10 Key Benefits of Testing Candidates When Hiring

Understanding and articulating the benefits of testing candidates to key stakeholders is the first step on the road to improving your hiring process. These benefits will need to written down, turned into actionable metrics and then measured in order to demonstrate the ROI of any new candidate testing tools purchased.

According to Gartner, recruiters spend approximately one-quarter of their time on candidate screening activities, such as reading through a big pile of resumes. It’s time that can be saved by using effective pre-hire assessments.

Getting budget approved and senior-level buy-in to use technology as a more robust way to hire can be tricky. We’ve compiled these ten compelling benefits and statistics to help you get that all-important budgetary sign-off.

10 Key Benefits of Testing Candidates

1. Bad hires cost more than you think

Statistic – The cost of a bad hiring decision can be upto 3.2 times their annual salary.

Fro example a poor hire at mid-management level with a salary of £42,000 costs a business more than £132,000.

Source – Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) report, Perfect match: Making the right hire and the cost of getting it wrong, 2017

2. Hiring new talent is costly and time-consuming

Statistic – Firms spend on average spend $4,500 (around £3,600) on direct recruitment costs for each new hire made. This figure doesn’t take into account any lost productivity while the position remains unfilled or the cost of getting it wrong which is significantly more expensive.

Source – SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) https://blog.namely.com/why-candidate-experience-is-more-important-than-ever

3. Hiring is taking longer than ever before

Statistic – The average length of the interview process has almost doubled since 2010, despite many organisations implementing new technology to make the process easier.

Source – Glassdoor report, June 2015 https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/time-to-hire-study/

4. Hiring managers are being swamped by applications

Statistic – Each job offer attracts an average of 250 applications, with between 4 and 6 candidates being called for interview.

Source – Glassdoor: https://zety.com/blog/hr-statistics

5. Traditional interviewing techniques aren’t working

Statistic – A typical employment interview only leads to a successful hire 57% of the time. Using assessments can greatly improve hiring outcomes.

Source – ESkill: https://www.eskill.com/blog/best-worst-predictors/

6. Candidates actually prefer to take pre-hire assessments

Statistic – 96% of people would prefer to take an assessment that communicated the realities of the role and the organisation as part of the hiring process

Source – ThriveMap: Dreams vs Reality Whitepaper Research, Feb 2019 https://thrivemap.io/dreams-v-reality/

7. Candidate tests save you time

Statistic – Using candidate testing can reduce time-to-hire by up to 50%.

Source – TalentLyft https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/287/how-pre-employment-assessment-tool-makes-the-recruiting-process-faster

8. Candidate testing has a positive impact on new hire retention

Statistic – Companies using technology-based candidate testing have 39% lower staff turnover.

Source – Study by Aberdeen Group, 2015 https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/mapping-the-wild-west-of-pre-hire-assessment/

9. Employer branding is becoming more important

Statistic – 80% of HR leaders say that their employer brand impacts significantly on their ability to attract the best talent; customised tests can help communicate your brand and culture.

Source – Undercover Recruiter https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/recruitment-statistics/

10. Getting the candidate experience right matters

Statistics – 48% of applicants say the candidate testing experience affects how favourably they view a potential employer. 96% of new hires prefer to take an assessment that tells them about the role and culture ahead of joining a company.

Sources – Career Builder https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/recruitment-statistics/, ThriveMap Whitepaper: Dreams vs Reality

Hopefully, these benefits have provided you with some clear benefits and a compelling value proposition for testing candidates before you hire them. Next, you’ll need to find the right assessment tools for your organisation, so download our free Ebook: The Buyers’ Guide to Pre-Hire Assessments