Skills Assessment Test: The What, The Why and The How

A skills assessment test is basically a process of evaluation of an individual’s abilities in any particular area. Skills tests are increasingly becoming common in the corporate sector in order for companies to gain a better understanding of the skills of their prospective and existing employees. Skills tests can be industry specific and role specific as well making them very flexible and reliable modes of understanding employee capabilities.

What is a skills assessment test?

For all organizations the only metric to understand their employees’ skills is through the CVs submitted at the start of their employment. In case of potential hires as well the situation is the same. But sometimes these resumes do not provide adequate information about the skill set of individuals.

In that case a skills assessment test becomes very important. A test or an interview or a survey is conducted and the individuals who participate in the test are graded. This data is then stored by the organization and used for various purposes.

Advantages of skills assessment testing:

• Understanding Organizational Skill Strength - By conducting a skills test on their employee a company is able to truly realize the kind of skills they possess and the places where there are gaps.
• Streamlined Hiring - Once the gaps in the organization’s skill set is identified, new hires can be made to fill in those gaps. Skills tests on prospective candidates will ensure that only candidates capable of filling those skill gaps are hired.
• Better Distribution of Duties – When an organization understands the skill sets of their different employees then jobs can be better delegated to individuals according to their ability and strong suits. There will be no complaints of biases in the delegation of duties and job titles as it will be based on a transparent skill assessment test results.
• Improved Training – When an organization understands what skills their employees have and what skills they are missing then more targeted training programs can be designed to provide effective improvements.

How are skills tests conducted?

• Identify the Skills to be Tested – Any skills test has to start first with the different skills that the management wants to test.
• Determine the Mode of Testing - Once the inventory of skills to be tested is created then the mode of testing and the kind of questions to be asked are decided.
• Analyze the Skills Test Data and Create Personalized Employee Development Plans – Once skills tests are conducted the management can analyze the data and determine which employees need to be trained in what skills to aid their personal growth and also increase their effectiveness and productivity.

Why are so many companies using skills testing?

Skills testing gives organizations a clear picture of their total skill capacity. This helps the organization understand the type and volume of new hires they need. They can also better understand their own capacity for completing new projects and long term employee development plans can also be chalked out with more efficiency. This in turn improves workforce productivity.

How does MeritTrac help in the skills testing process?

MeritTrac provides a highly reputed service to conduct skills testing in any organization. They offer end-to-end comprehensive assessment systems both for hiring as well as creating employee skill matrix. They protect organizations against legal complaints of unfair biases in the testing process and also take away the burden of conducting these tests on large workforces.

MeritTrac has various kinds of corporate skills tests like workforce development, recruitment assessment, domain assessment, communication assessment, behavioral assessment and cognitive assessment.

So if you are part of the management team of any company and struggling to increase your employee productivity levels then it may be time for you to hire MeritTrac to find out more about your existing KSA (knowledge, skills and abilities) and then implement systems to improve it.