In a field where there are limitless options of assessment tools, many with very bold (and often baffling) claims from vendors, it can be difficult to know where to start when evaluating new assessment tools or technologies.  

Here are the 8 key questions that you should be asking of any new assessment tool before deciding to implement it in your process.

1. Does the assessment effectively predict who will be successful in the role?

This may seem like an obvious question but being clear about how the results of the assessment correlate to performance in role is often overlooked and warrants investigation and evidence.  

2. Can you depend on the assessment to provide consistent results?   

Ask yourself, if the same person takes the assessment a couple of months apart, or if two equally well-suited people take it, will you get consistent results? If not, there’s an issue.  A tool can’t be predictive if it’s not reliable. 

3. Does the assessment positively differentiate your organisation from others competing for talent?   

At a time where every candidate counts, using the assessment process to make you positively stand out from the crowd will result in more offers being accepted.  Look for tools that make you stand out from the rest. 

4. Does the assessment provide meaningful information that will actually be used to support the recruitment decision?    

Not every assessment needs to give a definitive hire/no hire answer, but the evidence that any one tool provides must give actionable insight.  If you have a tool that hiring managers choose to ignore or rationalise away when they don’t like the result, it’s not worth having. 

5. Is every candidate given an equitable opportunity to perform well and feel included in the process? 

Aside from the fact that tools that are not fair may be subject to legal challenge on the basis of discrimination, which could be extremely costly both financially and reputationally. Limiting the talent pool by creating barriers and making some feel excluded is going to make your life much more difficult in a tight talent market. 

6. Is the assessment aligned to the rest of the recruitment process and the talent architecture of the organisation? 

We’d expect any one assessment to add to the broader picture in an overall selection process. So how the results of any particular assessment aligns to the rest is important.  Additionally, truly aligned assessments can provide valuable insights that can inform onboarding, development and other talent management initiatives. 

7. Does the assessment engage candidates in both the recruitment process and the organisation? 

If people drop out of the process directly before the assessment, or they begin and don’t complete never to be heard of again, that assessment may be unnecessarily limiting your pool. Additionally, for each candidate that drops out, how many others are there that completed but got a negative view of the organisation?  The candidate experience must be prioritised when designing an assessment process, assessments should be relevant and appropriate for any given role, particularly in a candidate short market.   

8. Can the assessment be run using an appropriate amount of your resources? 

You could have the most robust assessment process in the world, but if you don’t have the budget, time or expertise to run it, it’s not going to be much use.  Think, practically, about the specific resources you will need to deliver the assessment and evaluate if this is realistic and appropriate for the benefit the assessment will provide. 

Of course, no one assessment tool or stage is going to solve your recruitment and retention problems, but well selected and deployed assessments can be game changing in the results they achieve.  

Omni’s resourcing transformation team are highly experienced in designing and deploying assessments, evaluating new tools and technologies or auditing existing processes.  If you want advice on tool selection, or have a particular assessment challenge that you’d like to bounce off someone that has tackled more than their fair share of assessment shaped problems, contact James Crichton, Omni’s Head of Assessment for a free 60 minute consultancy conversation (no strings attached).  

James Crichton 

Head of Assessment 

07736 433021 

James.crichton@omnirms.com