How to Test New Employees & Their Strengths
Employees are hired with skills and experience that are a good fit for a position while leaving some room to improve. There are some formal software and testing packages that can be purchased to test for and identify strengths, however there are some "real-time" tasks that can be used to assess an employee's strengths. Here are some suggestions.
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Instructions
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Create a survey that asks employees what they perceive their strengths and weaknesses to be. An employee knows him or herself the best, so start there. This will give you a starting point for closing in on their strengths.
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Test for verbal communication as a strength. Assign the employee to coordinate a mock presentation or meeting that he will run. If he feels comfortable and a real presentation or meeting that he's responsible for is coming up, ask to attend and observe. This will give you a direct indication of his level of verbal communication.
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Test for written communication as a strength. Ask the employee to develop mock communications or send you samples of business letters, external communications or reports that he has written. Read the materials to determine his level of writing ability.
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Test for organizational skills as a strength. Ask the employee to develop a project plan. You can also interview him or her about how he or she is currently managing a project and what he or she has done to maintain organization.
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Test for management skills as a strength. Testing for management can vary in definition, such as management of staff, programs or events. Choose the area that is most appropriate, and do some investigation. For example, you could informally survey staff about how well they feel an employee manages a team, or you could attend an event to observe how well logistics are implemented.
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Summarize your assessments in a report, and discuss it with the employee. Compare your impressions with his initial responses to the survey. If there are things you observed that could be improved, offer to help the employee create a development plan to get more experience with the skill.
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Tips & Warnings
There are a number of areas to be tested. Consider your company or industry's line of business, and choose three to five skills to be tested. If you're not sure what areas to broadly test for, distribute the survey to employees and assess the areas they identify specifically. If you are not the employees' supervisor, engage their supervisor as an additional resource for their development.
Using "real-time" tasks to test for strengths can be somewhat time-consuming but is still effective if your company doesn't have the resources to hire a consultant or purchase testing software.
