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Pre-Employment Testing

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Unit 3 Individual Assignment
Employers use prescreening tests in order to screen applicants for a job. There are different types of tests that can be used when selecting the correct employee. When conducting prescreening testing, it is important to be cognizant of the validity, reliability and implementation of the testing. Employers must also be mindful of Equal Employment Opportunity laws, such as Title VII, and ensure they are being examined and followed throughout the prescreening process in effort to avoid being contested in court (Quast, 2011). Employers must avoid personal questions that are not related to job performance. It is important to understand that these tests are not 100 percent accurate, and therefore not to be relied on solely in candidate selection (Quast, 2011). Though there are many different prescreening tests that can be, and are used today, a few include cognitive tests, personality tests, job knowledge, polygraph tests, interviews, drug screening, credit checks, and criminal background checks.
Cognitive testing uses questions to test the applicant’s comprehension and problems solving skills, especially with multifaceted tasks. This type of testing can be helpful to test an applicant’s ability to problem solve when related to job complication. The validity and reliability of cognitive ability tests is high because they can be used as an indicator of the employee’s upcoming successes (OPM.gov, Cognitive Ability Tests).
Job knowledge testing is similar to a written exam in that applicants are tested on their knowledge related to the job they are interviewing for. Unlike cognitive testing, job knowledge testing only tests on current knowledge, not on the capacity to learn new skill in the future. The validity and reliability of job knowledge testing is extremely high. The test is very tell-tale because it will show is the applicant

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