Candidate Section
So you are preparing for your first job or your next job and you are anxious about the interview process of the companies you are trying to apply for. iMocha is an assessment tool used by 5000+ companies of all sizes across the world to assess candidates and we understand that performing your best in the test is important for you as well as the company you are applying for. Here we have tried to answer some of the common questions that you need to know, to perform well in your upcoming tests
Candidate FAQs on Pre-employment Tests
1. What is the purpose of pre-employment screening?
Pre-employment screening tests are mainly used for identifying the right candidate from the talent pool and assess the skill, job readiness, personality traits and predict future job performance. Pre-employment tests are beneficial for employers as well as candidates. For companies, it has helped recruiters and hiring managers to have better clarity about what they want, provides a relatively high degree of accuracy, saves time and cost. Candidates get the benefit of appearing for the test at any time, at any place and in their own familiar, stress-free environment.
Pre-employment screening tests are mainly used for identifying the right candidate from the talent pool and assess the skill, job readiness, personality traits and predict future job performance. Pre-employment tests are beneficial for employers as well as candidates. For companies, it has helped recruiters and hiring managers to have better clarity about what they want, provides a relatively high degree of accuracy, saves time and cost. Candidates get the benefit of appearing for the test at any time, at any place and in their own familiar, stress-free environment.
2. What do job assessment tests look for?
Don’t worry, job assessments test only assesses skills according to your job-role. That means all the questions will be relevant and you will be able to answer all those questions. You are not measured on the basis of fail or pass but for competence on specific job role. In order to identify a job-fit candidate employer can assess job-related skills, cognitive ability, personality and culture-fit of the candidate. So, there might be different types of job assessment tests used to evaluate a candidate. The pre-employment test evaluates the hard skills and soft skills of the applicants. An employer can use one or more combination of the following tests:
1. Skill Tests:
These tests evaluate ‘job-related’ skills of the candidate. The skills may include both soft and hardcorehardcore skills that are mandatory
to perform the given task. EEOC guidelines suggest that these skill tests must be relevant to the actual job description.
2. Cognitive Tests:
These tests evaluate the ability of a candidate to gather information, process it, memorize and decision-making skills of the candidate.
3. Physical Ability Tests:
These tests evaluate whether the candidate is physically fit to perform job operations that need physical activity.
4. Personality Tests:
These tests evaluate if the personality of a candidate is more suitable for the success of the job.
5. Background Tests:
These tests will evaluate the background of the candidate like employment history, bankruptcy, drug addiction,
fraudulence or criminal offense of the candidate.
6. Language Tests:
These tests will evaluate the ability of a candidate to communicate ( verbally and written) in a specific language.
3. How do I pass a pre-employment assessment?
Employers use pre-employment tests to find the applicant's whose skills are best suited for the job position to which he or she is applied.
The pre-employment screening test is conducted at the initial phase of the hiring process to evaluate certain traits of the applicants to predict
future performance. To get your dream job in almost every organization, you will have to clear the pre-employment assessment. So, to pass an
employment assessment keep the following things in mind:
1. Consider the job role-With the help of pre-employment testing employers want to predict if you are a job fit applicant for the open position.
They will try to evaluate your responses to questions that indicate your behavioral characteristics, and job readiness.
2. Know what you are being tested on:The test may contain a variety of questions to measure your job skills,
work ethics, work management, time management, ambition and passion to work for the organization. If you figure out
the intent of the questions, it will help you to respond in a better way.
3. Practice, Practice, and Practice: Try not to take the pre-employment assessments without knowing what kind of questions
will be asked. Your test score is going to lead you to get your dream job. How to know the types of questions a screening test will
consist of? You can refer to a variety of online material available on pre-employment testing to improve your skills and test
performance. With the help of these sources, you can fine-tune your reasoning, logic and job skills by solving the practice questions,
taking lessons from the experts.
4. Be honest:
When it comes to personality and psychological screening, don't try to hide what kind of personality you have. Do not represent
yourself with manipulated responses for the sake of getting higher ranking or score. Because pretending to be someone else will
not help you pass this section of the tests. The pre-employment tests contain a few questions that are specifically designed to
detect applicants who manipulate their responses. And do not forget that this is not the only criteria of selection employers prefer.
4. How long does an assessment test take?
The answer to this question depends on the type of assessment and the number of questions. There is no standard time mention for completing the test. The stipulated time for a pre-employment assessment is generally shared with an invitation you receive from the employers.
5. Is pre-employment testing legal?
Yes. Pre-employment testing is legal. It's not about the test but about the implementation of the test that
needs to be carefully observed. Pre-employment testing, Section 703(h) of the Act suggests that an employer asking
for the test or assessment is totally fair but, the test should not include any type of discriminationdiscrimination
on the basis of race, sex, gender, religion or age of the candidate appearing for the test.
Use of 3rd party pre-employment test is also legal and it's also beneficial in the interest of both employers and employees.
Employers can avoid issues coming from right to privacy by outsourcing assessment to 3rd party. In this way, an employer
cannot have access to the candidate's responses but only to the end result of the testing. This eliminates the possibility of bias.
Candidate FAQs on Pre-employment Drug Screening
1. How long does it take to get drug test results for employment?
The time required for drug test results depends on the result of the drug testing. Normally it takes 24 hours for the test results.
If tests are positive medical review officer may perform a second round of drug testing to make sure the results are not false positives.
This may take another 4-5 day.
Drug Testing:This process may take 4-5 days if the results of tests are positive.
Saliva Testing:This process may take 1-3 days for the completion of the results.
Hair Testing:Hair testing can detect drug usage until 90 days before the date of the test. This process takes 2-3 days for completion.
Urine Testing: In the case of a negative urine test, it takes 2-3 days. A positive urine test may extend this process to 4-5 days.
Blood Testing:Blood testing results are available within 24hrs of testing. In case of a positive test,
it may take 2-3 days for the completion of the results.
It is mandatory for the candidate to share the medications currently in use including prescription, over the counter or herbal
medications. The candidate also needs to provide information about prescriber and proof of prescription for reference.
2. What happens if you fail a pre-employment drug test?
In the case of a government job, they will reject your employment if your results of drug testing are positive. If a job is critical for the safety of
the people,
it is mandatory for the employers to reject employment to candidates with positive drug test results as per drug free workplace act of USA.
For most of the private companies, it is not mandatory to levi drug testing laws. But Private companies in some states are rewarded for implementing drug-free
workplace. So, it may happen that if you have applied to an employer who follows drug-free workplace mandates, they will reject your employment for having positive
drug test results.
3. Do employers tell you if you pass a drug test?
Drug testing is considered to be more personal and a special process is followed while performing a drug test.
In the case of candidates, employers need to issue a notice to candidates that drug test is needed for the job and a list of drug test to be conducted. Candidate needs to sign a
release at the time of drug test so that employers get a copy of the result. If you pass a drug test,employers will invite you for further process. If employers
want to reject a candidate on the basis of a negative drug test, they will have to share a copy of drug test results with a candidate.
In the case of employees, access to drug test results varies on the basis of whether the employer needs to maintain medical report records or not.
If employees are exposed to harmful drug and medical records are maintained by the company, in this case, employees have access to their results.
Occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) explains various use cases of
access to employee exposure and medical records standard in detail.
4. How do you pass an employment psychological test?
Employers use psychological tests to see if the candidate’s character traits are best suited for the job role. Although there is no
right or wrong method you can do to pass personality tests, you can try a few tricks that might get you to pass through the test.
Practice Test:
There are platforms which allows you to take practice psychological tests. The actual assessment tests will not be
similar to these practice tests, but you will get an idea about the type of questions asked in a personality test.
Think according to job role:
You can consider the job role and think about the traits that can help to be successful in the job. For e.g, if you are applying for
the role of a customer support role, there might be questions that can gauge your ability to solve problems, patience while handling
critical situations and your communication skills. So when attempting questions be aware that employer is looking for these traits and
response accordingly. It is always good, to be honest with your personality and reflect that while responding to questions.
Avoid stress:
You might feel stressed while appearing for the personality tests as you are expected to open up about your personality.
This can put you in tremendous pressure and hamper your responses. So try to be relaxed and confident while attempting questions.
This will improve your chances of getting genuine responses to the situation based questions.
Candidate FAQs on Pre-employment Background Screening
1. What is included in a pre-employment background check?
A pre-employmentA pre-employment background check is performed to validate the information provided by the candidate. This may
include employment check, drug test, credit check, education check and more. A pre-employmentA pre-employment background check is
mostly done through a 3rd party or in some cases by the company itself. Employers can perform one or more combinations of the
following background checks.
Employment check: If you are an experienced candidate, the employer may check your previous work history, date of joining
and leaving, or the reason for leaving the organization. Employers try to find a candidate’s behavior in past organization.
An employerAn employer may ask you to provide references from the organization or personal references.
Drug Testing: Employers may check you for drug consumption. An employerAn employer can ask a candidate for a drug test
after providing a conditional offer. If the results of drug tests are positive, you might lose your employment offer.
Criminal Background Check: Employers run a check on criminal records of the candidate to ensure the candidate doesn’t have any criminal record in the past.
Credit Background Check: Employers perform a credit check to see candidate’s credit to debt ratio, bankruptcy or fraudulence.
2. How does a background check verify employment?
An employment check is performed to verify the information given by the candidate about past employment and salary is true.
An employer may check the start and end dates of employment, the reason for leaving the job and candidates. Employment check can
be helpful in identifying true work experience of the candidate. An employment background check can be done through various ways
as mentioned below.
Inquiry to HR Department:
An employer can contact the HR department of a previous company and ask about the feedback. The employer sometimes
appoints a third party background check company to verify the information.
Professional References:
Employers may ask for personal or professional references to contact and verify the previous employment. You might need to
provide one reference for each employment. You can list one or more colleagues from your workplace or educational mentor or personal references.
Apart from this employer can build their own contact list for references and verify the details mentioned in the resume.
Candidate FAQs on Pre-employment Physical Tests
1. What do they do at a pre-employment physical?
It’s an important part of the hiring process and employee benefit for every organization. Pre-employment physical basically
ensures the current health status and physical well-being of the new hires.
The pre-employment medical check consists of the following steps but they may change as per the job role and need.
- 1. Complete Medical & Physical Examination
-
2. Laboratory Investigations
- Complete Blood Count
- Blood Sugar Test (usually fasting)
- Urine Routine & Microscopy
- Blood Group & Rh Factor
- 3. X-Ray Chest
- 4. ECG
- 5. Lipid Profile
- 6. Kidney function test
- 7. Liver function test
-
8. Optional tests
2. Can you fail a pre-employment physical?
It’s a very rare situation when applicants will not get through pre-employment physical or medical examination due to health issues and previous injuries.
The organization
will not exclude you because of your health issues. Only health problems that affect the specific needs of the job role will be taken into consideration.
An organization cannot reject an applicant based on the pre-employment test that tells his/her disability which is not going to
hamper the job performance. If the applicant is fit for the open job position then according to the EEOC guidelines organizations need to make
necessary changes to the workplace to support the applicant to perform the job.
