In today’s competitive labour market which is full of applicants for every single job, it becomes difficult for companies and HR managers to screen the candidates and choose the best for the job. 1000 interviews cannot be conducted for a single post neither can group discussions be taken for so many applicants. In such situations, aptitude, skill, personality, etc. types of tests are the only way to rescue.
There are various types of tests that are used nowadays by companies which are at times modified and customized as per their needs and job requirements. There are various firms who work on this and design admission aptitude tests, job aptitude test, etc. Though these tests are prevailing in the recruitment market yet there is still a question that, “Are these tests actually helpful in predicting the success rate of employees?”
The various advantages and reasons why aptitude tests are beneficial are as follows:
- These tests are designed in a way to provide accurate results and they also have the potential to predict the success of employees as they help to identify the right candidate for the job.
- They are helpful in predicting the perfect candidate for both situations i.e. a new hire or a promotion.
- These tests also assess the strengths and weakness of a candidate. Interviews don’t always get into the deep look of the candidates’ personality, but when combined with such tests, employers can get better insight of the applicants.
- Interviews where can give biased results, aptitude tests are completely objective and give unbiased and accurate results on the basis of a programmed analysis of the answers provided by the candidates.
- Job aptitude tests are also a platform where a candidates skills are examined as per the position/post they have applied for.
Though there are some disadvantages too, such as-
- These tests are costly to develop and also need special administration which further adds to the cost.
- They need to be tailored and customized for every single position and designation as each job requires different skills and these tests need to analyze them.
- These tests need to be updated regularly as they need to be current to be relevant.
- These tests are also time taking so companies need to manage this and not waste too much time in this, as for every business time is money.
There are various types of aptitude tests such as:
- Skill tests- These are tests who examine technical skills who are typically easy tasks related to the job.
- Knowledge tests –These tests analyze how much a candidate knows about a particular job and aspects related to it.
- Ability tests –These tests are used to measure the mental ability and also the cognitive ability of the candidate.
- Personality tests – There are various types of personality tests that firms use. Still there are basic five factors on which they are based: Openness, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.