Essay Sample on Pre-Employment Assessment Tests

Introduction

Organizational management often uses tests and other methods to assess job applicants for their suitability for hire. The tests may screen job-related skills while other tests can focus on personal information. Employment tests need to be legitimate and relative to the job that an individual is applying. However, the use of tests needs not to discriminate on the foundation of gender, race, nationality or religious beliefs. There are various types of employment tests which employers utilize to evaluate what the candidates can perform and serve as a hiring tool for various organizations. These tests include personality tests, cognitive test, physical exams tests, emotional intelligence testing, physical ability tests, and job knowledge tests. This essay intends to discuss job knowledge testing and cognitive ability tests. The paper also describes how employers apply each examination and the pros and cons of each of the two pre-employment testing.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Job Knowledge Tests

Job knowledge tests are essential in analyzing the technical or theoretical ability of an applicant in a certain area of specialization. The examination is essential for an organization to evaluate the mastery of an individual in relation to a certain profession during that given time (Weber & Dwoskin, 2014).These examinations are significant for fields that need specialized personnel and experts.

There are however, various cons to this mode of assessment.Job knowledge tests fail to consider learning ability of the candidates during the recruitment processes. Some applicants have inadequate knowledge due to inexperience in a certain field but are fast learners (Weber & Dwoskin, 2014). On the other hand, a candidate can be unsuccessful to adapt to new working principles and strategies. During the theoretical tests, an individual can portray competence but later become unable to apply the knowledge in practice.

Cognitive Ability Tests

Cognitive tests analyze and estimate the mental ability of an individual applying for a certain opportunity. The examination is essential for organizational executives to evaluate the competence of the applicants and to forecast the potential performance (Wainer & Braun, 2013). There are various methods of executing these examinations, such as, General Aptitude Testing which determines the capacity of an individual in logical, verbal and numerical analysis. These tests have high correlations to the performance of the candidate. The pros of cognitive assessment are their high accuracy in predicting the workforce than the use of interviews or job experience.

There are several disadvantages of using cognitive aptitude tests in assessing potential employees. Some individuals may improve their test scores through practice and as such, give wrong implications during the assessments (Wainer & Braun, 2013). There is also the risk of discrimination in relation to racial and ethnic differences. Despite these limitations, research recommends that employers need to use the results from aptitude tests as a guide and engage other techniques of evaluation during the hiring process.

Conclusion

In conclusion, pre-employment assessment exams are significant to organizations during the hiring processes. During knowledge assessment tests and cognitive tests, an employer can also measure the candidate's capacity to information and orderliness. The two tests are in written form and as such, help the management to evaluate the communication skills and precision.

References

Wainer, H., & Braun, H. I. (2013). Test validity. Routledge.

Weber, L., & Dwoskin, E. (2014). Are workplace personality tests fair?. Wall Street Journal, (September 29).