How to Evaluate Employee Skills when Hiring?

The only way for an organization to succeed in the long run is if it hires the right people. In order to make better decisions, every candidate’s skill should be analyzed thoroughly. It leads to understanding their best abilities, the areas where improvement needs to take place, and how their perfect fit can be achieved within your team. Below, we will discuss the importance of skill assessments, eight key soft skills you should search for when hiring, and four pieces of technical skills that you want to test when hiring.

• Why An Employee Skills Assessment Is Important?
• What Type of Soft Skills to Look for When Hiring?
• 4 Technical Skills You Should Consider in An Employee Assessment
• How Can You Assess Employee Skills Online with OnlineExamMaker?

Why An Employee Skills Assessment Is Important?

Conducting a skills assessment provides incredibly great insight that doesn’t come with a resume or interview alone. Here’s why it is an indispensable step in hiring.

Matching the right talent to the job
Measuring skills means you will get to know whether a candidate can or cannot do the tasks required for the position. This minimized the chances of a poor hire, which may cost you money and time.

Strengths and areas for development by highlighting
Skill assessments expose what a candidate is good at, and areas that may need some help. This information helps tailor the onboarding and professional development to set a new hire up for success.

Strengthening team dynamics
Assessing soft skills, such as communication and collaboration, will tell you whether the candidate fits in with your group. A good fit means harmony, boosting workplace morale.

Building for the future
A comprehensive assessment doesn’t merely indicate current abilities, rather, it identifies candidates having the potential to grow with the organization and help achieve long-term objectives. In other words, skill assessments are the very basis for a good hire, good productive teams, and a guarantee of future success in store for your company.

What Type of Soft Skills to Look for When Hiring?

While technical expertise is important, soft skills play a vital role in the day-to-day effectiveness of an employee. These skills determine how they interact with colleagues, handle challenges, and contribute to a positive work environment.

Here are a few must-have soft skills to consider:

Clear communication
The foundation for workplace success is effective communication. Look for candidates who can express themselves clearly, provide and receive feedback constructively, and listen well.

Problem-Solving skills
Critical thinking is an invaluable asset to an employee when he or she can find solutions to challenges. During the interview, ask questions that reveal their approach to analyzing problems and implementing fixes.

Teamwork and collaboration
The ability to work well with others is essential in most roles. Ideal candidates should demonstrate respect for diverse perspectives and a willingness to contribute to group efforts.

Flexibility and adaptability
In a fast-moving world, nothing is permanent. Prefer candidates who would adapt to changes in tools, procedures, or unwarranted situations as fast as anyone would expect.

4 Technical Skills You Should Consider in An Employee Assessment

Technical skills form the backbone of a candidate’s competency to perform certain job functions. Although the exact skills you evaluate will depend on the role, here are four categories to consider:

1. Industry-Specific competence
Assess the candidate’s knowledge of tools, practices, or standards relevant to your industry. Examples below.
• Test programming or system management skills in IT.
• Assess construction with respect to understanding safety regulations and handling equipment.

2. Core Technical competence
Assure the candidate is comfortable with basic tool usage or software. Examples below.
• Proficiency in using platforms such as Microsoft Office or Google Workspace.
• Prior experience working with project management tools, such as Asana or Jira.

3. Data Analysis skills
Data is central to decision-making in many roles today. Candidates should demonstrate the following.
• Ability to analyze and present information using spreadsheets or databases.
• An understanding of metrics and their impact on business outcomes.

4. Problem-Specific technical skills
For specialized positions, design tasks that mimic real-world challenges. Read the examples below.
• A graphic designer might make a mock design based on your brief.
• A software developer can do a debugging exercise or even a coding test.

With such technical capabilities, practical tests-simulations or even task-based tests-can be an excellent way through which to assess them, since they give an indication of how well the candidates will perform under conditions that closely relate to the job.

How Can You Assess Employee Skills Online with OnlineExamMaker?

Assess employee competencies with ease online using OnlineExamMaker. Here’s how to ease your hiring process in an organized manner.

Step 1: Prepare assessment questions

With the following question types-11 in total-you’ll be able to create various assessments that will test a candidate from all angles. Easily upload your pre-prepared questions from Word or Excel directly into your Question Bank, or use AI Question Generator. Just provide a topic, and this feature will instantly produce relevant questions.

Step 2: Create an exam

With OnlineExamMaker, create a new assessment by adding questions and setting configurations like time limits to share via link with candidates. OnlineExamMaker is friendly to desktop and mobile devices, meaning that everyone should be in a position to take it.

Step 3: Preview and release

You can preview the skills assessment on your own computer and ensure everything is OK. Then you can click “Publish” button to release the assessment. You will get a direct link or QR code of the assessment once it is published, and you can assign the link or QR code to candidates.

Step 4: Test results analysis

This tool would have automatically graded the exam that the candidates took via OnlineExamMaker. Show performance in deep detail, informing your hiring decisions through predefined rubrics or benchmarks. OnlineExamMaker, with its easy-to-use tools, makes the entire process of skill assessment easier and quicker to help you onboard the right talent.