Testing Job Applicants
Learn the legal rules on pre-employment testing of job applicants.
Many employers like to use pre-employment tests as a way to screen out applicants who are not suitable for the job. These tests include skills tests, aptitude tests, psychological tests, personality tests, honesty tests, medical tests, and drug tests.
Although you are allowed to do some testing of applicants, both state law and federal law impose numerous restrictions on what you can do. These restrictions are often vague and open to contradictory interpretations. As a result, you should only use tests that are absolutely necessary and, unless the test is as basic as a typing test, you should consider consulting with a lawyer before administering the test to make sure that it will pass legal muster in your state.
Testing People With Disabilities
For all tests, you must take care to avoid discriminating against applicants who are protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act. To ensure that people with disabilities are not unfairly screened out by your test, the test must accurately measure people's skills, not their disabilities. Ways to do this include the following:
- Avoid tests that reflect impaired mental, sensory, manual, or speaking skills unless those are job-related skills that the test is trying to measure. For example, even though a typing test is a manual test that will screen out people who cannot use their hands, it is acceptable in cases where the job you are filling is for a typist.
- Accommodate people with disabilities by giving them a test that is neutral as to their disability whenever possible. For example, if you are giving a written test to applicants for a sales position to test their knowledge of sales techniques, you can offer to read the test to a blind applicant. This is a reasonable accommodation because sight is not required for the job, but it is required to take the test.
Skills Tests
Skills tests range from something as simple as a typing test to something as complicated as an architectural drafting test. Generally speaking, these tests are legal, as long as they genuinely test a skill necessary for the performance of a job.
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