Hiring new staff for your business is an exciting time, but it can also be very stressful. The average job post receives hundreds of applications, and sorting through them is a challenge, as is finding the right person for the role. You need potential candidates to be clear about their skills and experience, but you also need to be able to determine the skill levels of each candidate for yourself.

Judging candidates simply by screening their CV or a short interview can be difficult, which means many businesses often hold multiple rounds of interviews. This process is very time-intensive, and it doesn’t always yield the best results. A better solution to make the candidate selection process easier and faster is to use pre-employment skills testing.

Before you start the hiring process, it’s a good idea to be sure of the type of candidate you’re looking for and the skills they need to thrive in the role. Defining the requirements of the role will help you judge each candidate on the same criteria and give you a better chance of finding the perfect candidate. In this article, we’ll be looking at five of the most important skills any candidate should have and how to spot them in your applicants.

Communication Skills

Communication skills are required in almost every career. As an employer, you should be looking for team members that can properly interpret what is being requested of them and communicate effectively with others. Writing, speaking, listening, and bargaining are all common communication skills that you should check for during the screening and interview process.

One of the best ways to test for communication skills is during the interview. This is a great chance to see how the candidate listens to questions and responds, using their communication skills to understand and deliver points. You can also ask them to carry out a reading and writing test to effectively judge the full range of their ability to communicate clearly.

Teamwork Skills

Any person who is a part of an organization or who interacts with other people on a regular basis should have strong teamwork skills. These are a measure of how well someone works as part of a team, including how they interact with others as well as their leadership abilities. When considering candidates for available positions, you should always look for collaborative abilities regardless of the role you’re hiring for. Staff should always demonstrate traits such as honesty, communication, empathy, and responsibility if they’re to be effective team members.

A good way to test for this is to carry out group interviews, where candidates must work together to achieve a common goal. Although the candidates are in competition with one another, this is a good test to see which candidates are able to collaborate and work together effectively. Aside from this, you can also learn more about the candidate through their references or whether they play any team sports as a hobby.

Learning and Adaptability

Learning skills are a measure of a candidate’s ability to pick up new information and adjust to new settings in the workplace. This is especially crucial in light of the constantly changing workplace and the necessity for businesses to stay competitive by implementing innovative processes and initiatives. It’s important that any potential candidates you hire show an ability to learn and adapt quickly, especially if the role is one that involves a lot of training.

It’s unlikely that candidates will know how to do the job as soon as they’re hired, so an ability to think critically, understand instructions and learn are all needed. You can judge a candidate on their learning capabilities by seeing what kind of education and experience they have. In addition, it can be useful to teach them some of the processes they’ll use in the job and then test them on it. Critical thinking tests will also judge a candidate’s ability to adapt and learn quickly.

Organizational Skills

Employee productivity, time management, and goal achievement are all dependent on organizational abilities. These are all extremely useful in any professional setting and should be some of the first things you consider when judging a candidate. Good organizational skills show that a candidate can be effective at completing projects on time as well as being highly productive. Planning, critical thinking, attention to detail, and conflict management are all key organizational abilities.

A good way to test these skills is through a personality test. This will reveal what kind of personality the candidate has, including how organized they are and whether they can manage their own time well. Organizational and self-management skills are important in any position but are especially important in management and remote roles.

Problem Solving Skills

Problem-solving skills refer to the capacity to deal with difficult issues at work in a constructive and positive manner. This is especially crucial for individuals who work in a large organization or as part of a team. It’s also very important for technical roles, where the ability to make the right decision can affect the success of the company.

Problem-solving skills can be tested through special assessments similar to IQ tests. These provide logical problems that need to be solved and can be tailored specifically to the role you’re hiring for. As an example, you might ask the candidate to choose between three different options when faced with a technical problem. It’s important that the candidate is also able to explain the reasoning for their decision.Â