Pre-employment assessments are growing in popularity. Companies are realizing that talent assessments are powerful tools that offer valuable insight into every candidate in their talent pool. Talent assessments like Bryq's improve your time to hire and can help eliminate bias in the hiring process. It's estimated that 82% of companies are now using some sort of pre-employment assessments. Despite this, many misconceptions continue to exist despite an overwhelming amount of data in support of these assessments. Bryq is here to squash some of the many myths surrounding pre-employment assessments. Let's shed some truth on the top five biggest misconceptions surrounding pre-employment assessments.

Myth: Pre-Employment Assessments Don’t Work in My Industry

The Truth: There is room for pre-employment assessments in any industry. These assessments aren’t just for high-level office workers. Research shows that pre-employment assessments built upon I-O psychology are incredibly helpful in measuring qualities in candidates that are fundamental to core job function. For example, cognitive abilities can be measured through assessments. Cognitive abilities such as critical thinking skills and using logic to solve problems are universal to any role. Pre-employment assessments can not only determine if candidates are a good fit for a role, but they can also determine how successful they are likely to be.

Of course, the same exact assessment might not be universal for every industry, so asking the right questions and catering your assessment to your needs is important. Pre-hiring assessments can always be perfectly catered to the industry you are trying to hire in.

In fact, Bryq has just released Bryq Express. This version of our talent assessment software has been made specifically for hourly workers, front-line workers, and for jobs that need to be filled through high-volume hiring such as call center roles or factory workers. This ‘express’ version of our software continues to check candidates’ personality traits, cognitive abilities, and culture add – but it does it in just 12 minutes and has mobile-first design so that any candidate with a smartphone can take the assessment without any hassle.

Myth: Pre-Employment Assessments Lengthen the Hiring Process

The Truth: On the contrary, pre-employment assessments actually shorten the hiring process! It might seem like including a pre-hiring assessment adds an extra step. However, by adding a pre-employment assessment, you are eliminating steps like searching through resumes and conducting initial screening interviews with candidates. Not only are these hiring practices often unreliable, but they elongate your time to hire. Additionally, employers will receive instant data from the assessment results. This eliminates the time needed to sift through interview notes or carefully scanning through resumes. With Bryq talent assessments, employers are able to see real-time rankings of the entire candidate pool. There's no need to assess all 150 applicants – Bryq tells you who the top candidates are for any given role without you needing to do much work at all!

Employers aren't the only ones who benefit from a shortened hiring process. Job candidates also benefit from pre-employment assessments. Job seekers typically spend five to ten hours preparing for a job interview! That's a lot of time preparing for a job opportunity they might not be qualified for. Pre-hiring assessments can be as short or as long as you want them to be. You can also make it so that candidates answer multiple choice questions rather than open-ended ones to save even more time.

With Bryq, you also get instant results as both an employer and a job candidate. While employers get instant access to real-time assessment results, all assessment takers receive assessment results. These results include insight into their personality traits and their strongest cognitive abilities. It gives candidates something tangible that they can take from the assessment and learn from, whether or not they make the shortlist. Bryq shortens your time to hire while helping with brand equity.

Myth: All Pre-Employment Assessments Lead to Bias

The Truth: There have been a few big headlines surrounding unethical Artificial Intelligence (AI) practices in the use of pre-employment assessments that have scared some hiring managers off from using them. This is unfortunate, as not all AI-based pre-hiring assessments are flawed. In fact, many of these assessments help to eliminate bias! When used correctly, AI is a powerful tool that helps eliminate bias. At Bryq, our products are backed in I-O Psychology and our in-house psychology team works hard to ensure that our product is free of bias and that results are based around science. We recently teamed up with HCM Technology Report to talk about the benefits of using AI-based talent assessments and the pitfalls to avoid when using AI. Pre-employment assessments can be incredibly effective tools in eliminating bias from the hiring process while achieving incredible hiring results.

Additionally, we need to remember that introducing a pre-employment assessment to your hiring process eliminates the need for scanning resumes and initial screening interviews. These steps in the hiring process are what actually lead to biased hiring decisions. Relying on resumes
to hire employees is a bad hiring practice. Resumes are not reliable pieces of data and do not necessarily indicate how well a candidate might perform in a given role. Hiring managers also might demonstrate unconscious bias when looking at resumes, dismissing candidates based on gender, race, education, or even experience.

Unconscious bias might also be seen in the initial interview process without knowing their cognitive abilities or what they might be capable of in a role. Introducing a pre-employment assessment to the process is not only an unbiased practice, but it helps to combat and eliminate bias where possible early on in the hiring process. It’s a win-win for both candidates and employers to use assessments.

Myth: It’s Easy for Candidates to Cheat on Assessments

The Truth: It’s not easy to cheat on a pre-employment assessment. In fact, many of the hiring practices you’re already relying on give candidates more of an opportunity to be dishonest! Take for example resumes. Studies show that up to 85% of job candidates lie on their resumes. Large amounts of job candidates have admittedly lied about things like their education, job history, and skill sets. Additionally, job candidates will usually try to put their best foot forward in a job interview. First impressions are important, but can sometimes be misleading when candidates are actively trying to portray themselves to be great. Relying on these types of hiring practices is unreliable and leaves plenty of room for error.

When it comes to pre-employment assessments, there are many precautions taken to ensure that candidates have little to no opportunity to cheat or be dishonest. Things like time limits, proctoring technology, and cybersecurity measures help keep assessment results authentic and reliable. It's also difficult for people to cheat when talent assessments like Bryq measure personality traits and cognitive abilities. There is essentially no room for dishonesty or cheating when candidates take talent assessments like ours. There is plenty of room for dishonesty when relying on resumes and unstructured interview practices.

Myth: Pre-Employment Assessments Filter Out Strong Candidates

The Truth: Pre-employment assessments avoid filtering out strong candidates. Think of how you currently filter out strong candidates. Do you rely on resumes? We have already learned that resumes are highly unreliable ways to hire! Candidates lying on their resumes isn't the only reason resumes are unreliable. Who is shortlisting candidates? Are they shortlisting candidates based on keywords in a resume? Let's say a candidate applied to your job whose personality fits into your culture perfectly and whose cognitive abilities match your job role perfectly. However, this candidate didn't use the “correct” keywords in their resume. You've just missed out on some incredible talent. You also need to consider the person picking and choosing which resumes are “matches”. Are they qualified enough to know what to look for? All of that – and we didn’t even discuss the amount of unconscious bias that is likely to take place!

Pre-employment assessments that are structured well and know exactly what to look for are reliable. They allow candidates to let their personalities shine and demonstrate their cognitive abilities without any doubt. Pre-hiring assessments are objective and are great predictors of not only job fit, but job performance! You know that you are getting the strongest candidates possible based on their assessment results. These results will be ranked, so there’s no way of missing the top talent!

Bryq: Busting Myths and Squashing Bias

So there you have it. You can’t always believe everything you read! Pre-employment assessments really help to eliminate bias in the hiring process. There are a number of benefits to pre-employment assessments for both employers and employees. They offer employers improved time to hire and more reliable results, while helping to build brand equity by making the hiring process that much easier and enjoyable for candidates. They prevent candidates from being dishonest and they put a spotlight on candidates with strong cognitive abilities.

Bryq has put a lot of hard work and scientific research into both our standard and express versions of our talent assessment. Our talent assessments measure cognitive abilities, recognize important personality traits, and help companies hire candidates for culture add. Need more convincing? Book a demo with us today! We cannot wait to be an important, reliable part of your hiring process.