Skills Testing Ensures Better Hiring

Workers whose fingers fly over an Excel spreadsheet or who immediately find the perfect Microsoft Office application to use for a clerical project are not in their jobs by chance. Their skills helped them arrive at their destination—making their leaders appear very smart or very lucky.

Luck is fine as far as it goes, but at a time when technical skill is critical to so many roles, relying on good luck is foolish and irresponsible. Skills tests enable employers to hire smart and adequately prepare for employee training and coaching.

Managers apply these tests just as they do other Profiles assessments. They are effective in selecting employees, increasing productivity, enhancing employee engagement levels, and reducing turnover. Astute leaders also use them to give new employees a jumpstart on their jobs, to reduce training costs and to assess the skill level of a team.

Many of the tests are available at several levels, including Standard, Basic, Advanced, Essentials, and Time Solver. The Standard is the recommended test for most positions that use the applications organizations test for. It covers the 30 to 35 most often used and most critical tasks that a worker needs to be rated proficient, and provides questions at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

Here are some of the skills areas employers can get information about when assessing job candidates:
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Language proficiency
• Clerical
• Call Center
• Accounting and finance
• Medical and nursing
• Legal
• Industrial
• Computer literacy
• Retail sales
• Food service
• Information technology

Hiring managers who believe they can rely on a listing of resume accomplishments need to consider this: HR experts believe about half of all people lie or exaggerate their skills on their resumes.

If you don’t have a lot of time or money to expend on training employees on software programs, doesn’t it make sense to know what they know in advance? If you are an employer who wants to spend training dollars in a targeted area, doesn’t it make sense to know which employees actually need skills training?

Hawthorne Services now offers Profiles International Skills Tests!  Contact Karen Kehr at 574-596-3058 or Chuck Bower at 574-361-6166 for more information.

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