Survey Says: Smarter Hiring Starts with Assessments

Hiring isn’t just about filling an open role; it’s about finding the right person for the right job at the right time. Yet, despite our best intentions, hiring mistakes happen. Whether it’s a mismatch in skills, culture fit, or expectations, a bad hire can cost your organization both time and money—and not to mention, it can affect team morale. So how do you avoid these pitfalls and make smarter hiring decisions? That’s where assessments come in.

Why assessments matter in hiring

Assessments provide a data-driven approach to hiring, helping you move beyond gut feelings and first impressions. By evaluating candidates against key metrics—such as temperament and behavioural traits, cognitive abilities, and job-specific skills—you gain deeper insights into their potential fit within your organization. Think of it as adding an extra layer of certainty to your decision-making process. After all, wouldn’t you rather know how a candidate is likely to perform before they’re on the job?

Assessments can improve your quality of hire by ensuring candidates align with the role’s requirements and your company’s culture. They also reduce the risk of bias by standardizing the evaluation process, making it easier to compare candidates objectively. With the right tools, you’re not just hiring for today—you’re setting your team up for long-term success.

Read more: Upgrade your candidate experience to find great hires

How McQuaig assessments help

McQuaig assessments are designed to simplify the hiring process while delivering powerful insights. Here’s how:

1. Defining role requirements: Before you hire, you need to know exactly what you’re looking for. The McQuaig Job Survey helps you establish a clear benchmark for the role, identifying the key traits a candidate is likely to need to succeed and gaining consensus from all involved in the hiring decision before you even start searching for talent.
   

2. Identifying the right candidates: During the recruitment process, tools like the McQuaig Word Survey can help you cut through the noise and get to the heart of who your top candidates are. This survey uncovers a candidate's temperament, areas of strength or gaps, work style, learning style and more. Understanding these traits helps evaluate candidates against your set benchmark, ensuring a strong match for the position and your organizational culture.

3. Examining mental agility: Once you have your shortlisted candidates, consider adding a mental agility measure to your decision making process. The McQuaig Mental Agility Test assess a candidate’s cognitive speed, problem-solving abilities, and capacity to learn new information quickly. This helps ensure your hires can adapt and thrive in dynamic work environments.

4. Reducing bias: With standardized assessments, you’re evaluating every candidate on the same criteria and comparing them directly to the same benchmark. This helps reduce unconscious bias and ensures you’re making decisions based on data, not assumptions, by identifying those who are the closest match to your ideal profile.

5. Onboarding support: The benefits of assessments don’t end with hiring. By understanding a new hire’s strengths, learning style, and motivations, before you hire them, you can craft a personalized onboarding plan that sets them up for success. Imagine walking into a new job and being onboarded in a way that works best for your learning style and management preferences from day one. It sends a powerful message to new hires that their unique traits are valued and have a place on their new team.

6. Team development: Assessments aren’t just for new hires. They can also be used to identify growth opportunities for existing employees, ensuring your team continues to thrive and adapt as your business evolves. Assessment and McQuaig Tools such as TeamSync can help a manager understand the composition of their current team and how well a new hire is likely to integrate, providing advice to make that process as smooth as possible.

Ready to elevate your hiring?

The data is clear: assessments improve hiring outcomes. If you’re ready to elevate your talent strategy and ensure every hire is a quality hire, McQuaig can help. From defining what success looks like in a role to uncovering the hidden potential in your candidates, our assessments give you the tools you need to hire smarter.

It’s time to leave hiring guesswork behind. Let McQuaig help you make data-driven decisions that build stronger, more successful teams. Ready to get started? Contact us today to learn more.