choose the right cognitive skills tests based on the role you are hiring for and the most important asset of skills for the job. Then, create a benchmark to compare new scores – you can test your existing employees and use the highest performance scores as your benchmarks. This way, you can shortlist the candidates that meet these requirements.
After you test the candidates, evaluate the results, and see which are closest to the benchmarks you have set. Then select the ones that meet the requirements and proceed to the interview part. During the interview, discuss the test with the candidate – mark their strong and week points and how they plan to work with these in their job role.
In summary, using cognitive tests can be the best way to save time and money as they allow you to pre-screen the candidates and interview only those that showed satisfactory results. They can be used to predict the job performance of a candidate as they evaluate how the candidate processes new information and how quick is to make decisions.
