The Best Talent Assessment Tools for a Company

Understanding candidates’ skills and competencies is key to successful talent acquisition, especially as in-demand skills continue to rapidly evolve. A candidate’s resume, professional profile, and interview responses can offer a hiring team a glimpse into how an individual might perform in a role. But to fully grasp a prospective team member’s capabilities, it can be helpful to integrate assessments into the hiring process that prompt candidates to put their skills into action.

Talent assessment tools are specialized technology solutions that recruiting, talent acquisition, and HR teams use to measure whether candidates are the right fit for a given role and the organization as a whole. These tools are available to streamline candidate testing, identify the most qualified candidates, and support objective decision making during the hiring process.

Learning the ins and outs of talent assessment tools, including a general overview, insight into the top tools, key benefits of use, and questions to take into consideration, can help your team identify the right solutions that align with your overall business objectives.    

Table of contents:

• The best talent assessment tools
• Other effective talent assessment tools
• Why are talent assessment tools important?
• Which jobs can be assessed with these tools?
• What kind of tools does your company need?

The best talent assessment tools

Many talent assessment tools are available on the market, so you’ll want to select the most relevant ones that work best for your company’s specific needs. Depending on the solution, candidate assessment tools can evaluate a wide range of competencies. These can include hard, technical skills required for a specific role and soft skills needed to fit in, problem solve, and collaborate effectively with existing team members.  

In addition to leveraging these tools during the talent acquisition process, many companies also use them with current workers for development, team building, and succession planning purposes.

We’ve identified a selection of commonly used and top-rated talent assessment tools, but this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. Other tools are also available for your team to consider based on your goals and budget.

While all prices below are listed in U.S. dollars, many of these solutions are also available in other countries and currencies.

Criteria Corp

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Criteria Corp is an assessment company that helps organizations make talent decisions more objectively. Its comprehensive assessment solution is one of the top tools because of its wide reach and applicability. Pre-employment assessments are available for a variety of roles and across categories, including aptitude, personality, emotional intelligence, risk, and skills tests.

Features include:

• Unlimited testing to support organizations as they scale
• Role-specific tests covering more than 1,100 positions
• Game-based assessments to support an engaging candidate experience
• Real-time results and candidate comparison capabilities

Criteria Corp offers a free trial with access to the entire portfolio of assessments and the option to try up to 20 tests. The solution includes options for three subscription-based plans, which all feature unlimited assessments, rather than charging per assessment. Exact pricing is available on request.

eSkill

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eSkill offers customizable skill, behavioral, and cognitive assessments, enabling organizations to screen candidates faster and more accurately. Assessments are available across hundreds of roles, such as staffing, IT, healthcare, government, education, retail, call center, hospitality, and more.

Features include:

• Video response options to better get to know candidates
• Integrations with top applicant tracking systems and learning management systems
• EEOC compliance built from nearly 20 years and millions of candidates tested
• Insights to identify internal training and development needs among existing team members

Pricing for eSkill starts at $100 per month for a small business plan. Five plans are available so organizations of all sizes can select the plan that best meets their needs.

HighMatch

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HighMatch is a preemployment assessment solution that helps hiring managers measure whether a candidate has the traits, aptitudes, and hard skills needed to succeed. The platform is used by organizations across industries. Solutions are available for companies ranging in size from small business to enterprise.

Features include:

• Customized assessments available to align with an organization’s culture
• User-friendly, mobile-first assessments
• Job fit reports to understand whether the candidate is a high, medium, or low fit and why
• Benchmarking reports to identify qualities shared by top performers

Small business pricing for HighMatch starts at $100 per month. Additional pricing plan details are available on request.

Other effective talent assessment tools

Adaface

Adaface helps companies find the most qualified candidates by assessing key skills required for specific roles. This tool is intended for technical and IT roles such as software engineering, data science, and analytics. In addition to technical skill assessments, Adaface also offers psychometric and personality testing.

Features include:

• Customizable tests
• Integrations with top applicant tracking systems
• Online web proctoring and anti-plagiarism capabilities
• Interactive chatbot to engage candidates

A free trial of Adaface is available. Pricing ranges from $180 per year for an individual plan to $20,000 per year for enterprise-level support.

Caliper Profile

Initially launched more than 60 years ago, the Caliper Profile is a talent assessment that objectively measures an individual’s personality characteristics and motivations to help predict on-the-job behaviors and potential. Options are available to assess candidates as well as existing team members to support development, internal mobility, and team building.

Features include:

• Worker insights across 4.5 million assessments
• Annual updates to ensure validity
• Integrated analytics to evaluate, compare, and rank workers
• Compliance with all Title VII and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines for selection

Caliper Profile pricing isn’t publicly listed but is available on request.

Codility

Founded in 2009, Codility is a technical interview platform that enables organizations to test coding skills and make evidence-based hiring decisions while mitigating bias. The platform is best for testing candidates’ hard skills for technical roles such as developers and engineers.

Features include:

• Customizable, role-specific remote skills assessments
• Live technical interviews and assessments featuring templates and whiteboarding tools
• Coding challenges to assess top candidates at scale—both online and at in-person hiring events
• Integrations with top applicant tracking systems and communication tools

A free trial of Codility and full pricing details are available on request.

DiSC

For over 40 years, organizations around the world have used the DiSC® personality assessment tool to help improve teamwork, communication, and productivity in the workplace. The DiSC model helps companies of all sizes and is a fit for any role or industry.

Features include:

• Options to test both candidates and existing team members
• Detailed report shared with individuals to better understand their personal work styles
• Training opportunities to become a certified DiSC administrator
• Comparison reports for administrators to gain a full view of personal characteristics across a team
  

DiSC’s most popular workplace assessment and profile costs $81. Find a detailed product catalog of other offerings on the DiSC website.

Filtered

Filtered helps talent acquisition and engineering leaders evaluate technical talent across full-stack engineering, QA, data science, blockchain, and DevOps roles. Available testing includes coding challenges, interactive video interviews, and role-specific technical assessments.

Features include:

• Analytics and reporting to identify technical talent and skill gaps across the organization
• Authentication and verification by prompting candidates to sync their GitHub or LinkedIn
• Virtual interview fraud detection
• Video conferencing built for engineers with integrated coding environments and whiteboarding

Pricing and plans for Filtered are available on request.

Harver

Harver is a preemployment testing platform specifically designed with high-volume hiring in mind. Assessments cover a wide range of non-technical roles including but not limited to retail, hospitality, and financial services. Behavioral, cognitive, soft skills, and job knowledge assessments are available.

Features include:

• Remote work assessments to determine whether a candidate’s home technology is adequate to succeed in the role
• Intelligent automation to decrease overall hiring time
• Data-driven insights from more than 100 million candidates
• Capabilities to support more than 40 languages

Pricing and plan options aren’t publicly listed but can be shared through a demo on the Harver website.

Related: High-Volume Hiring: What It Is and How It Works

iMocha

With iMocha talent assessments, companies can hire skill-fit candidates, upskill and reskill them, and overcome talent challenges. This solution is best for large enterprises and includes assessments for more than 2,500 skills across industries.

Features include:

• Remote collaboration tools to virtually assess and interview candidates
• Capabilities to benchmark organizational or individual skills against industry averages
• Insights to track progress toward organizational growth goals and measure training effectiveness
• More than 500 subject matter experts creating role-specific assessments across the globe

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iMocha pricing starts at $1,800 per year for a basic plan. Custom pricing is available based on specific business needs.

Maki

Maki is a talent assessment tool that enables organizations to validate candidates’ skills across roles and industries. A comprehensive test library includes assessments to evaluate both hard and soft skills, as well as culture fit.

Features include:

• Branded and personalized assessments based on job descriptions and requirements
• More than 150 tests created by subject matter experts, with customization options
• Centralized results to compare candidates with one another and others in the Maki database
• Automated testing with the option to include assessment links directly in job descriptions

Recruiters can access a free trial of Maki. The tool offers three pricing plans, starting at $45 per month for smaller teams. Custom quotes are available for enterprise organizations.

Mercer | Mettl

Mercer | Mettl offers holistic online assessment tools for academic institutions and corporations. Through a secure, cloud-based platform, organizations across more than 25 industries can distribute psychometric, behavioral, aptitude, technical, and communication skills assessments to both candidates and current workers.

Features include:

• Customizable and scalable assessment solutions
• Automated hiring steps and learning and development processes
• Best-in-class data security standards
• Availability across more than 90 countries

Organizations can sign up for a free trial. Customized pricing is available based on specific business needs.

PI Hire by The Predictive Index

Powered by 65 years of behavioral science, The Predictive Index preemployment testing tool, PI Hire, helps organizations make the right hiring decision for any role. A six-minute behavioral assessment helps companies of all sizes and industries understand how candidates align with their needs.

Features include:

• Candidate benchmarks informed by a company’s job descriptions and based on millions of data points
• Simple candidate sorting to ensure only the best-fit individuals move forward
• Instant insights on how each candidate matches a specific job
• Custom interview questions that probe specific gaps identified by assessments

A free PI Hire plan is available. Details about more advanced features can be shared on request.

Plum

‍Plum uses a single psychometric assessment to bring objectivity to talent decisions across the employee lifecycle. The assessment gauges personality, social intelligence, and problem-solving capabilities to quantify candidate job fit and develop existing team members. Plum customers range from small businesses to global enterprises.

Features include:

• Automated job analysis to identify relevant behavioral requirements for any role
• Objective data to remove bias from hiring decisions and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Engaging candidate experience with a user-friendly assessment and personalized Plum profile
• Instant insights to compare individual profiles against job needs

Pricing for Plum is available on request.

Pymetrics

Pymetrics is a soft skills platform that uses data-driven behavioral insights to improve hiring and talent development. Assessments match talent to the right jobs, ranging from entry-level and hourly roles to professional and leadership positions, along with identifying new opportunities for current workers.

Features include:

• Gamified soft skills assessments to engage candidates
• Science-backed process to measure cognitive and emotional attributes without bias
• Insights into how candidate behaviors align with company skill requirements and values
• Unique profiles for candidates to understand their top cognitive, social, and emotional attributes

Pricing for pymetrics is available on request.

Qualified

Qualified helps software companies and technical recruiters assess software engineers at scale. A built-in skills assessment library includes tests focused on more than two dozen common coding languages used by developers.

Features include:

• Options to build custom assessments, from small-scale coding challenges to larger projects
• Detailed benchmarking statistics to better understand developers’ strengths and weaknesses
• In-depth feedback on code quality, including automated scoring and code playback
• Engaging candidate experience featuring real-world skill assessments and challenges
  
  

The Qualified platform offers a free trial. Additional pricing details are available on request.

TestDome

TestDome’s work skill tests help managers hire qualified candidates faster. Tests are available for several industries, including programming, accounting, customer service, and project management, with a specific focus on technical and IT roles.

Features include:

• Multiple options to distribute assessments to one or several candidates
• Real-world problem-solving challenges to gain a firsthand understanding of candidates’ skills
• Detailed reporting including a skill breakdown and candidate comparison capabilities
• Data protection measures including candidate data anonymization

A 14-day free trial of TestDome is available to recruiters. Job seekers can access free public tests to assess their skills. No monthly subscription is required. Plans are priced by candidate and start at $7 per candidate for larger packages.

TestGorilla

TestGorilla provides tools to efficiently screen candidates and make faster and easier hiring decisions. An integrated test library includes cognitive, programming, software, personality, culture, and language tests; the inventory of tests continues to grow. TestGorilla is available for organizations and roles across industries.

Features include:

• Intuitive platform for anyone to create assessments, add custom questions, and rank candidates
• Positive and user-friendly candidate experience
• Integrated cheating prevention technology
• Automated scoring and candidate ranking

TestGorilla offers four pricing tiers, ranging from a free plan with basic features to a $2,000 per month plan for high-volume hiring needs.  

Vervoe

Using Vervoe, organizations can test a candidate’s job-ready skills, including technical and software-specific skills, along with soft skills like communication and attention to detail. A library of over 300 assessments is available, with options to customize questions or skills based on specific job descriptions.

Features include:

• A variety of testing options including coding challenges, presentations, and live spreadsheets
• Integrated candidate messaging to drive engagement
• In-depth scoring and options to compare candidates and collaborate with hiring managers
• Talent database to identify previous candidates whose skills match new open roles

Vervoe offers a free trial. Pricing starts at $19 per month for a basic plan. A more advanced growth plan is available for $250 per month.Custom enterprise pricing is also available on request.

WonScore by Wonderlic

The WonScore preemployment testing platform equips hiring teams with actionable data to predict on-the-job success. The platform assesses cognitive ability, personality traits, and motivations to identify candidates who are the best fit. WonScore is relevant for businesses of all sizes and roles across industries.

Features include:

• Annual platform updates as the job market and specific roles change, featuring over 80 years of industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology research
• Simple, user-friendly setup with no training or certification required
• Data-driven insights to weed out unqualified individuals and focus on top candidates
• Personalized data to create onboarding strategies tailored to individual needs

WonScore pricing is available on request.

Why are talent assessment tools important?

A survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers and talent professionals from Wonderlic found that 84% of respondents believe talent assessments help them more quickly identify top talent. In addition, 83% said assessments can help reduce turnover. Talent assessment tools also make the overall hiring process more efficient and offer several other key business benefits.

Reduced administrative tasks

As organizations scale, manually reviewing every candidate for a long list of open roles can be time-consuming—and much of that time is spent reviewing candidates who aren’t qualified.

Leveraging talent assessment tools can help your organization reduce or eliminate the time typically spent manually reviewing candidates after they initially apply. A brief, automated survey or assessment at the beginning of the process can help your team weed out candidates who aren’t a fit. Later on in the hiring process, you can consider going more in-depth to evaluate specific skills, such as asking candidates to complete a coding challenge or develop a presentation relevant to the specific role.

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Related: What is Talent Acquisition? Definition and Overview

Wider reach

In some cases, your team might receive an overwhelming number of candidates who appear at first glance to be qualified for a given role. Unlike not receiving enough qualified candidates, this is a good problem to have—except when it comes time to assess the list of candidates for the interview stage. Your team might even risk overlooking a top candidate during the review process.

Rather than manually reviewing each candidate, talent assessment tools can validate that a candidate possesses the skills listed on their resume, job application, or proposal. Once you receive the assessment results, your team can narrow down the list of candidates that will move forward in the hiring process based on which individuals show the most proficiency in what’s required for the role.

Access to quality candidates

Every organization runs into instances in which candidates appear qualified on paper, only for the team to realize they aren’t a fit once they reach the interview stage. Interviewing unqualified candidates can slow down the hiring process and frustrate hiring managers who take time out of their busy schedules for interviews.

Talent assessments can confirm that candidates are qualified for your open roles. Including talent assessments in your process can also weed out unqualified talent because they either won’t take the time to complete the assessments, or their lower scores will help ensure your team doesn’t spend time interviewing them.

While some organizations might be concerned that talent assessments will turn away candidates because testing adds an extra step to the hiring process, motivated candidates see the value in assessments. Research from Criteria Corp found that 94% of candidates surveyed say assessments help demonstrate their potential “very well” or “somewhat well.”

Minimized human error in assessments

Some teams gauge a candidate’s abilities based on what the individual displays either on their resume or during the interview process. In other instances, companies manually distribute and score assessments via email. Both options can pose the risk for human error—but talent assessment tools reduce this risk.

Many talent assessment tools have automation capabilities throughout the process, including sending assessments, scoring, and ranking candidates. Automation can save time and ensure all data related to talent assessments is accurate and objective, while increasing the hiring team’s confidence in a candidate’s ability to succeed in the role.

Decreased hiring and training costs

By reducing administrative tasks, automating preemployment assessments, and primarily focusing time and resources on qualified candidates, your team will decrease overall hiring costs as a result. And validating candidates’ skills before they join the team can reduce overall training costs.

Continued on-the-job training and development is important—especially as in-demand skills evolve—but bringing on individuals with the fundamental skills to perform the job well can help any organization save time and money on initial training and onboarding.

Related: The Most Effective Talent Development Strategies

Which jobs can be assessed with these tools?

Talent assessment tools can be beneficial when hiring for any role. Soft skill assessments help your team better understand a candidate’s capabilities such as communication, flexibility, time management, and teamwork, which will help determine how they might work with other team members.

Assessment tools related to hard and technical skills can be used for specific roles across departments.

• Engineering: Coding, programming, software architecture
• Marketing: Search engine optimization, marketing automation, marketing analytics, writing
• Operations: Data analytics, Microsoft Excel, budgeting, risk assessment
• Recruiting and HR: Confidentiality, critical listening, negotiation, persuasion
• Sales: Active listening, negotiation, research, presentation skills

What kind of tools does your company need?

Once you have an understanding of available talent assessment tools, key features, and benefits, a next step is determining which tools might be most effective for your organization.

Questions to consider as your team evaluates different talent assessment tools include:

• What is the current talent assessment and hiring process?
• What works well with the current process?
• How can the process improve?
• How can talent assessment tools help?
• Which current or upcoming open roles would benefit from talent assessment tools?
• Which skills will need to be tested for open roles?
• How much budget is available to invest in talent assessment tools?
• Which talent assessment tools are the best fit based on current needs and budget?
• Are customization options available with certain tools?

Related: How to Create a Talent Management Strategy

Effective tools need the right professional behind them

Evaluating and implementing effective talent assessment tools requires thoughtful planning and consideration. Rather than taking your existing talent acquisition or HR team away from their day-to-day tasks and strategic responsibilities, consider tapping into outside expertise.

Skilled independent talent management professionals are available on Upwork to help your team select and administer talent assessment tools that will drive positive results for your business. Innovative businesses turn to independent talent on Upwork to access specialized skills, scale teams as needed, and decrease fixed operational costs. Start by searching for independent talent management professionals today.

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Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this article. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation. Prices are current at the time of writing and may change over time based on each service’s offerings.