Pre-hire assessments are often a key part of the hiring process, helping employers evaluate candidates’ skills and abilities to ensure they’re the right fit for the job. Over time, assessments have evolved to try to keep pace with the changing talent landscape, leading to a wealth of assessment technology options. This nuanced landscape can be tricky to navigate, so we’re breaking it down to help you make sense of it all.

Key trends in pre-hire assessments:

What started as simple assessments, like typing tests, has evolved to cover nearly every skill, ability, propensity and proficiency under the sun. Most of these shifts reflect a response to changing market conditions, such as skills scarcity or competition for hourly workers. Others reflect advancements in what we’re able to measure, thanks to technology. Here are a few of the key trends to recognize:

1. Shift from hard skills to soft skills: In the past, pre-hire assessments primarily focused on evaluating hard skills, such as technical proficiency. However, there has been a shift toward recognizing the importance of soft skills, including communication, teamwork, adaptability and problem-solving. This evolution has allowed employers to assess a candidate's overall fit and ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues.
2. More comprehensive approach: Modern pre-hire assessments take a more holistic approach, considering both hard and soft skills. Employers now want to understand a candidate's potential for growth and development, as well as their long-term career aspirations. This enables more informed decisions about candidates' suitability for specific roles and their potential for future advancement within the organization.
3. Measuring propensity: Simply having a skill, or the ability to learn a skill, doesn’t mean that person wants to use that skill. Because of this, more pre-hire assessments are focused not only on what a candidate can do, but also on what they’re inclined to want to do. By better matching candidates to roles where they’ll be properly challenged and fulfilled is one key to keeping them longer and getting the most from them while they’re in the role.

What’s new with pre-hire assessment technology

Technology has revolutionized pre-hire assessments. Online platforms and tools have made assessments more accessible, efficient and scalable. Today, candidates can complete assessments remotely, saving time and resources for both employers and candidates. And technology enables the collection and analysis of substantial amounts of data, providing valuable insights into candidates' performance and potential. In recent years, several key technology trends have emerged in pre-hire assessments, shaping the way employers evaluate candidates:

1. Skills-based assessments: Employers are increasingly using skills-based assessments to evaluate candidates' technical proficiency. These assessments are designed to measure candidates’ actual abilities; for instance, coding challenges, technical quizzes or practical exercises may be used to gauge a candidate's abilities in specific technologies or programming languages.
2. Gamification: Pre-hire assessments are incorporating gamification elements to make the assessment process more engaging and interactive. By simulating real-world scenarios, gamified assessments provide a more accurate measure of candidates' skills and problem-solving abilities and reduce the inclination to respond how you think the employer wants you to respond.
3. Remote assessments: With the rise of remote work, pre-hire assessments are being modified to accommodate remote hiring processes. Online platforms and tools are used to administer assessments remotely, allowing candidates to complete assessments from anywhere.
4. Data-driven assessments: Technology enables the collection and analysis of large amounts of data during pre-hire assessments. This data can be used to identify patterns, trends and correlations, providing valuable insights into candidates' performance and potential.
5. AI-powered assessments: Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to enhance various types of pre-hire assessments today. AI algorithms can analyze candidate responses, find patterns, and provide automated scoring and feedback. This could help streamline the assessment process and reduce bias.
6. Soft skills assessments: While technical skills are important, employers are also recognizing the significance of assessing candidates' soft skills, leading technology providers to place a bigger focus on helping organizations capture and measure them.
7. Adaptive assessments: Adaptive assessments use algorithms to dynamically adjust the difficulty of questions based on candidates' responses. This ensures that candidates are appropriately challenged and provides a more accurate assessment of their abilities.
8. Mobile-friendly assessments: As mobile devices become increasingly prevalent, pre-hire assessments are being optimized for mobile platforms. Mobile-friendly assessments allow candidates to complete assessments on their smartphones or tablets, supplying more convenience and accessibility.
9. Bias reduction: Technology-driven assessments have helped reduce bias in the hiring process. AI-powered algorithms can analyze candidate responses objectively, eliminating human biases that may influence decision-making. This can lead to fairer and more inclusive hiring practices, promoting diversity.
10. Enhanced efficiency and cost-effectiveness: The use of technology in pre-hire assessments has significantly improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness for employers. Automated scoring and feedback provided by AI algorithms could streamline the assessment process, saving time and resources. Employers can assess a larger pool of candidates more efficiently, enabling them to make faster and more informed hiring decisions.

Pre-hire assessments have come a long way. The current focus on upskilling and reskilling the workforce has had a big impact on the pre-hire assessment evolution, which is expected to continue. If talent is going to be more fluid in the future, assessments must go beyond job-specific hard skills to assess a candidate’s ability to work with the existing team, their career aspirations, and their adaptability to change. Technology has followed suit with a greater focus on soft skills and skill propensity, as well as skill proficiency. These advances are paving the way for deeper adoption of skills-based hiring and helping organizations build stronger, more diverse teams, which will be key to long-term success.