Rushing Recruitment Can Be a False Economy, Firms Warned

Pre-hire tests and assessments can help identify if new hires will fit in

Businesses are ramping up recruitment to secure the people they need with the right modern skills for the post-pandemic economy. But “recruitment in a rush” could store up problems for the future, warns Questionmark, the online assessment provider.

United States (US) employers created 850,000 jobs in June alone.¹ Half of United Kingdom (UK) firms are planning to hire.² Yet 87% of employers are facing a gap between the skills they need and those available to them in the workforce.³ So, recruitment is the answer to bring vital new skills into the business.

The new Questionmark report, “Skills, Culture, Vocation: Finding the Right Recruits” urges employers to ensure the “person-organization” fit of new hires. If a new team member does not share their employer’s goals and values, it can place culture and productivity at risk.

Staff members that feel a sense of belonging are six times more engaged than those that don’t.⁴ And a clash of culture is one of the main reasons that people part company with their employer.⁵

John Kleeman, Founder of Questionmark, said: “Hiring quickly can prove a false economy. If a new starter is not the right fit for the organization, they probably won’t last long. Replacing an employee costs about a third of their salary. Employers must get recruitment right.”

Measuring the skills, attitudes and values of someone before hiring them can help employers check they have the right person-organization fit. Skills assessments can show whether they have what it takes to do the job. Measuring their attitudes and values will indicate whether they are likely to be a good fit for culture.

Questionmark provides a range of ready-made assessments to test business skills such as data literacy, digital marketing and customer care.

Questionmark Thinking Skills Assessment by Cambridge Assessment enables employers to measure the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills of job applicants. This can indicate how likely a potential recruit is to progress within an organization.

Read the full report: “Skills, Culture, Vocation: Finding the Right Recruits”.

www.questionmark.com

Notes to editors

About Questionmark

Questionmark unlocks performance through reliable and secure online assessments.

Questionmark provides a secure enterprise-grade assessment platform and professional services to leading organizations around the world, delivered with care and unequalled expertise. Its full-service online assessment tool and professional services help customers to improve their performance and meet their compliance requirements. Questionmark enables organizations to unlock their potential by delivering assessments which are valid, reliable, fair and defensible.

Questionmark offers secure powerful integration with other LMS, LRS and proctoring services making it easy to bring everything together in one place. Questionmark's cloud-based assessment management platform offers rapid deployment, scalability for high-volume test delivery, 24/7 support, and the peace-of-mind of secure, audited U.S., Australian and European-based data centers.

¹ https://apnews.com/article/jobs-report-june-19c34ac90dbfa0f45bc9dac2a086cbfc

² https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56149661

³ https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/coronavirus-leading-through-the-crisis/charting-the-path-to-the-next-normal/mind-the-skills-gap

⁴ https://www.glintinc.com/blog/why-belonging-is-important-at-work-employee-engagement-and-diversity/

⁵ https://blog.smarp.com/employee-engagement-8-statistics-you-need-to-know

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210720005280/en/