Being a hiring manager for a small or medium-sized business is challenging in today’s ultra-competitive employment market, where good candidates are available for only a short time.

Since finding and hiring people is both time-consuming and costly, it can be intensely frustrating if the person you hire turns out to be a bad hire. Bad hires come in many different forms. They might perform their job poorly or steal from you or your customers, or they might leave shortly after you’ve invested time and money training them. They also might have such a poor attitude that it brings down the rest of your staff. Regardless of how they might fail, there is one certain thing: They will cost you a lot of money. Studies show that hiring the wrong person can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to several times their salary.

There are lots of ways to make the hiring process easier and more effective, but many of these, like consultants, contract recruiters, and staffing firms, can be costly. Before you resort to expensive changes in your process, it pays to try the low-hanging fruit – and one of the lowest hanging fruits, in terms of value for the cost involved, is pre-employment assessments.

Pre-employment assessments typically cost between $25 to $100 per candidate. If they help you avoid even one bad hire, they can save you thousands of dollars or more. That’s a pretty significant return on investment.

Still not convinced? No problem, here are another five good reasons to think about implementing pre-employment assessments – beyond a return on investment of 1000% or more:

1. Objective Measurement
Assessments allow unbiased measures of a candidate’s competencies and skills. With pre-employment assessments, you don’t have to make any assumptions or do any guesswork. Pre-employment results provide you with actionable and directly comparable measures.

For example, let’s say you want to be sure that the people you hire ‘fit’ with the rest of your team. A personality and past behaviors module will give you that kind of information. Or, let’s say you need someone who can hit the ground running with a particular skill. An assessment can tell you exactly where they stand.

2. Increased Efficiency
Assessments are a great way to weed out bad candidates early in the process and to focus on the strong ones before they take a job with another company. You can use assessments as a screening tool to ensure you are only scheduling interviews for candidates that have what it takes to succeed in the position you are trying to fill.

3. Legal Defensibility
If a candidate your hiring decision, a properly prepared pre-employment assessment result can serve as a valuable safeguard. This is because of the objective nature of employment assessments. Properly prepared employment tests are fair measurements that do not have unfair biases, as people sometimes can.

4. Reduced Turnover
Pre-employment assessments can lower turnover, which saves you money spent on training and recruiting replacements. Assessments can ensure your candidates fit the job role and your organization’s culture. They can also detect behaviors that indicate a flight risk. Additionally, assessments often give candidates realistic expectations about the job.

5. Increased Performance
Pre-employment tests, especially simulation-based assessments, can be useful in identifying potential strong performers. Assessments provide objective data about the skills, knowledge, cognitive ability, or temperament needed to succeed on the job.

So, to summarize, pre-employment assessments offer an incredibly high return on investment when you consider the consequences of a bad hire. They provide objective, actionable information that helps you make decisions that deliver time savings and higher levels of performance. If you’re not currently using pre-employment assessments in your hiring process, it may be a good time to give them a try!