Pre-employment screening makes it easier and quicker to hire the best candidate for your open role.
Time-consuming, unreliable resume reviews are no longer a good option. Instead, pre-employment tests rank candidates fairly and objectively on their skills – so you can see exactly how well they’ll perform in the role.
TestGorilla and Bryq are two top pre-employment testing providers. This article compares the platforms and explains why TestGorilla comes out on top as the best all-around software to streamline your hiring process.
TestGorilla is a top-rated, versatile pre-employment testing platform that helps you optimize your hiring process and make unbiased decisions with confidence.
TestGorilla offers tailored assessments that measure your candidates’ cognitive abilities, personality traits, and role-specific skills. With 400+ ready-made and customizable tests, you can create assessments uniquely suited to the position you’re recruiting for.
With TestGorilla, you can bypass the arduous task of reviewing resumes and instead receive accurate and trustworthy insights into your candidates. Each test undergoes a rigorous 28-step quality-control process to ensure reliability and effectiveness.
We continually expand our test library, enabling you to assess a broader range of skills. Recently released tests include tests for branding strategy, HIPAA, and AI product management.
Additionally, TestGorilla knows how important it is to provide candidates with a positive testing experience. Its user-friendly interface and candidate support make the process efficient and straightforward for both candidates and employers.
Bryq is a talent acquisition and management platform. One of its solutions is pre-hire assessments.
Bryq offers three types of pre-employment assessments:
Express: 10-minute mobile-first assessment ideal for frontline and hourly positions
Standard: 20-minute assessment for general office positions
Personality-only assessment: A seven-minute assessment with no cognitive ability questions
The assessments are designed to measure personality traits and cognitive abilities. The Express and Standard assessments require candidates to interact with a chatbot in a hypothetical scenario to gain insights into their suitability. Users can customize the scenarios.
Bryq’s assessment platform mirrors a messaging app. Candidates interact with various “department heads” through the app to complete tasks and answer questions.
Bryq offers various ready-made job profiles that identify the cognitive abilities and personality traits to test for. Users can adjust these profiles to suit their hiring needs or use Bryq’s AI to create a new profile from their job description.
Once candidates complete the assessment, Bryq consolidates the results in a benchmarked report based on the job profile.
TestGorilla and Bryq both offer a range of pre-employment screening tests. However, TestGorilla offers more opportunities to customize tests to suit your business.
TestGorilla’s diverse library of 400+ tests covers a wide variety of skills and qualities. These include:
Cognitive ability
Language skills
Customer service skills
Situational judgment tests
You can build a complete assessment by combining up to five relevant tests. For instance, an assessment for a developer role may include a coding challenge, personality test, and general cognitive ability test.
It’s easy to find the test you need with our intuitive search function that recommends tests based on a specific skill or role.
TestGorilla also enables you to create completely custom questions to suit your specific requirements.
You can also choose from a range of answer formats depending on how much information you need, including:
Multiple-choice questions
Open-text written responses
Video recordings
File uploads
TestGorilla’s assessments also cater to global hiring teams, with localized websites available in 12 languages, including English, French, Japanese, and Swedish.
See how TestGorilla leads the way in skills assessments. Sign up for our free live demo and discover a better way to evaluate candidates.
Bryq’s assessments are pre-built. While the scenarios can be customized, individual questions can’t.
The Standard assessment includes 94 questions in total – 30 cognitive and 64 personality-based – while the Express test offers only 68 questions, of which 48 are personality-based.
The personality-only assessment consists of 64 personality questions.
Assessments measure cognitive abilities and attributes, including:
Verbal reasoning
Logical reasoning
Numerical reasoning
Attention to detail
Personality traits
Customer service
Empathy
Creativity
Programming tests and coding challenges are not included.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
Cognitive ability tests | Yes | Yes |
Situational judgment tests | Yes | Yes |
Job-specific tests | Yes | Yes |
Software tests | Yes | No |
Programming tests (including coding challenges) | Yes | No |
Language tests | Yes | No |
Personality tests | Yes | Yes |
Culture-add test | Yes | Yes |
Your own custom tests | No | |
Custom questions per assessment | Yes | No |
Test recommendations for each job role | Yes | No |
Multiple tests per assessment | Yes | No |
When hiring developers, it’s crucial to comprehensively evaluate their programming skills to be confident they have the technical expertise to thrive in your team.
Pre-employment tests can help by assessing candidates’ programming skills, such as debugging, web- and mobile-development frameworks, and cloud computing.
TestGorilla’s extensive test library offers a variety of assessments that measure general programming skills, as well as a candidate’s proficiency with particular development frameworks and coding languages.
TestGorilla also provides tests covering specific popular coding languages, such as:
JavaScript
Python
C
C#
C++
Kotlin
You can also create a language-agnostic test by setting the coding languages for candidates to choose from. This test is easy to set up and lets candidates complete it in the language they’re most comfortable with, enabling their skills to shine.
Additionally, you can create customized coding challenges that align with development scenarios the candidate would experience in your business. With TestGorilla’s coding timeline feature, you can play the code back from start to finish and track the candidate’s solution step by step.
Bryq doesn’t offer tests to evaluate candidates’ programming skills. Bryq’s assessments can help identify tech savviness, general cognitive abilities, and personality traits.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
Coding languages | JavaScript, Java, Python, PHP, C, C#, C++, SQL, Kotlin, Ruby, TypeScript, Go, R, Scala, Swift, Julia, Elixir, Dart, Perl, Rust, and Erlang | No coding challenges |
Web-development frameworks | Yes | No |
Mobile-development frameworks | Yes | No |
Algorithmic-thinking challenges | Yes | No |
Debugging challenges | Yes | No |
Language-specific concept challenges | Yes | No |
Your own custom coding challenges | Yes | No |
Code-playback function | Yes | No |
Automated scoring | Yes | No |
Many pre-employment testing platforms include video features like one-way interviews and recorded video answers to questions. These reduce the need for live interviews and offer valuable insights into a candidate’s communication style.
TestGorilla provides a number of video features to help you get a feel for each candidate’s personality, communication style, and problem-solving approach.
You can add one-way video questions to any assessment.
TestGorilla also enables you to create personalized video questions for one-way interviews and establish a maximum response length. You can review all video responses at your convenience – on any device and at the playback speed you like.
Bryq’s platform delivers assessments in the form of a messaging app, limiting candidates’ responses to text only. Video questions and video interviews are not included in its features.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
One-way video interviews | Yes | No |
Custom video questions | Yes | No |
Recording of candidates’ attempts | Yes | No |
Recording and playback on any device | Yes | No |
Rate and comment on video answers | Yes | No |
Providing a positive test-taking experience for candidates is essential for creating a professional image of your company and attracting top talent.
Incorporating company branding through both imagery and text helps present a cohesive, professional brand to candidates.
The lengths of tests, candidate support options, and mobile responsiveness are also key factors that contribute to the user experience.
TestGorilla receives consistently positive feedback on its user experience. Candidates can access the assessment platform without a separate login, which saves time. Alternatively, candidates can create an account in just a few minutes to view their results after completing assessments in English. (You can also manually share a candidate’s results with them.)
TestGorilla also features an intuitive interface, making it easy for candidates to understand what they need to do for each test and how many steps there are. Plus, they can preview test questions to prepare for tests. (You can add preview questions to your custom tests.)
Candidates can take assessments from any device, although we recommend that candidates don’t use mobile devices, as these can make it difficult and time-consuming to answer certain questions.
During assessments, candidates can access technical support from TestGorilla via chat, phone, or email, taking this burden away from your busy hiring team.
You can personalize each assessment with your company’s logo, brand colors, customized intro/outro videos, and personalized candidate emails, reinforcing your brand identity throughout the hiring process.
Bryq’s platform is relatively easy to use and allows users to brand their assessments with customized scenarios or a simple logo. There is also the option to brand email correspondence with a company logo.
Bryq sends automated reminder emails to candidates to encourage test completion.
Although Bryq’s platform mimics a messaging app, the company recommends that candidates complete most assessments on a screen larger than nine inches.
Finally, Bryq sends candidates feedback on their personality traits and cognitive strengths, as well as careers they may like.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
Your company’s intro or outro video | Yes | No |
Assessments branded with your company logo and colors | Yes | No |
Customizable invitation and rejection emails | Yes | Yes |
No login required for candidates | Yes | Unknown |
Mobile accessibility | Yes | Yes |
Help and support for your candidates | Yes | No |
Typical assessment length | 10-50 minutes | 7-20 minutes |
Qualifying questions prior to the assessment | Yes | No |
Hiring needs can look very different at startups than they do at large enterprise businesses. So, it’s important for pre-employment testing platforms to meet your company where it is in its hiring journey.
Look for testing platforms that scale with you as your hiring needs expand. The most important features include:
ATS integration
API access
Candidate tracking
GDPR-compliance
TestGorilla is an ideal pre-employment testing platform for any business size, from small startups to large enterprises.
TestGorilla specifically supports startup recruitment with affordable plans – including a free plan – and branding features that center your company throughout the hiring process.
TestGorilla can also help you grow your business. Our job board is a great source for top-quality candidates with the specific skills you’re looking for, and we even have ready-made skills-based job descriptions for various roles to help you attract the best talent.
For enterprise businesses, TestGorilla can simplify bulk recruitment campaigns. Features including API access, ATS integration, and GDPR compliance are ideal for large and global organizations.
Bryq offers integration with some ATS platforms, which can be useful for large organizations. It’s also GDPR compliant.
Bryq doesn’t offer a free trial for business with more than 50 employees, so larger companies must rely on the demo alone to determine whether the platform will meet their needs before investing.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
ATS integration | Yes | Yes |
Multiple users and role-based rights management | Yes | Yes |
GDPR compliant | Yes | Yes |
Multiple candidate invitation options | Yes | No |
Public link to invite candidates | Yes | No |
Public links for each candidate source | Yes | No |
Bulk invite candidates (CSV/XLSX upload) | Yes | Yes (through your ATS) |
Track candidate stages from invited to hired | Yes | Yes |
API access | Yes | Yes |
To effectively assess a candidate’s suitability for a role, pre-employment test results need to be both accurate and reliable. This requires a testing process grounded in scientific research and subjected to rigorous quality checks.
Platforms should consider employer and test-taker feedback to identify and address potential issues or common concerns quickly.
TestGorilla carries out a science-backed, 28-step quality-control process for all tests before they go live. We developed this process in partnership with psychometric and subject-matter experts to ensure reliability.
TestGorilla also proactively seeks feedback from both employers and candidates to continuously improve. We implement suggestions and concerns to keep enhancing the overall testing experience.
Bryq’s assessments all include more personality tests than cognitive assessments. Bryq uses a combination of Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors, Holland Codes, and the five OCEAN personality types to develop these questions.
Two separate teams of psychologists assessed Bryq’s tests. Bryq tests are evaluated for test-retest reliability and internal consistency reliability – as well as content, construct, and predictive validity.
The tests place cognitive skills and personality on a continuum, with no pass or fail grades.
Bryq engaged an independent auditor to ensure its platform is bias-free. However, it’s unclear from its website whether the company relies on customer or candidate feedback to improve its tests.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
Proprietary algorithms that continuously improve the quality of each test | Yes | No |
Extensive quality check before tests go live | Yes | Yes |
Questions automatically replaced after reaching exposure limit | Yes | No |
Customer feedback used to improve tests | Yes | No |
Test-taker feedback used to improve tests | Yes | No |
Robust anti-cheating measures are crucial to ensure that pre-employment screening platforms deliver fair and reliable results, which can inform your hiring decisions.
Important anti-cheating measures include screen monitoring, frequent replacement of questions, and IP-address logging.
TestGorilla has an extensive suite of effective anti-cheating measures.
For one thing, the platform disables copy-paste functionality to prevent sharing of questions and answers.
You can also set time limits for tests and deadlines for candidates to complete assessments. Questions are automatically retired after a set number of uses to minizze the chance of them appearing in web search results.
TestGorilla’s candidate monitoring settings include webcam snapshots (with candidate consent) of candidates and their monitors during assessments. This further ensures accountability and deters cheating attempts.
TestGorilla also employs IP monitoring, which prevents multiple persons from attempting to access the assessment via the same IP address.
Other anti-cheating measures include timed questions and tests, as well as full-screen tracking – which alerts you if a candidate exits full-screen mode (for instance, to research an answer).
Bryq proctors its assessments through webcam monitoring (with candidate permission) and limits the time available to answer each question.
Bryq intends to make questions challenging enough that searching for answers online would be detrimental to completing the test within the time limit.
However, the platform doesn’t prevent candidates from copying and pasting questions or answers, which means candidates could benefit from outside assistance.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
IP-address logging (to prevent candidates from accessing the same tests multiple times) | Yes | No |
Logging of candidate location | Yes | No |
Webcam snapshots (with the option to turn on/off) | Yes | Yes |
Full-screen mode detection (to avoid research during the test) | Yes | No |
Randomized questions | Yes | No |
A large question pool for each test | Yes | No |
Questions and answers not visible to employers to protect test integrity | Yes | No |
Time limit on tests | Yes | Yes |
Copy-paste disabled | Yes | No |
Effective reporting is instrumental to interpreting candidate results correctly and making confident hiring decisions.
Reports identifying skill levels and personality traits can also be useful tools for supervisors to manage and motivate new hires effectively.
TestGorilla provides easily accessible reports for each candidate’s results, exportable in PDF, XLSX, and CSV formats to share with your team. These individual reports offer insights into candidates’ specific strengths and weaknesses. They include a breakdown of each test into relevant skill categories and show you how well candidates did in each category.
You can also view results in your dashboard, which shows you where each candidate is in the hiring process.
TestGorilla generates both summary and detailed reports for each completed test, including customized question responses. Add notes and ratings to the report to quickly keep track of and share your thoughts. Your hiring team can also add notes and ratings.
Additionally, you can compare all candidates by using a scoring benchmark system and setting filters. You can filter by candidate status, custom questions, assessment completion date, and more.
Bryq provides a general overview of candidates and individual candidate result reports that can be anonymized for sharing and exporting.
Each report breaks down the candidate’s results individually based on their role profile – including their cognitive abilities, personality, strengths, weaknesses, and culture fit. These reports also compare individual candidate’s scores against group averages and provide an interview guide with suggested interview questions.
Users can generate comparison reports for up to five candidates. However, there’s no option to add custom notes to candidates’ reports.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
PDF reports of assessments and individual candidates | Yes | No |
Excel and CSV reports of assessments and individual candidates | Yes | No |
Comprehensive overview of all current and past candidates | Yes | Yes |
Scoring benchmarks for candidates (including percentile rank scoring) | Yes | Yes |
Add your ratings and notes to reports | Yes | No |
The scope and availability of customer support options are critical factors when selecting a pre-employment testing provider.
Look for a platform that offers dedicated support channels such as live chat, phone, and email. Some even go beyond these and offer hands-on training and onboarding sessions, so that new users can ensure they’re getting the best out of the software.
TestGorilla offers customer support via email and chat.
What’s more, to help customers become fully confident with the product and its features, TestGorilla provides training and onboarding tours to all new users.
The online help center is also a helpful resource, with comprehensive guides for both employers and candidates. Articles include detailed instructions on topics such as selecting appropriate tests, creating assessments, and interpreting results.
TestGorilla’s blog also contains a wealth of information about pre-employment testing and general hiring topics.
Customer support varies between Bryq’s plans. Standard users can contact the platform by chat and email, while Advanced and Enterprise users get access to phone and video support.
Custom onboarding is available for Advanced and Enterprise customers. Plus, Enterprise customers receive a dedicated customer success manager.
Bryq also offers an online help center to answer common questions and provide how-to guides for solving common problems.
A free demo is available prior to purchase. Existing customers can reach customer support via email only.
TestGorilla | Bryq | |
Live chat | Yes | Yes |
Help center | Yes | Yes |
Email support | Yes | Yes |
Training and onboarding tour | Yes | Yes (higher plans only) |
Pre-employment testing platforms usually price per user per month – or charge a flat fee on a monthly or annual subscription.
The number and types of available tests may differ by pricing plan, so be careful to check that yours includes everything you need.
TestGorilla has afree-forever plan that grants unlimited access to five tests from the test library.
To access the full test library and additional features such as custom branding, PDF reports, and API access, there are two affordable paid plan options.
These paid plans are based on the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTE) in your company. For example, two part-time employees whose work hours total a full-time workload (e.g., 40 hours per week) count as one FTE.
Depending on the size of your company, paid plans begin with:
Starter from $75 USD per month (or $900 per year paid upfront for businesses with 1-15 FTEs). Companies with more than 15 FTEs have the option to pay monthly. This plan enables you to start your skills-based hiring with basic features.
Pro from $115 USD per month (or $1,380 per year paid upfront for companies with 1-15 FTEs). Companies with more than 15 FTEs can pay monthly if they wish. This plan lets you maximize your hiring with advanced features.
Teams of 15 or fewer FTEs must pay annually. All plans enable you to test unlimited candidates.
Bryq has four pricing tiers:
Startups: Starts at $99 USD a month. Gives one user access to unlimited assessments and includes a free seven-day trial for businesses with less than 50 employees.
Standard: Starts at $299 USD a month for businesses with 50-150 employees. Up to 10 users have access to talent acquisition and insights hub features.
Advanced: Includes talent acquisition, talent management, and insights hub features for unlimited users.
Enterprise: Includes features available under the Advanced plan plus enterprise support and capabilities for unlimited users.
Bryq offers a free demo but not a free trial period for its Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise plans. Users must contact the company for further pricing information for Advanced and Enterprise plans.
TestGorilla | Bryq | ||
Plan | Price | Plan | Price |
Free forever | $0 | Startups | From $99 per month (one user) |
Starter | From $75 USD per month ($900 per year paid upfront for companies with 1-15 FTEs). Unlimited users. | Standard | From $299 per month (up to 10 users) |
Pro | From $115 USD per month ($1,380 per year paid upfront for companies with 1-15 FTEs). Unlimited users. | Advanced | Contact Bryq for quote |
Enterprise | Contact Bryq for quote |
The recruitment process has a lot of moving parts and can be stressful, so it’s important to select a user-friendly platform that won’t add unnecessary work to your plate.
To ensure ease of use, look for features such as a simple layout and design, easy navigation, and clear instructions.
TestGorilla’s interface has a clear layout and easy navigation, making it easy to get familiar with the platform and create your first assessment in minutes.
TestGorilla’s features enable you to effectively manage multiple recruitment processes at once. With just a few clicks, you can efficiently organize candidates, send out invitations, and receive valuable results. Bulk actions – including changing candidates’ statuses, emailing reminders and invites, and sending results – also save you time.
Find out what sets TestGorilla apart in hiring. Sign up for our free plan and access comprehensive tools for effective candidate screening.
Bryq’s assessment platform is fairly intuitive for candidates to navigate. With its simple design based on a messaging app, it’s not difficult to follow the platform’s prompts.
For businesses, Bryq’s clean interface and detailed user guides make it easy to create and send assessments, interpret results, and compare candidates.
TestGorilla and Bryq both represent valid and helpful pre-employment screening methods for improving the quality of your hires.
TestGorilla offers more comprehensive testing options, including extensive customization, which help you tailor assessments to specific job roles. The ability to add notes and rankings to candidate reports also helps you prepare for interviews. Bryq provides ready-made assessments but lacks extensive customization options.
TestGorilla is also a better choice if you plan to hire developers or other technical roles. Bryq doesn’t include any coding challenges, while TestGorilla offers tests to evaluate various coding languages.
What really sets TestGorilla apart is its free-forever plan. Offering access to five free tests and the ability to invite unlimited candidates, TestGorilla is an affordable pre-employment testing solution for businesses of all sizes.
Pre-employment testing makes the hiring process faster, fairer, and more efficient. Evaluate candidates on their objective skills, and receive clear results ranking candidates without the risk of unconscious bias.
By implementing pre-employment testing, you can eliminate archaic resume reviews, saving valuable time and money.
Transform your recruitment process with TestGorilla. Choose the plan that works best for your business with this clear guide to TestGorilla’s pricing, or speak to a team member to arrange a free demo today. Or, if you’re ready to start improving your hiring processes now, sign up for a free plan.
Why not try TestGorilla for free, and see what happens when you put skills first.
Biweekly updates. No spam. Unsubscribe any time.
Our screening tests identify the best candidates and make your hiring decisions faster, easier, and bias-free.
This handbook provides actionable insights, use cases, data, and tools to help you implement skills-based hiring for optimal success
A comprehensive guide packed with detailed strategies, timelines, and best practices — to help you build a seamless onboarding plan.
A comprehensive guide with in-depth comparisons, key features, and pricing details to help you choose the best talent assessment platform.
This in-depth guide includes tools, metrics, and a step-by-step plan for tracking and boosting your recruitment ROI.
A step-by-step blueprint that will help you maximize the benefits of skills-based hiring from faster time-to-hire to improved employee retention.
With our onboarding email templates, you'll reduce first-day jitters, boost confidence, and create a seamless experience for your new hires.
Get all the essentials of HR in one place! This cheat sheet covers KPIs, roles, talent acquisition, compliance, performance management, and more to boost your HR expertise.
Onboarding employees can be a challenge. This checklist provides detailed best practices broken down by days, weeks, and months after joining.
Track all the critical calculations that contribute to your recruitment process and find out how to optimize them with this cheat sheet.