How to Use Skills Tests for Hiring in Education

Despite all the talk about the digital revolution in recent years, many human resources (HR) departments still use outdated systems and are drowning under a mountain of paperwork. If today's volatile and unpredictable times have taught us anything, it is that we need to build resilient and sustainable processes.

In the blink of an eye, the U.S. labor market went from candidate-driven to one that was flooded with candidates seeking employment due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Although the unemployment rate is dropping and weekly jobless claims are decreasing, it is still important to streamline hiring processes.

If you are hiring positions in education, consider leveraging human resources (HR) technology to hire talent effectively. When employers use pre-employment skills testing at the beginning of the screening process, they can instantly create a shortlist of top qualified candidates without wasting valuable time or resources.

Select Candidates Based on Merit, Not Background
The ability to instantly create a shortlist of qualified candidates is one of the most significant benefits of pre-employment skills tests. However, skills tests offer another advantage. They facilitate an objective, fair, and consistent process for selecting top talent.

Like anyone else, recruiters and hiring managers have their own perceptions, subconscious biases, and preconceived notions, and they make assumptions. This is a problem because when subconscious bias influences hiring, it limits the diversity of the company’s workforce and can cause hiring managers to miss out on top talent.

For employers to circumvent hiring bias, they must develop objective candidate screening protocols. When configured to match the critical skills and competencies required for a position, skills tests do just that. Pre-employment skills testing provides hiring teams with unbiased, validated evaluations of candidates’ likelihood of on-the-job success. In fact, organizations that use pre-employment skills tests increase the probability of selecting qualified candidates from 50% to 80%.

With the most extensive library of customizable employment skills test in the HR industry, eSkill’s online testing platform enables employers to remove bias from hiring decisions by empowering hiring teams to compare candidates objectively. This means they can make hiring decisions based on merit rather than on subjective measures such as education credentials and work history.

Streamline the Hiring Process

eSkill’s education skills tests measure reliable indicators of future job success for a variety of positions and skillsets. When used early in the hiring process, employers can advance top talent to the next phase of the hiring process quickly and efficiently.

Here is a look at the steps employers take to get the most out of skills testing:

1.Identify the required competencies per position. Review job descriptions, interview existing employees and consult with in-house subject-matter experts such as department leads or supervisors to determine the skills, knowledge, and aptitude that are required to succeed in a position.

2.Select and configure skills tests. Select from hundreds of job-specific tests or combine multiple modular subjects to create skills tests that directly aligns with a position’s required competencies. Employers can also bundle multiple tests to create a seamless experience for candidates.

3.Deploy skills tests. Instantly send auto-filled, personalized testing invitations to job applicants.

4.Use the results to create a shortlist of candidates. eSkill’s score reports make it easy for hiring teams to analyze test results, and auto-progress a top talent to the next stage of the selection process.

With eSkill, adding job-relevant education skills tests to the hiring process is simple. Your dedicated U.S.-based Client Success Manager will walk you and your team through the entire testing process from selection to administration, and show you how to analyze score reports on eSkill’s user-friendly testing platform.
Evaluate Skills Relevant to Positions in Education
eSkill offers an extensive catalog of single-subject and multi-subject “ready-to-use” education skills tests, as well as thousands of single-topic modules and individual questions.

Job-Based Skills Tests

eSkill offers a large library of comprehensive job-based education skills tests that are “ready-to-use.” The education job-based skills tests evaluate a variety of skills and competencies required to succeed in a variety of positions, including:

Paraeducator
Administrative Assistant
Library Clerk
School Nutrition Manager
Technical Support Specialist
Custodian
Facilities Manager
School Nurse
School Cafeteria Worker
Program Assistant
English Instructor
Admissions Representative
Public Relations Specialist
HR Administrator

Job Simulations

Many of eSkill’s online skills tests include job simulations that mimic real work scenarios. eSkill offer many job simulation tests that are ideal for positions in education, including:

MS Office®
Digital Literacy
Multitasking

Behavioral Assessments

The majority of eSkill’s job-specific education skills tests include validated evaluations of behavioral characteristics that measure education-relevant soft skills such as effective interpersonal communication, empathy, collaboration skills, and emotional intelligence.

Additionally, eSkill offers a skill-specific modular assessment entitled ‘Interpersonal Skills in a School Setting’ that measures candidates’ abilities to build relationships with community members, communicate with parents, identify and manage student conflicts, interact with coworkers, and maintain a positive classroom environment.

Skill-Specific Modular Subjects
Combine multiple skill-specific assessments to build a custom assessment or administer with a “ready-to-use” skills test to create a seamless candidate evaluation. Top skill-specific modular subjects for positions in education include:

Business Communication
Office Filing
Email Etiquette
Technical Writing
Typing and Data Entry
Customer Service

Interested in Skills Test for Hiring in Education?
Learn more about the benefits of using eSkill’s customizable education skills tests and behavioral assessments to identify and hire qualified candidates quickly.

Request a demo today.