The Secret to Identifying the Best Talent in Your Pool
3 minutes | Posted 06 April, 2023

Over the past year, the candidate market has slowly been opening up, with steady increases in applications per job ad month on month throughout all of 2022. As one challenge starts to subside, another arises for hiring managers everywhere: how to identify and hire the most skilled candidates in a growing talent pool. 

Fast, informed hiring decisions are still the name of the game when it comes to securing the best talent, but many internal recruitment teams fear the cost of making a bad hire as much as the cost of the open seat.

Sound familiar? 

Expert talent engagement solutions, including shortlisting and selection services, are key to helping organizations like yours hire with confidence and get better ROI on your recruitment efforts. Pre-employment testing helps you to thoroughly vet top candidates and make evidence-based hiring decisions with the assurance that your new hire will go the distance. This is particularly powerful when considering that 20% of new hires resign within the first 45 days.

Get expert support with interviews, reference checks, and more

All internal recruiters know that thorough interviews, reference checks, and careful shortlisting are essential to successful hiring. But not all internal recruitment teams have a lot of time to invest in shortlisting and selection. If this sounds like your dilemma and you’re motivated to get results fast, you can lean on our talent engagement specialists for support. 

With the help of our team, you can gain deeper insights into your potential new hires in a fraction of the time. We combine expert interview techniques, rating and ranking, and shortlisting advice to help you identify the best talent in your pool. Then, we support you with fast, efficient reference checks to help you hire with confidence. 

You also have the option to take your shortlisting to the next level with detailed pre-employment assessments, from skills testing to behavioral assessments, motivation testing, and more. 

Identify the most talented candidates with pre-employment checks 

Interview and reference checks will always be the norm. You get to see how a candidate behaves in a corporate setting, and what their previous coworkers and leaders have to say about their strengths and weaknesses. But what interviews and reference checks don’t offer is an insight into how a candidate will react in certain situations, or whether their experience has truly translated into tangible skills that they’ll bring to your organization. Enter pre-employment checks. 

Through our talent engagement services, you gain the ability to test your top candidates in line with your strategic goals. Our talent engagement specialists have access to an array of top-rated assessment tools to help you assess your talent pool more carefully and come to a confident conclusion. 

Whether you’re vetting candidates for their customer service skills, looking to identify what motivates them at work, or want to assess whether they’d be a good culture fit, there’s a pre-employment assessment to help you make your decision. 

Leverage a range of pre-employment assessments  

Skills assessments 

This type of testing measures a candidate’s specific skills. Skills assessments are particularly helpful when accepting applications from candidates with diverse work experiences and education. Skills assessments can level the playing field fairly and help you make evidence-based hiring decisions in line with the skills your organization needs most. 

Behavioral assessments 

This tool evaluates how a potential hire might behave in specific situations. They can also give you insight into the most suitable leadership styles for that candidate, what they respond to most by way of recognition, and how to set them up for success. With Scout Talent, you can leverage McQuaig’s Word Survey to gain deeper insights into your top candidate. 

Candidate motivation testing 

Whilst having specific skills is important, it can be useful to understand what motivates a candidate to pursue a specific job. Most skills can be taught, but a candidate’s personal motivation and preferences are innate characteristics that aren’t likely to change much over time. 

Psychometric testing 

Many are familiar with psychometric tests, either having done one themselves or leveraging the insights to make great hires. These tests are used to measure a new hire’s intelligence, personality, potential, ability and behavior. They’re designed to show a candidate’s overall suitability for a particular role based on how they perform. 

Get better recruitment results with fast, efficient support 

The best part is that you can augment your shortlisting and selection process whilst reducing your time to hire with the support of our talent engagement specialists: 

  • Launch an end-to-end talent acquisition campaign and gain access to your dream team of recruitment marketing and talent engagement specialists. We’ll support you with recruitment marketing and advertising, copywriting, conducting interviews, shortlisting and selection, and more. You retain access to your entire talent pool plus gain access to our applicant tracking system and recruitment CRM for 12 months. 
  • Or, opt for support with shortlisting and selection only to boost hiring confidence and better results. 


All of our talent acquisition solutions have a flat fee structure, with no percentage of salary charged. If you’d like to make your next hire for a competitive price, submit your details below. 

Connect with Scout Talent today