The Best Pre-Employment Testing Software List
Here’s the list of the best pre-employment testing software that I’ll cover in this article:
- 2. Vervoe — Customizable skill assessment software with role-specific simulation testing capabilities
- 3. iMocha — Comprehensive, AI-powered skills assessment software with digital proctoring capabilities
- 4. Talview — Well-rounded online assessment tool with advanced security and digital proctoring features
- 5. Wild Noodle — AI-powered online programming assessment test for recruiters hiring for technical positions
- 6. TestGorilla — Affordable testing software with deep test library, including language proficiency tests
- 7. Qualified — Technical coding assessment platform with revealing code playback feature for deeper programmer insights
- 8. Resource Associates — Straightforward pre-employment testing provider with a comprehensive test library and “on demand” pricing
- 9. eSkill — Flexible pre-employment testing software with video interviews and skill gap assessments
- 10. The Hire Talent — Easy-to-use pre-employment testing tool with detailed candidate performance reports
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
Screening candidates, especially for technical positions, is always a challenge. While an applicant may tell you they have experience with certain tasks, how can you know for sure? Are they being honest, or are they exaggerating to get the position? The best way to uncover the truth is to use pre-employment testing software.
Pre-employment testing software can assess a wide variety of specific skills. This includes everything from soft skills to computer-based skills, or advanced technical skills. Beyond that, pre-employment testing can also uncover personality characteristics and behavioral traits. These are useful to examine as they are usually indicative of future job performance.
With testing results scored objectively, it becomes easier to compare top candidates side-by-side. This also ensures hiring decisions are data-driven and free of unconscious bias.
To save you time, I've compiled a list of the 10 best pre-employment testing software for evaluating potential staff. Keep reading to find the best software for your specific business needs.
Comparison Criteria
Wondering what I look for when selecting the best pre-employment testing software for this list? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for software with a clean, colourful, and uncluttered interface that candidates would enjoy using.
- Usability: I prioritize software that’s easy to set up and share with candidates, with results and data clearly organized and digestible to support quick decision-making.
- Integrations: I prefer pre-employment testing software that integrates with other recruiting software such as applicant tracking systems or candidate sourcing software.
- Value for $: I appreciate software with transparent pricing structures such as per-test or per-candidate options, or the ability to order tests in scalable packages.
Pre-Employment Testing Software: Key Features
Here’s a summary of the main features you can expect to find in the best pre-employment testing software:
- A library of testing templates: A selection of ready-to-go templates designed for specific job roles or industries.
- A range of testing types: Common sub-types of pre-employment testing include technical or coding assessments, software skills, psychometric tests, cognitive aptitude measures, behavioral assessments, personality tests, measures of emotional intelligence, computer or office skills tests, job-specific skill assessments, and assessments for other soft skills.
- Role-based simulations: These are engineered scenarios that reflect real-world job tasks. They allow human resources teams to assess how applicants would excel in a specific role.
- Automated candidate ranking: A time-saving feature that automatically sorts candidates based on their test scores and overall job fit status.
- Bias-reducing features: Candidate ranking that focuses solely on skill-based scoring, plus advanced features like blind reviews where the personal details of candidates are anonymized.
- Digital proctoring: Software features that prevent candidates from cheating, such as locked down browsers or other system features, video-based candidate ID verification features, visual environmental checks, and tools to identify plagiarized code.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Pre-Employment Testing Software
Here’s a brief description of each pre-employment testing software to showcase each tool’s best use case. I’ve also highlighted some noteworthy features and included screenshots to give you a snapshot of the user interface.
Zoho Recruit
Best with customizable assessment questionnaires for candidates
Zoho Recruit is a software tool that assists organizations in managing their recruitment process, including assessing the skills, experience, and suitability of potential candidates. Features like resume parsing, pre-screening questions, and customized assessments help evaluate whether applicants fit the profile hiring teams are seeking.
Weighted pre-screening questions help filter through applications and narrow down a smaller pool of candidates for a role. Users can also use the software's customizable forms and questionnaires to screen job candidates. The assessments provided in the platform include behavioral, background, and general screening questions. These can uncover the applicant's thinking process, level of creativity, and reasoning skills, which are difficult to determine during an interview.
Depending on what's most important and relevant to the role, users can create a bespoke screening process using the templates provided. The software then provides users with reports based on the results of candidate assessments. In addition to screening candidates, the software facilitates job posting management, interview scheduling, and customizable workflows.
Paid plans start from $30/user/month, and a 15-day free trial and free plan are available.
Vervoe
Customizable skill assessment software with role-specific simulation testing capabilities
Vervoe’s system comes pre-loaded with 300 pre-employment assessment test templates designed by leading industrial and organizational (I/O) psychologists. These can be used as is, or easily customized with your own questions, or additional items from their bank of 300,000 questions. For technical positions, their platform includes challenges in 8 common coding languages. They also boast strong assessment capabilities for other industries such as marketing and advertising, customer service, retail, healthcare, and call-center recruiting. To ensure candidates are the right fit, hiring teams can use their Customer Service Simulator to develop simulations of what each role is actually like, to see how applicants cope.
System admins have the ability to customize the candidate experience through Vervoe by including a video introduction that welcomes candidates, introduces their company and provides instructions prior to the actual skill testing. As skill tests are completed, Vervoe uses AI to score and rank candidate results in real-time. Top performers are automatically moved to the top of the results dashboard and identified with trophies and badges highlighting their top skills. Hiring managers can use the platform to compare top applicants side-by-side to support decision-making. Once users mark a candidate as ‘hired’ this further enhances the machine learning algorithm for assessing future candidates.
Vervoe integrates with other popular recruiting and workflow tools such as Greenhouse, PageUp, SmartRecruiters, Zapier, and others. Their API also allows for additional integrations customizations.
Pricing for Vervoe starts at $109 USD/month. A free demo and free trial can also be requested through their website.
iMocha
Comprehensive, AI-powered skills assessment software with digital proctoring capabilities
With over 2,500 skill tests in their library, iMocha is a comprehensive pre-employment testing option for a wide range of industries with technical needs. Beyond all the classic programming languages, users can also initiate tests for other programs like the full Adobe suite, Amazon-specific portals, cybersecurity risk management, specific enterprise-level software systems (like SAP, Salesforce and the full Microsoft suite) and many other applications.
To ensure diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) among candidates, their bias-free assessment report focuses exclusively on skill-based analyses, while anonymizing other candidate details for more objective comparisons. Their AI-powered system also proctors assessments through real-time images, audio, and video, ensuring that answers are 100% authentic. This type of digital automation makes it a natural fit for virtual campus hiring drives or assessing other remote candidates. To further support university recruitment, iMocha also assesses the job-readiness of graduates with tips for skill gaps they need to address.
iMocha integrates with popular ATS software including Greenhouse, Jobvite, iCIMS, SmartRecruiters, Level, and Taleo.
Pricing details for iMocha are only available upon request, but a free trial and free demo can be requested through their website.
Talview
Well-rounded online assessment tool with advanced security and digital proctoring features
Talview’s online assessment platform covers four main styles of testing: an essay test, typing test, online coding tests, and advanced STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) tests. Their programming/coding assessments are available in 52 programming languages including Java, Ruby, Python and many others. They’re a useful tool for pre-screening large volumes of technical applicants—such as university students—ensuring you only spend time interviewing the top talent in the group.
Their security features are noteworthy, and stand out against other testing providers in this list. Tests are completed within their Talview Secure Browser which locks down access to other system resources like applications, other web tabs, or offline information when an assessment is underway. Remote cognitive proctoring automatically monitors for fraudulent activity via video, flags any suspicious activities, and warns or blocks candidates who appear to be cheating. They also have a 360° Test Environment Check feature that prompts candidates to visually verify elements of their exam room before initiating the test, including their table/desk, ceiling, floor, and the absence of earphones, plus a 360 degree video capture of the entire room.
Talview integrates with several other software providers including Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, and TalentLMS.
Pricing details for Talview are only available upon request, though you can request a free demo through their website.
Wild Noodle
AI-powered online programming assessment test for recruiters hiring for technical positions
Wild Noodle is an online platform that enables employers to assess candidates before hiring them. It offers a suite of tests to help employers make data-driven decisions regarding staffing their teams. It has an extensive assessment library with various assessments, including soft skills such as communication and problem-solving and hard skills such as coding and web design.
Employers can select whichever assessments are most relevant to their situation to get a comprehensive picture of each candidate's abilities and aptitudes before deciding whether they should be hired. This level of insight helps reduce turnover rates by ensuring employees are better suited to their position before they even begin work. Wild Noodle makes test administration straightforward with its user-friendly dashboard interface. Its reporting feature also enables employers to compare candidates against each other and make informed decisions about which candidate is best suited for a given position.
Wild Noodle helps employers create custom tests tailored to their needs. This makes it easier to evaluate potential hires based on the skills they need most. Additionally, the software provides automated scoring and reporting options so employers can quickly compare applicants’ test results without having to do it manually. Wild Noodle saves time by automating many tasks associated with evaluating prospective employees. Users no longer have to score individual tests or compare multiple applicants manually. This allows recruiters to focus more on other aspects of the hiring process, such as interviews or background checks.
Wild Noodle helps ensure that all job candidates receive consistent evaluations regardless of who is doing the assessment. This increases fairness during the hiring process since everyone is evaluated according to the same criteria and standards an organization sets. This software eliminates human bias since it uses objective data rather than subjective opinions when deciding which applicants should move forward in the hiring process.
TestGorilla
Affordable testing software with deep test library, including language proficiency tests
TestGorilla allows hiring teams to create high-quality assessments with tight turnaround times. Based on the name of each job role you’re looking to assess, TestGorilla automatically suggests the best pre-loaded testing template to use for each position (and you can add your own questions if you want too). They also allow users to combine multiple types of assessments into one packaged test for your candidates. This is helpful as it provides a better candidate experience rather than sending out multiple testing links for skill tests and behavioral assessments, for example. Their system also includes the ability to collect video interview responses to further assess candidate personalities too.
Their testing library is deep and includes tests for both hard skills (Python, JavaScript, PHP, etc.), software skills (PowerPoint, Hubspot, Zendesk, AutoCAD, etc.), and soft skills (communication, business ethics, negotiation, time management, etc.). As well, their system also supports role-based assessments for positions like accounts payable, social media management, technical SEO, B2B sales and many others. TestGorilla is also a great choice for businesses with international or multilingual workforces as they can test the language proficiency of candidates in many languages and levels, including: English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
TestGorilla integrates with major applicant tracking systems such as Greenhouse, JazzHR, Lever, SmartRecruiters and others. Their mobile app also supports assessments on Android or iOS devices too.
Pricing for TestGorilla starts at $25 USD/month, though they do have a free forever plan with limited features that would work for focused recruiting (unlimited candidates, but only 5 tests). A free demo can also be requested through their website.
Qualified
Technical coding assessment platform with revealing code playback feature for deeper programmer insights
Qualified’s performance-based coding assessment platform takes the guesswork out of evaluating programming and software development skills. Their system supports assessments in 29 programming languages and has a library of pre-built assessment situations to make technical assessments easy to implement. Or, you can use their challenge authoring suite to create your own custom challenge, but still benefit from their automated candidate scoring and other features.
Their assessment reports include benchmarking statistics that compare candidates to all other developers within Qualified’s platform. To ensure applicants are submitting original work, they have a built-in risk detection feature to flag potentially plagiarized code. Another interesting feature is their optional blind review function that ensures talent is identified based on skills and merit and not other personal characteristics. Their code playback feature is also really useful as it records applicants as they develop their code. This allows technical employees to watch how applicants work and gain deeper insight into each programmer’s thought process and problem solving ability.
Qualified integrates with applicant tracking systems (ATS), including Greenhouse, Workable, and BambooHR. Further integrations are available through their API, webhooks, or integration with Zapier.
Pricing details for Qualified are only available upon request, but a free trial can be requested through their website.
Resource Associates
Straightforward pre-employment testing provider with a comprehensive test library and “on demand” pricing
Research Associates has a library of 200+ pre-employment tests covering a wide range of job categories. They also have different styles of assessments, including cognitive ability, mental reasoning, personality style, and many role-specific tests too. Overall their assessments test 40+ personality dimensions and 30+ aptitude dimensions. The different testing modules can be combined depending on what you need. Or, you can create custom assessments by drawing from their bank of valid personality dimensions and aptitude tests too.
Resource Associates is a great option for any teams that are new to the idea of pre-employment assessments and want to test it out without a formal commitment. Their testing library is available “on demand” meaning you can browse through their list of tests to find the job or skills you’re looking for, then purchase a license for that particular test. Once you’ve paid, you’ll receive the login details to send to your candidate. Once your candidate completes the test, you’ll receive a link to view their results. While it may not be as fancy as some of the other systems in this list, it’s certainly a functional and low cost option to get a feel for the process.
Pricing for Resource Associates varies depending on the assessment you select. The typical range is between $10 to $75 USD per test. Beyond that, there are no minimum orders, contracts or subscriptions required. You can also request a free demo through their website, and view sample reports of all the assessments before you purchase one too.
eSkill
Flexible pre-employment testing software with video interviews and skill gap assessments
eSkill’s talent assessment platform supports pre-employment assessments, as well as skill set testing, behavioral assessments, and voice & video interviewing to gain a comprehensive picture of all applicants. Their assessment catalogue is comprehensive, with over 800 standard tests and 5,000 combinable topics to choose from. You can also insert your own customized job-related questions too. Their system also makes it easy for candidates to self-record video interviews answering predefined questions, which saves time by reducing the need for multiple live interviews. Instead, video responses can be watched by hiring managers at their convenience, when reviewing testing results and submissions from other applicants in tandem to make comparisons easier.
Their cognitive assessments help predict how candidates would perform if hired, and also include a skills gap assessment to highlight any key experience qualified candidates might be lacking. Their detailed skill gap analysis can also inform the next steps in the recruiting process such as skill-based onboarding. This is a modern approach that utilizes pre-employment testing data to develop a customized training process for new hires to ensure they receive the proper training for areas they aren’t already familiar with.
eSkill integrates with many popular recruiting software platforms such as JazzHR, Avionte, Bullhorn, Oracle, Applicant Pro, iCIMS, Outmatch, Jobvite, Talegent, Taleo, and many others. They also have an API to support other custom software configurations.
Pricing details for eSkill are only available upon request, though you can request a free demo through their website.
The Hire Talent
Easy-to-use pre-employment testing tool with detailed candidate performance reports
The Hire Talent’s pre-employment testing service covers a whole range of candidate assessments including personality & behavioral assessment testing, cognitive & aptitude assessment testing, ability & skills assessment testing, leadership assessment tests, and sales assessment tests. Within each one of those categories, they also have tools to determine culture fit, plus flags for any personality traits that are traditionally challenging to work with.
Their detailed candidate assessment report plots their individual characteristics on a personality matrix to determine if they’re a good match for the position. They also dive into the negative aspects of their attitude and how that could affect their ability to work with others. To assess the honesty of applicants, The Hire Talent has embedded a method of identifying inconsistencies within test answers that flag unreliable candidates as poor fits. In addition, they also have tools to detect exaggerations, and uncover other insights like a candidate’s growth potential, IQ and drive.
The Hiring Talent integrates with other recruiting applications including Greenhouse, ZipRecruiter, iCIMS Talent Cloud, and Indeed.
Pricing for The Hire Talent starts as low as $5 USD per assessment (for volume purchasers) or $125 USD per month for unlimited use. A free demo and free trial can also be requested through their website.
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The 10 Best Pre-Employment Testing Software Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Zoho Recruit Best with customizable assessment questionnaires for candidates | 15-day free trial + free plan available | From $30/user/month (100 active job postings) | Visit Website |
2 | Vervoe Customizable skill assessment software with role-specific simulation testing capabilities | Free trial and free demo available | From $109 USD/month | Visit Website |
3 | iMocha Comprehensive, AI-powered skills assessment software with digital proctoring capabilities | Free trial and free demo | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
4 | Talview Well-rounded online assessment tool with advanced security and digital proctoring features | Request a free demo | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
5 | Wild Noodle AI-powered online programming assessment test for recruiters hiring for technical positions | 10 tests free | From $99/month | Visit Website |
6 | TestGorilla Affordable testing software with deep test library, including language proficiency tests | Free trial + free demo available | From $25/month | Visit Website |
7 | Qualified Technical coding assessment platform with revealing code playback feature for deeper programmer insights | Request a free trial | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
8 | Resource Associates Straightforward pre-employment testing provider with a comprehensive test library and “on demand” pricing | Free demo | From $10 to $75 USD per test | Visit Website |
9 | eSkill Flexible pre-employment testing software with video interviews and skill gap assessments | Request a free demo | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
10 | The Hire Talent Easy-to-use pre-employment testing tool with detailed candidate performance reports | Request a free demo | From $5 USD/assessment (for volume purchasers) or $125 USD/month for unlimited use | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best pre-employment testing software list:
- Criteria
Well-rounded psychometric testing platform including game-based assessments
- HR Avatar
User-friendly pre-employment testing software with 2D job simulations to maximize candidate engagement
- Woven
Sophisticated engineering assessment platform focused on architecture, systems design, and debugging
- Mercer Mettl Assessments
Advanced talent and coding assessment platform with hackathon hosting feature, well-suited for campus recruiting
- Willo
Best for its candidate interview portals and ease of interview submission
- Unnanu Hire
Best for creating custom tests
- Plum
A holistic suite of talent assessment tools, including a predictive, psychometric behavioral assessment for all candidates.
- Match.hr
Data-driven personality assessment software based on the OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) model - developed by the University of Cambridge’s Psychometrics Centre.
- TestInvite
Talent acquisition software that compares candidates against objective criteria, with a large library of customizable tests for a wide range of skills.
- Harver
Validated and unbiased pre-hire assessments that address hard skills, cognitive & learning agility, behavioral elements, and job fit.
What Are The Benefits Of Pre-Employment Testing?
Pre-employment testing can improve the quality of your recruitment process and the candidates you hire in many ways. Here are some of the main benefits you can expect to gain from using pre-employment testing software:
- You’ll accelerate your hiring process by:
- spending less time sorting and screening applicants.
- only focusing on the top-scoring candidates.
- You’ll gain a realistic understanding of each applicant’s skill level for particular tasks.
- You’ll gain deeper insights into your candidates prior to interviewing them, allowing you to ask more effective follow-up questions when you finally do meet.
- You’ll be able to assess applicants’ personality traits to predict future job performance.
- You’ll be able to assess whether a candidate is a good culture fit for your team.
- You’ll ensure hiring decisions are based on data rather than unconscious bias.
- You’ll improve your candidate experience by offering them more opportunities to engage with your company, as well as post-test feedback for future opportunities.
- You’ll gain valuable data that can be translated into onboarding and orientation training for candidates who are hired despite some skill gaps.
How Important Is Pre-Employment Testing?
With all of the benefits noted above, it’s hard to imagine not using some form of pre-employment testing. This is especially true for technical positions that require advanced skills. When you consider that the cost of a bad hire can reach as high as 30% of the employee’s annual salary, it makes sense to invest a little more in finding the best candidate for the position up-front.
In fact, recent research indicates that the global market for pre-employment testing software is on the rise. It’s expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 11% between 2022 and 2028, with an estimated value of $292.4 million USD by 2028.
Related Read: HR Software: What It Costs And How To Decide What’s Best For Your Company
What Do You Think About This List?
I hope this article gave you a better understanding of pre-employment testing and how it can add value to your recruiting process.
If you still need more help with candidate selection, take a look at our list of the best candidate sourcing software to help you find the best talent.
You may also appreciate some other tips on how to maintain the candidate experience, especially if your company is going through a period of rapid growth.
We also have a free leadership assessment tool that measures 7 key skill areas, which is another great way to assess existing employees too.
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