The following is an edited  excerpt from “Keep Your Candidates Engaged,” an eBook from PACE’s new candidate assessment partner,

The Society for Human Resource Management reports that employers spend 42 days finding and hiring a new employee and that, on average, their new hire costs $4,129!  

And that data was last generated in 2015, when the marketplace wasn’t nearly as competitive (and costly) as it is today.    Combining this SHRM data with other data we see that over 50% of new hires actually turn out to be  hiring mistakes, its easy to see how much these hiring mistakes are costing employers – lost time, lost money, lost opportunity, disruption.

Earlier this year, PACE began a partnership with the Wonderlic organization to help our clients reduce the costs and hassle of hiring errors.  Starting in January we have been administering a state of the art pre hire assessment process called WONSCORE.  Added to our current candidate vetting programs – skill testing, behavioral interviews, reference checking etc. WONSCORE gives our clients a bias free, legally sound soft skill assessment process that will add to the data they can use to make smart hiring decisions.

Soft Skill Pre Hire Assessment Programs are Becoming Increasingly Commonplace.

Once the staple of executive and leadership hiring processes,  pre hire assessments focused on a candidate’s soft skills are now being used across all job categories.   A recent study by Talent Board found that 82 percent of companies use some form of pre-employment assessments.

We liked WONSCORE because of its historical focus on cognitive ability which we knew had always been a strong predictor of on-the-job success across many of the job categories we represent.  The WONSCORE assessment program has now been expanded to include measurements of “job and cultural fit” – another component of our placement process closely aligned with placement success.

WONSCORE will be a GREAT VALUE ADD for PACE Clients….

We are currentlly using WONSCORE assessments at several stages in the hiring process.  For some clients, we use it early in our screening process  to screen in or screen out candidates for our clients basic consideration.  For other clients we use it later in the hiring process to help our clients pinpoint the candidate who is best matched to their  unique requirements.

One of the reasons we selected WONSCORE’s was how quick and easy it was to administrate – very candidate-friendly. With unemployment at record lows, a candidate’s “shelf life” is measured in days not weeks.  We knew that any assessment process that would take too long or require on site administrative support would lead to too many candidates aborting the recruiting process in mid stream.   Giving candidates the opportunity to take all of our assessments  on line, has increased candidate participation significantly.  They get additional value from being able to see in black and white just how closely their talents “fit” the requirements of the job they are applying  for.   More engagement = better hires!

WONSCORE data isn’t the only data our client’s should consider when hiring…but can be very helpful when used in conjunction with other evaluation processes.

While a study appearing in the Harvard Business Review analyzed 17 studies of applicant evaluation, showed that a simple algorithm outperforms human decisions by at least 25%, we never recommend that a client select an employee based solely on their WONSCORE assessments.  We believe the WONSCORE assessment tool will help employers get a clearer picture of a candidate’s real talents plus help them more easily compare candidates with different backgrounds and experiences.

If you are interested in pre assessment testing and how WONSCORE can help you avoid costly hiring mistakes, download the  full eBook here!

PACE Staffing Network is one of the Puget Sound’s premier staffing /recruiting agencies and has been helping  Northwest employers find and hire the right employees for over 40 years.

A  3 time winner of the coveted “Best in Staffing” designation , PACE is ranked in the top 2% of staffing agencies nationwide based on annual surveys of customer satisfaction.

PACE services include temporary and contract staffing, temp to hire auditions, direct hire placement services, and Employer of Record (payroll) services.

To learn more about how partnering with PACE will make a difference to how you find and hire employees,  contact us at 425-637-3312 or e mail our Partner Solutions  team  at infodesk@pacestaffing.com.