How Staffing Firms Increase Revenue Using Soft Skills Assessment Tests

Staffing firms are always looking for ways to make more placements and increase profits. Clients hire staffing firms to find qualified candidates for critical job roles. However, the firm is only paid if a client hires a candidate recruited by the staffing firm. So, the downside is that staffing professionals could invest hours of work and get nothing in return.

Since speed, efficiency, and accuracy are essential, staffing firms use skills testing recruitment solutions such as the industry-leading eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM.  They can instantly screen hundreds or even thousands of applicants and identify top qualifiers for any position.

They can also use soft skills assessment tests to find candidates who can help clients meet their business growth goals.

Why Soft Skills Are Important

Clients often overlook the importance of soft skills. However, a candidate can have all the required skills and still be a bad fit for a job. According to a LinkedIn study, a lack of soft skills is responsible for 89% of all bad hires.

Hard skills are technical skills directly related to a job. For example, accountants must know how to create and read financial statements, and software engineers must be proficient at writing and QA testing Java and C++ code to develop high-quality software. 

Skill level also varies by knowledge level and experience acquired on the job. For instance, you would not expect a new customer service representative to manage your most difficult and demanding customers or a new warehouse worker to manage your inventory. 

Soft skills, often referred to as people skills, are personal abilities you would like all candidates to have regardless of their job or expertise level. Specific qualities make sense in some positions and are less critical in others. For instance, networking and relationship-building skills are essential for sales and marketing employees but less necessary for engineers. And leadership abilities are important for people who manage people, regardless of their field of expertise. 

Soft skills also determine whether applicants will be a good fit for your work environment. For instance, if you value open communication and collaboration, you need to hire candidates who are good team players and communicators. 

How Staffing Firms Can Use Soft Skills Assessment Tests to Increase Revenue

Most hiring processes focus on hard skills. However, neglecting to assess applicants' soft skills could result in poor team chemistry, decreased productivity, and increased turnover. These are some examples of online soft skills tests you can use to help clients avoid these problems.

Emotional Intelligence

Employees with high emotional intelligence are good collaborators, interact effectively with coworkers, customers, and stakeholders, and are good at managing friction and conflict. If your staffing firm was recruiting customer service representatives, think of the problems your client would have if they hired candidates with low emotional intelligence.

Change Management

Change management refers to navigating major enterprise-wide changes such as department restructurings, new software implementation, and transitioning to a hybrid work model. Large-scale changes can be stressful and difficult, but leaders with change management skills can address employee fears, troubleshoot problems, and make the entire process less traumatic. Your clients may not be able to predict when the next big disruption to business continuity will occur or what it will look like, but they can certainly understand why they need employees who are good transformational leaders.

Negotiation Skills

Employees with strong negotiating skills are good at communicating their views while collaborating with other team members and stakeholders. They are usually excellent problem solvers and can navigate friction effectively while persuading others to get involved and be active contributors during project meetings. If you can imagine what would happen if one of your clients hired a sales manager, project manager, or contract specialist who was not a good negotiator, you can understand why it's important to assess negotiation proficiency.

Reasoning Ability

Employees with good reasoning skills work well independently and as part of a team. They can overcome day-to-day challenges that impede productivity and assist organizations undergoing transformations or working through significant business hurdles. Since most organizations encounter these problems, they can understand why they need employees who can quickly size up situations and use deductive strategies to identify pragmatic solutions.

Get Started with Soft Skills Assessment Testing

If you want to help your clients improve hiring outcomes, educate them on the importance of using soft skills assessment tests  as part of theirskills testing recruitment efforts.

The soft skills assessment testsoutlined above are just a few of the many available. All include questions in multiple-choice, true/false, and select-all-that-apply formats. When applicants complete these tests, you and your team can evaluate their performance along with their hard skills test results. Then you can identify their strengths and weaknesses and select candidates that best meet the client's needs. 

Do you want to learn how soft skills assessment tests can enhance your skills testing recruitmentefforts? Contact us to request a demo.