The Importance of Skills Assessment When Hiring for a Small Business

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Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels

When hiring, we often look over a resume, do an interview, and hire from there. However, resumes often don’t tell the whole story. Whether because the candidate wasn’t wholly truthful, or didn’t feel a piece of information was relevant, resumes are fallible.

By using skills assessments in your hiring process, you’re able to find specialized skills, confirm skills, and even open up new doors for your business.

Why Should You Use Skills Assessments When Hiring for Your Small Business?

Specialized Knowledge

You need specialized knowledge that doesn’t always show up on a resume. When hiring for a small business, you need employees with a variety of soft skills that won’t be highlighted by previous experience. Problem-solving skills and creativity will show in skills assessments, showing that they have the necessary skills for the beginning of a business. Getting a new business to thrive requires intricate knowledge. It’s often beneficial to hire people with experience in small start-ups or home businesses. They can see trends and have the experience that others might not. However, these “side-hustles” don’t always make their way onto a resume. Skills assessments can help show this specialized knowledge to you.

Proof of Skills

You need concrete results, fast. The margin for error at the beginning of a small business is uncomfortably small. This means your employees need to have any answers quickly and independently. Skills assessments help differentiate between the people who know the answer in theory and those who can use previous experience to help build your company. This real-world experience is a valuable skill set for your growing business.

Diversify Skill Sets

Companies need to be able to diversify their skill sets and to do that they need employees with diverse yet specific skills. For a new company, diversifying gives a wider range of clients to serve and branch out toward. Skills assessments allow you to narrow down specialized skills in candidates, to show who may have the skills you’re lacking on your team.

Consider your business plan closely: what branches does your plan have? What skills does each branch have? When you have a specific idea of the direction you want to go, skills assessments will help you see who can help you get there. This also helps weed those with high skills from those who lied on their resumes.

Specialized Employees

When your business hinges on offering services, the employees offering those services must be well-versed in the technical details of the service. This means skill-testing them ahead of time to ensure you protect the budding reputation of your small business. Employees need to be able to deliver exactly what you promise they can, and that means knowing you can confidently promise skill sets.

No Training Necessary

Taking time to train employees costs time and money you don’t have at the beginning of your small business. By doing a skills assessment, you can see exactly what knowledge employees already have, and which they don’t. Are the gaps in their knowledge negligible, or will it detract from your business to have to teach them those things?

Skills Assessments to Run

A classic example of skills assessments is example work. Portfolios are a common practice in many industries. Asking for a portfolio of their work or giving them a problem to solve can be a great way to test specialist and creative skills. This can also show soft skills, what daily work will be like from them, and general impressions.

Another great way to test real-world abilities is to bring candidates in for a half-day or a full day for a test period. Not only does this show you their skills and abilities, but it can also help show the applicant what the environment and atmosphere of your company are like.

Skills Assessments Make Your Business Stronger

While every company has different needs, niches, and strategies, being sure that applicants have skills before being hired has a plethora of benefits. From strengthening the reputation and culture of your business to branching out specialist wings of your business, skills assessments help you grow your business.