Changing pre-hire assessment provider? 5 things to consider

Your pre-hire assessment provider plays a vital role in the recruitment process. It’s responsible for helping you to identify the best fit candidates in your recruitment process and helps your recruitment team to work strategically and efficiently. Changing pre-hire assessment providers can be overwhelming, especially if you’re not clear on what alternative solutions are available on the market. Below, we’ll be discussing five key things to consider when changing your pre-hire assessment provider to help you make the switch in confidence. 

Why change pre-hire assessment providers? 

Many companies go through transitions to determine which pre-hire assessment provider works best for their hiring needs. For example, if you aren’t currently seeing strong retention or good performance from new hires, you may be prompted to change your hiring criteria and/or assessment type. There are many other alternative reasons behind these types of changes as well, including: 

• Poor candidate experience. This can be especially true if the provider isn’t offering a candidate-first, tailored experience. You’ll want to avoid off-the-shelf assessments as much as possible for a better candidate experience overall. 
• A shift in assessment use. You may only be using assessments mid-way through the hiring process, and want to benefit from using them at the top of the recruitment model. Inertia to explore this with your provider is common if you are working within a pay-per-candidate or pay-per-test pricing model.
• Poor candidate matching. Jobs change, as does company culture and the needs of the business. Your old assessments may not be identifying the right things in candidates so needs refreshing.
• Save money. You may just be looking for a more affordable or higher quality solution at a fairer price, if so it may be time to assess your next pre-hire assessment provider. 

5 things to consider when switching assessment vendors.

Below are five items to consider when changing pre-hire assessment providers. 

1. Learn from your previous assessment design process 

Just because you are switching pre-hire assessment providers, doesn’t mean that you have to up-end your entire recruitment and selection process. Some attributes and some questions may be highly predictive of hiring success in your business. If so, work with your new provider to ensure they can be carried forward into the new assessment. Before making the swap, consider working with the team to collaborate and determine which elements worked the best, and what’s worth keeping.

2. Maintain data integrity throughout the transition process 

Prior to making your switch, consider creating a plan of action with your team to ensure that no hiring data or assessment data is lost. It’s unlikely that the new vendor will require it, however, you may want to keep statistics on predictive validity, new hire retention, and quality of hire. You may also consider reaching out to your vendor for additional resources, as they may be able to assist you with the transition process in a more hands-on way.

3. Consider integration capabilities with your applicant tracking system 

Most applicant tracking systems (ATSs) are integration-friendly to assessment vendors. However, it’s important to consider if your new pre-hire assessment provider will be able to integrate into your current framework to ensure a seamless candidate experience. Ideally, your candidates shouldn’t be made aware of the change unless it directly affects them. If integration isn’t required then ensure the new vendor has an easy-to-use dashboard for sending assessments and can provide training if needed. 

4. Review the length of your assessments

The length of a pre-hire assessment can impact candidate completion rates and candidate experience. It’s important that the length of any assessment feels appropriate to the role being recruited.  

You may also want to consider whether you typically have a surplus of candidates to choose from. If finding candidates is scarce, you may consider shortening your assessment to make it a bit more accessible to a wider pool of prospects. The complexity of the role also has an impact on the length; the more complex the role the more questions will need to be asked to validate someone’s capability. If you aren’t sure where your assessment falls, your new assessment vendor should know what questions to ask.

5. Customer service and other key elements 

Choosing your next assessment provider is more than just finding your next vendor — you’re moving forward with a strategic business partner. Because of this, you’ll want to explore shared objectives and how the vendor will help you achieve them. You may be looking for certain elements of support or provisions, including: 

• Available candidate support
• Technical support for users
• Assessment reviews and updates to your assessments
• Quarterly reviews with key stakeholders 
• Data analysis and reporting capabilities 

If you are looking for something specific, or wish to have a customised experience for your candidates, you may consider letting your prospective pre-hire assessment providers know so that they can draft up a Service Level Agreement for you.

If you’re looking for a pre-hire assessment solution for your volume hiring framework then ThriveMap was created to offer personalised assessment solutions to corporations ready to take the next step in refining their hiring process. For more information about how ThriveMap could help you, we encourage you to reach out to us directly via our website.