How to Assess Problem-Solving Skills of Candidates in Recruitment?

Problem-solving is an important workplace skill nowadays; through this ability, performance in workplaces can affect employee approach toward challenge resolution and their contribution to organizational success. From listening to customers’ complaints and finding a solution, to debugging, and solving internal conflicts between teams, everything becomes smoother if a workforce possesses high problem-solving abilities. This needs to be tested while hiring for vacancies. Overview This article will explain what problem-solving skills are, why they are so important in the workplace, and how to assess them using OnlineExamMaker.

Table of Contents

What Are Problem-Solving Skills?

Problem-solving skills are the understanding of the challenge and the analysis of what could be the case and the discovery of the best solution for that challenge. It could involve recognizing a problem, gathering the relevant information needed, possible cause analysis, solution brainstorming, and the best solution implementation. The best problem solvers have to be flexible, creative, and can decide under pressure. All these skills are very crucial in dealing with all the various situations that come up in daily activities, projects, and personal relations.

Why Problem-Solving Skills Are Important in Workplace?

Problem-solving is an indispensable aspect of nearly every profession, and here is why!

Efficiency and Productivity
People with good problem-solving skills can solve issues faster and therefore reduce idle time. They will go ahead and take on problems proactively to make sure that workflows remain uninterrupted and productivity stays high.

Pro Tip

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Customer Satisfaction
Problem-solving regarding customer-facing roles is very important; it converts a negative into a positive. It resolves customers’ complaints by offering them pragmatic solutions that help to retain customers and create satisfaction and loyalty among them.

Team Collaboration
Problem-solving usually involves teams wherein employees work together to come up with the best solution. Employees possessing problem-solving skills help create a positive atmosphere in the team by ensuring that problems are tackled collectively and constructively.

Adaptability and Innovation
Within today’s fast-moving work world, thinking fast and adapting to changes are vital. Problem-solving skills endorse an employee to look for newer ways to reach solutions to any given challenge on hand and often result in ideas that may benefit a business by their novelty.

How to Make Problem-Solving Skills Assessment Using OnlineExamMaker?

The best way to ensure that a candidate can perform the tasks mentioned above is by designing an online problem-solving skills assessment. Here’s how to use OnlineExamMaker to create an assessment tailored to your needs.

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Step 1: Determine assessment structure

Create the test by giving the title of the test; for example, “Problem-Solving Skills Assessment” with a short description. Plan proper timing as per the question complexity. The format must resemble the main problem-solving areas that you want to target to evaluate, such as analytical thinking, decision-making, and creativity.

Step 2: Add varied question types

Assess problem-solving skills more effectively by using a mixture of question types:

Scenario-Based Questions
These are real-life situations you present to the candidate and ask him how he would handle them. Example: “A colleague misses deadlines frequently. How would you handle this situation?”

Multiple Choice Questions
These are aimed at assessing the test candidates’ analytical powers of selecting from alternatives the most appropriate solution to a problem.

Situational Judgement Tests
These test the judgment and prioritization abilities of candidates by asking them to rank or choose from a set of options on how to handle certain situations.

Step 3: Customize the settings

OnlineExamMaker enables you to have specific settings about an exam: randomization of questions in case there may be any cheating, time, and weighing the questions in case some questions may have a bigger importance in this test concerning problem-solving.

Step 4: Release the exam

Once the test is prepared, publish it and send the link to the candidates. Their responses will be tracked in real-time, while grading will be done using the built-in feature of the platform.

Problem-solving skills are needed so that the workers can handle the challenges efficiently and be more productive, leading to the success of the employees within the team. Assessment of problem-solving skills at the time of recruitment will help employers in selecting those candidates who can handle critical situations and provide creative solutions. OnlineExamMaker helps you create personalized problem-solving skills assessments that can help employers make informed, data-driven decisions easily. This platform helps streamline your hiring process and ensures that you select candidates with the problem-solving abilities that will help your organization thrive.

Author: Matt Davis

Matt is a content marketing specialist with more than 5 years of experience in content creation, he is glad to share his experience about online education and digital marketing.