Pre-employment screening software is a key tool for hiring managers. It removes the bias from recruitment by objectively measuring candidates’ qualities and skills. And, it enables hiring managers to see beyond a candidate's resume to the skills, experience, and personality traits that make them well suited to a role.
What’s more, pre-employment screening can remove subjective distractions from the hiring process, supporting hiring managers in making fair, data-driven decisions. This ultimately leads to a more effective recruitment process and better hires.
But with so many pre-employment screening tools on the market, how do you pick the best one? In this article, we compare two popular tools: TestGorilla and HR Avatar.
TestGorilla streamlines the recruitment process, making it easy to find the perfect candidate for every role.
The top-rated software offers 400+ pre-employment tests that cover everything from motivation, culture fit, and personality types to coding skills and people management.
TestGorilla makes hiring a breeze by automatically scoring assessments and ranking candidates based on their scores.
You can also personalize assessments with your brand and logo, include a custom intro or outro video, and have candidates record one-way video answers to test questions. Plus, you can easily compare candidates’ responses and overall rankings with helpful summary reports and analytics.
TestGorilla’s collaborative tools make it easy for your team to work together to find the right candidate. You can add notes to each candidate’s profile and export reports in PDF, Excel, and CSV formats to share with others.
With TestGorilla, you can quickly find the perfect candidate for your open position.
HR Avatar is a pre-employment assessment platform that helps companies evaluate job applicants for various roles, including entry-level, customer service, managerial, and technical positions.
HR Avatar offers a catalog of job-based pre-employment screening tests to predict a candidate’s performance in a specific role. For example, if you’re hiring an accounting manager, HR Avatar can recommend an assessment package tailored to that role.
HR Avatar’s assessments are highly interactive and customizable, using features like animations, simulations, and interactive scenarios to assess candidates’ skills.
Both TestGorilla and HR Avatar offer a diverse library of tests to choose from. These cover areas like language skills, situational judgment, and job-specific questions to help you make better hiring decisions.
TestGorilla’s test library contains 400+ pre-employment screening tests. These include:
Personality tests
Situational judgment tests
Programming tests
Software tests
Language tests
Typing speed tests
Role-specific tests
Our library is always growing, too. For instance, new additions include the Aerospace Engineering test, the Android Development Using Kotlin test, and the Microsoft 365 Bundle test.
In addition, you can customize questions to your company and role, add your own questions, or even create your own tests. You can also choose how you’d like candidates to answer with these formats:
Video responses
File uploads
Coding exercises
Multiple-choice questions
Open-ended and essay questions
TestGorilla’s assessments are perfect for international recruitment campaigns – with localized websites in 12 languages, including French, German, Japanese, and Dutch.
See how TestGorilla leads the way in skills assessments. Sign up for our free live demo and discover a better way to evaluate candidates.
HR Avatar offers cognitive ability tests, situational judgment tests, and job-specific tests – plus employers can create their own tests. There’s also a wide range of personality and culture tests to help determine whether a candidate would be a good fit.
However, some of the drawbacks of HR Avatar are that the platform doesn’t offer programming tests and you can’t add custom questions to ready-made assessments. This is particularly limiting when you’re hiring software developers or engineers, as you won’t get a full understanding of their skill set.
HR Avatar offers pre-employment testing in 13 different languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Russian.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
Cognitive ability tests | Yes | Yes |
Situational judgment tests | Yes | Yes |
Job-specific tests | Yes | Yes |
Software tests | Yes | Yes |
Programming tests (including coding challenges) | Yes | No |
Language tests | Yes | Yes |
Personality tests | Yes | Yes |
Culture-add test | Yes | No |
Motivation test | Yes | No |
Your own custom tests | Yes | Yes |
Custom questions per assessment | Yes | No |
Test recommendations for each job role | Yes | Yes |
Multiple tests per assessment | Yes | No |
Software developers and engineers are more in demand than ever before. There’s such a diverse range of skills within the industry, so you must make sure you’re hiring the right people for your specific roles.
Look for pre-employment screening platforms that test for job-specific, technical skills including program debugging, algorithmic-thinking challenges, and cloud-computing skills.
TestGorilla’s wide variety of tests include:
Programming and debugging tests
Custom coding challenges
Tests on web- and mobile-development frameworks
Debugging challenges
Algorithmic-thinking challenges
Our coding skills challenges feature a coding timeline that enables you to follow your test-takers’ process step-by-step. You can see when they switched programming languages, pasted code, and more.
We’ve also introduced a new language-agnostic coding challenge. You can enable your candidates to select from up to 20 possible coding languages, giving them the ability to test in the language they prefer.
What’s more, with our configurable integrated development environment (IDE), candidates can customize their coding environment how they please. For instance, they can pick between light and dark modes.
Plus, you can easily customize all coding tests to fit your company’s specific needs, ensuring the successful candidate is well-equipped to handle your development team’s workload.
HR Avatar does not offer any tools or functionalities to support hiring developers.
| TestGorilla | HR Avatar |
Coding languages | JavaScript, Java, Python, PHP, C, C#, C++, SQL, Kotlin, Ruby, TypeScript, Go, R, Scala, Swift, Julia, Elixir, Dart, Perl, Rust, and Erlang | None |
Web-development frameworks | Yes | N/A |
Mobile-development frameworks | Yes | N/A |
Algorithmic-thinking challenges | Yes | N/A |
Debugging challenges | Yes | N/A |
Language-specific concept challenges | Yes | N/A |
Your own custom coding challenges | Yes | N/A |
Language agnostic coding tests | Yes | N/A |
Code-playback function | Yes | N/A |
Automated scoring | Yes | N/A |
Live peer coding | No | N/A |
Video interviews are a great way to connect with candidates and get a feel for their personality styles and thought processes.
Many pre-employment test platforms offer features including one-way interviews and the option to record video answers to questions. One-way interviews are a great way to speed up hiring and optimize international recruitment, as you don’t need to take into consideration time-zone differences.
TestGorilla can facilitate one-way video interviews, and you can also add custom video questions to any test.
The length of candidates’ video answers can be limited to as little as 30 seconds, making it easier to assess results in batches. Or, you can give your candidates more time to respond – up to three minutes. Candidates also get three attempts to record their responses.
In addition, TestGorilla saves these videos so you can review them at your convenience on any device. You can also review them at your preferred speed. Plus, you can add notes and comments on the videos for yourself or your team.
HR Avatar offers one-way video interviews that you can record and play back on any device. This is a good option for remote or hybrid recruitment teams.
However, HR Avatar doesn’t allow you to customize video questions, rate answers, or set a maximum time for the recordings. This may be problematic when hiring at scale.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
One-way video interviews | Yes | Yes |
Custom video questions | Yes | No |
Recording of candidates’ attempts | Yes | No |
Restrict maximum answer length | Yes | No |
Record and play back on any device | Yes | Yes |
Playback speed control | Yes | No |
Rate and comment on video answers | Yes | No |
Creating a positive recruitment experience for candidates is key to attracting the best talent. One way to achieve this is by applying consistent professional branding across all pre-employment tests and assessments.
Of course, factors such as test length, candidate support, and mobile responsiveness are also important. These elements all contribute to a memorable experience for test-takers.
TestGorilla places great importance on candidates’ experience. Assessments are:
Quick and easy to complete
Accessible and convenient (no need to create an account or log in)
Mobile-friendly
Candidates can take practice questions to prepare themselves for tests, and we also offer a candidate FAQ and troubleshooting page to help them quickly resolve issues they encounter.
With TestGorilla, you can keep candidates up to date throughout the assessment process via email communications. We also send candidates automatic emails once they’ve completed their assessments, which can reduce their anxiety around assessment submissions.
Once candidates complete English-language assessments, we redirect them to create a TestGorilla profile to view their results. You can also easily share results with your candidates manually.
What’s more, our company-branding features help your business stand out to candidates. With TestGorilla, you can:
Add your company’s logo and brand colors to assessments for a professional look
Include a custom intro or outro video for a personalized touch
HR Avatar’s platform is mobile-friendly, which can enhance candidates’ experience. However, there are no customization options to further optimize the user experience.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
Your company’s intro or outro video | Yes | No |
Assessments branded with your company logo and color | Yes | No |
Customizable invitation and rejection emails | Yes | No |
No account or login required for candidates | Yes | No |
Mobile-friendly tests | Yes | Yes |
Help and support for candidates | Yes | No |
Typical assessment length | 45 minutes | No data |
Qualifying questions prior to assessment | Yes | No |
All businesses, from startups to large enterprises, have distinct hiring requirements.
It’s important to choose a platform that can accommodate your recruitment needs as your business grows. Look for a pre-employment testing platform that integrates with ATS systems, offers API access, and is GDPR-compliant, as a minimum.
This will enable you to easily track your ideal candidate from resume submission to the final hiring stage, ensuring a seamless and legally compliant recruitment process.
TestGorilla’s assessments are suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. The software is scalable, user-friendly, and cost-effective.
For enterprises seeking to streamline recruitment processes by using bulk actions, TestGorilla is an ideal solution – offering various actions for managing multiple candidates simultaneously, including bulk invites, reminders, rejections, candidate status changes, and results-sharing. Our platform is also GDPR-compliant and offers a range of helpful features, including ATS integrations, API access, role-based rights management, and more.
TestGorilla is also an excellent option for startups looking to grow their team. Affordable plans (including a free forever plan) and company-branding features can help your business stand out and attract top talent.
While HR Avatar’s platform is suitable for small and large businesses alike, there aren’t many specific tools to support business growth.
The company has recently updated its system to ensure GDPR compliance and API access. However, you can’t incorporate HR Avatar with your ATS system, and you can’t bulk manage candidates.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
ATS integration | Yes | No |
Multiple users and role-based rights management | Yes | No |
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 |
Invite candidates in bulk (CSV/XLSX upload) | Yes | No |
Track candidate stages from invited to hired | Yes | No |
API access | Yes | Yes |
Bulk actions to manage candidates | Yes | No |
Quality control is crucial in pre-employment testing, as it ensures test results are accurate and fair. This means you can rely on them to make informed, intelligent hiring decisions.
Quality-control measures like replacing questions frequently, soliciting and implementing feedback from test-takers and employers, and conducting extensive quality checks before tests go live can all increase the validity and reliability of the tests.
TestGorilla is a science-backed hiring solution that implements a rigorous 28-step quality-control process. All tests and questions are created by psychometricians and subject-matter experts and undergo a thorough review and testing before they’re published.
To maintain the validity and reliability of assessments, TestGorilla limits the number of times a question appears in a test. This helps prevent questions leaking online.
We strongly believe that continuous improvement is key, so we also gather feedback from candidates and customers to identify areas for improvement.
Finally, we have an assessment quality meter that measures how strong your assessment is as you create it. (This feature is currently available only for specific roles.)
HR Avatar does not offer any quality-control features to support the validity of its pre-employment tests.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
Proprietary algorithms that continuously improve the quality of each test | Yes | No |
Extensive quality checks before tests go live | Yes | No |
Questions replaced after reaching an exposure limit | Yes | No |
Customer feedback used to improve tests | Yes | No |
Test-taker feedback used to improve tests | Yes | No |
Cheating gives candidates an unfair advantage in pre-employment screening tests, which can result in mis-hires.
Anti-cheating measures ensure that test results accurately reflect a candidate’s true capabilities, skills, and personality. These measures can include:
Setting time limits
Drawing from a large pool of questions
Randomizing the order of questions
Tracking IP addresses
By using anti-cheating measures, pre-employment assessments create a level playing field for all candidates and help you identify the best candidate for your role.
TestGorilla offers extensive options to prevent cheating. We use the following measures:
Disable copy-paste
Randomize questions
Set time limits
Track IP addresses
Detect when candidates exit full-screen mode
TestGorilla also regularly rotates questions and removes them from the pool once overexposed.
Plus, TestGorilla enables you to take webcam snapshots of candidates during an assessment (with their consent) to ensure they’re taking the test alone.
Our IP-address monitor flags any attempts to access a test link using multiple IP addresses, ensuring the candidate is taking the test by themselves.
Lastly, we enable you to create test deadlines, which can reduce the scope for cheating.
HR Avatar does not offer any anti-cheating measures.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
IP address tracking (to prevent multiple attempts by the same candidate) | Yes | No |
Tracking candidate location | Yes | No |
Webcam snapshots (with the option to turn on/off) | Yes | No |
Full-screen mode detection (to prevent research during the test) | Yes | No |
Randomized questions | Yes | No |
Large question pool for each test | Yes (100+) | No |
Questions and answers not visible to employers to protect test integrity | Yes | No |
Time limit on tests | Yes (typically 10 minutes) | No |
Copy-paste disabled | Yes | No |
Reporting and analytics help you understand your applicants’ test results. This data allows you to easily compare candidates and identify those most qualified for the job.
Additionally, test data can assist with managing and motivating your future or current employees by giving you a better understanding of their personality traits and motivations.
With TestGorilla, you can easily understand each candidate’s test results with detailed yet straightforward reports. Share these easily with your team or ATS tracking system in PDF, XLSX, and CSV formats.
Our PDF reports provide you with valuable insights into a candidate's strengths and weaknesses, enabling your hiring team to make data driven hiring decisions and create tailored development plans. These include graphical representations of their skills-based strengths.
You can even assign different weights to each test, ensuring the most important ones count more. This helps you quickly spot top talent.
Compare candidates’ results using TestGorilla’s scoring benchmarks, and filter candidates by test scores, qualifications, answers to custom questions, and more. You can also add custom notes and your own ratings.
HR Avatar offers a comprehensive overview of all current and past candidates, as well as a scorning benchmark for you to compare applicants.
However, HR Avatar does not have the option to export reports, and you can’t add your own notes or rankings to reports.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
PDF reports of assessments and individual candidates | Yes | No |
Excel and CSV reports of assessments and individual candidates | Yes | No |
Comprehensive overview for all current and past candidates | Yes | Yes |
Scoring benchmarks for candidates (including percentile rank scoring) | Yes | Yes |
The possibility to add your ratings and notes to reports | Yes | No |
Employing a new pre-employment testing software can be daunting, especially if you’re a small business or new to these tools. That’s why it’s essential to have reliable customer support to help you navigate any issues.
Support options may include phone, email, and live chat. However, some products go the extra mile by providing live training sessions and personalized onboarding tours to help you and your team get up to speed quickly.
TestGorilla offers a personalized training and onboarding tour to all new customers to help you feel confident you’re using the product to its full potential.
The dedicated customer support team is available via email and chat to answer any questions you may have. If you need additional guidance, the FAQ and help center contains frequently asked questions and extensive guides that cover everything from picking the right tests to understanding results.
You can contact HR Avatar via a lengthy contact form on its website or phone. However, the platform doesn’t seem to offer any additional customer-support options.
TestGorilla | HR Avatar | |
Live chat | Yes | No |
Help center | Yes | No |
Email support | Yes | Yes (via a contact form) |
Training and onboarding tour | Yes | No |
Most pre-employment testing software uses a per-user-per-month pricing structure. However, certain platforms charge annually or offer pay-as-you-go plans, with rates that depend on the size of your organization.
Additionally, if you’re working with a tight budget, some platforms provide a complimentary plan to help you get started.
TestGorilla offers three pricing plans with no hidden costs to suit businesses of all sizes.
Free forever at $0: This gives you full access to five of our most popular tests plus five custom questions.
Starter from $75 USD per month. This includes unlimited access to all tests, custom test questions, and more.
Pro from $115 USD per month. This includes ATS integration, custom coding challenges, video questions, and more.
Our subscription plans are based on the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) in your business. For instance, two part-time employees working 20 hours each per week are considered one FTE.
Businesses with between one and 15 FTEs will need an annual subscription, while larger teams can pay monthly.
If your business has more than 50 FTEs, you can enjoy a 15-day free trial of our platform. This allows you to explore all our features and discover how we can help streamline your hiring process.
All plans enable you to test unlimited candidates. And all our customers – including our free plan customers – also get access to our job board.
HR Avatar uses a candidate-credit system. Each candidate credit covers everything you need to screen one candidate, including unlimited tests, employer reference checks, and video interviews. Tests must be completed within 90 days.
Pricing of candidate credits is as follows:
1 candidate credit: $50
10 candidate credits: $350
25 candidate credits: $785
50 candidate credits: $1,430
100 candidate credits: $2,660
500 candidate credits: $12,300
TestGorilla |
| HR Avatar | |
Plan | Price | Plan | Price |
Free | $0 | No free plan | |
Starter | From $75 USD per month ($900 per year paid upfront for companies with 1-15 FTEs) | 1 candidate credit | $50 |
Pro | From $115 USD per month ($1,380 per year paid upfront for companies with 1-15 FTEs) | 10 candidate credits | $350 |
25 candidate credits | $785 | ||
|
| 50 candidate credits | $1,430 |
100 candidate credits | $2,660 | ||
500 candidate credits | $12,300 |
A user-friendly pre-employment assessment platform puts candidates at ease and makes your hiring team’s job easier when reviewing results.
Look for features such as a clear and intuitive layout, easy navigation, and simple, easy-to-follow instructions to ensure a smooth and convenient experience for candidates and employers alike.
TestGorilla’s interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The intuitive design helps you quickly get to grips with the platform and start creating your first assessment within minutes.
Result reports are also easy to read, with engaging visual elements and information arranged in a logical, hierarchical order.
We know your and candidates’ time is valuable, so individual tests are designed to be completed quickly – most within 10-15 minutes. Assessments consist of up to five tests, so the total assessment length will depend on the number of tests. The average assessment takes 45 minutes to complete.
We also know your time is valuable, so we’ve made it super easy to create custom assessments. Our system recommends tests based on the role you’re hiring for, and you can also use our ready-made assessment templates. If you’d rather focus on hiring for skills than for roles, you can now filter tests for the exact skills you’re looking for. We also give you the option to preview tests.
This all means you can quickly tailor assessments to meet your specific needs without spending too much time on setup.
Find out what sets TestGorilla apart in hiring. Sign up for our free plan and access comprehensive tools for effective candidate screening.
HR Avatar offers a simple, streamlined user interface, and tests can be completed on a mobile phone, as well as on a desktop computer.
TestGorilla and HR Avatar both offer a range of assessment tools to help you select the best candidate for your role.
However, TestGorilla’s extra features give it an edge over HR Avatar. TestGorilla offers many more tests and far more customizations.
HR Avatar doesn’t offer any coding or development tests for hiring software engineers, which shouldn’t be overlooked: Even if you don’t need to hire developers today, you might need to do that in the future.
TestGorilla also offers a more comprehensive support package and more options for reporting and analytics. Its free plan is a game changer, enabling small businesses to access high-quality pre-employment tests for free and find their perfect candidates.
Pre-employment tests are invaluable in the recruitment process: They remove bias, save you time, and provide more reliable insights into a candidate’s skills, abilities, and personality.
TestGorilla’s wide variety of tests, easy-to-use features, comprehensive reporting, and exceptional customer support can all help you choose the right candidate, every time.
Ready to take your hiring process to the next level? Sign up for a free account and see for yourself how pre-employment testing can revolutionize the way you hire. Alternatively, sign up for a free 45-minute demo with one of our friendly team members.
Why not try TestGorilla for free, and see what happens when you put skills first.
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