Skills-based hiring is on the rise, with 90% of employers in a Babble survey agreeing that it is the dominant recruitment method of the future. While 26% of employers reported using a dedicated platform for automated candidate assessments, 63% still rely on offline, non-automated methods. As interest in skills-based hiring grows, having a dedicated candidate assessment solution becomes essential for effectively filtering applicants. It’s no surprise that candidate assessment platforms are among the fastest-growing HR tech categories.
Despite growing adoption rates, skills-based hiring is still a relatively new approach, and like any new process, it comes with teething challenges. From our conversations with employers, following are the top three concerns that stand out:
- Quality and integrity of the tests and assessments
- Candidate drop-off due to the introduction of a new step in the process
- Lack of immediate buy-in from internal stakeholders
In this blog, we’ll dive into the top concern—the quality and integrity of the tests and assessments—and explore best practices organizations can adopt to build confidence in their assessment processes.
Are Pre-Built Assessments Effective in Filtering the Best-Fit Candidates?
The effectiveness of pre-built assessments can vary depending on the job description. They can be effective for both broad and highly specific roles, provided the appropriate assessment is selected. The key is to clearly understand the content of the pre-built assessment by reviewing its description and sample questions, then matching its relevance to the job description. Additional skill tests required, if any, should be identified, and suitable content developed to address any gaps, making the assessment more effective.
How to Improve the Effectiveness of Pre-Built Assessments
Very often correctly configured pre-built assessment will suffice to effectively filter candidates for a job role. In case any delta is observed with regards to the assessment content, following are proven approaches to make your filtration effective.
1. Define and Integrate Custom Tests: Custom tests can enhance the effectiveness of your assessment process. While smaller organizations with limited bandwidth may find this challenging, mid to large-sized organizations can do this relatively easily. With tools like GPT, defining specific questions is easier than ever. In most organizations, the 80-20 principle applies—80% of hiring happens for 20% of the roles. Investing time in creating a question bank for these critical roles can yield a strong ROI. Review the output of your second-round interviews, and identify any questions that frequently lead to rejections. These questions are ideal candidates for inclusion as add-ons to pre-built assessments.
2. Work with a Responsive Vendor: Choose a vendor who actively gathers feedback and is responsive in creating bespoke assessments. The turnaround time for these changes should be a few days, not weeks. Often, a quick call with the support team can provide valuable guidance on which pre-defined assessments to include for a specific job description.
Even without refinement, pre-built assessments can effectively reduce obvious outliers and misfit candidates. As AI-generated resumes become more common, the percentage of misfit candidates is rising, making pre-built assessments an increasingly valuable filter.
How Babble Ensures the Quality and Integrity of Assessments
Babble offers a large bank of tech as well as non-tech assessments.
Our assessments are built by knowledgeable SMEs with years of experience in their respective fields. We leverage sophisticated AI to ensure that questions are well-worded, clear, and non-repetitive. Our AI-driven QA process ensures that response options are neither ambiguous nor overly obvious.
We also offer the functionality for customers to load custom questions, either individually or in bulk using a CSV upload. Organizations can effectively translate existing offline take-home tests and Google Forms into Babble tests. Understanding the relevance of custom questions in effective filtration, Babble offers some unique features:
- Unlike other platforms, we offer the functionality to load custom questions in all our plans.
- To help track the effectiveness of custom tests, Babble provides a unique Test Analytics feature, offering insights into how often a question has been used, the number of correct and incorrect responses, and more. This helps identify outliers—questions with very high or low pass rates—allowing you to refine your custom questions accordingly.
- We offer the ability to assign user-defined score weightage to custom tests. This custom weightage can be adjusted on demand to try out different simulations of the final scores.
For smaller organizations with limited bandwidth, pre-built tests are often the way to go. However, for mid to large organizations, investing in custom tests can yield continuous returns, especially for well-established roles that are regularly hired for.
No two organizations have the exact same requirements, even for similar-sounding roles. That’s why we operate as a product-plus-service. Our customer success managers are always available to guide you on how to structure assessments—reviewing job descriptions, advising on which pre-built assessments to include, and suggesting custom questions or new assessments that Babble can create for you.
We frequently launch new skill assessment tests based on customer feedback. For high-priority job descriptions, our turnaround time can be as short as three business days.
Client Stories
Customer creates custom test to augment pre-built assessment
A leading IT services firm with 2,000+ employees needed a test for an automated testing framework. After reviewing the pre-built questions on the Babble platform, the client decided to add a custom test to assess specific areas of the software. Given their expertise, the client built the initial question bank in less than five hours and effortlessly bulk-loaded it onto the Babble platform. This hybrid approach, combining Babble's pre-built assessments with custom tests, has since been used for multiple job roles, boosting confidence among internal stakeholders in the filtered candidates.
Customer leverages pre-built assessments without any add-ons
A 500-member SaaS organization needed to conduct a campus recruitment drive for a customer support role. They used three pre-built tests from Babble, which were reviewed and approved by internal stakeholders. The assessment effectively filtered the best-fit candidates. Similarly, a large financial services firm uses Babble’s pre-built tests to hire ReactJS developers on an ongoing basis, successfully filtering candidates with the same method.
Babble creates a new assessment for specific customer requirement
A customer focused on HR services needed a test for a Payroll Administrator role. Babble did not have a pre-built assessment for this position, so the customer requested a new test. Babble worked with its network of SMEs and delivered the assessment within five working days. After internal review and approval, the assessment is now being used to effectively filter candidates.
The blog is written by Rohit Saini, Cofounder @ Babble (www.usebabble.com). Babble is developing gamified candidate assessments to minimize candidate drop-off while providing adequate insights to recruiters. Rohit loves to discuss solutions for hiring challenges and can be reached at rohit@usebabble.com. To book a demo of the Babble assessment platform - Click here.
