Plum. The durable skills company.

Pre-Employment Assessment Platform for Predicting Job Performance

Hire for durable skills. Predict performance before day one.

Most pre-employment assessments tell you wha a candidate has done. Few tell you how they will perform in your role.

Plum is a science-based pre-employment assessment platform designed to predict job fit before interviews begin. It measures the durable skills that drive performance in specific roles, then matches candidates against a role benchmark built for your business.

Plum is 4x more predictive than a resume

Request a demo How it works

What is a pre-employment assessment?

A pre-employment assessment is a structured evaluation used during hiring to predict a candidate's likelihood of success in a specific role.

The most effective pre-employment assessments measure predictors of performance, including:

  • Cognitive ability
  • Decision-making style
  • Learning agility and adaptability
  • Motivational drivers
  • Collaboration and execution tendencies

Plum's pre-employment assessment platform focuses on durable skills: stable behavioral and cognitive traits shown to predict on-the-job performance when aligned to role context.

Why traditional tests fall short

Many pre-employment testing tools rely on generic personality categories, static culture-fit ideas, one-size-fits-all aptitude scores, and resume-first filters.

They answer the wrong question:

Will this person succeed in this specific role, under these specific demands?

  • Performance is contextual across roles and teams
  • Traits can help in one role and hinder in another
  • Generic standards miss role-specific predictors

Plum defines job fit before evaluating candidates, then matches each candidate to a role-specific success profile.

How Plum's pre-employment assessment works

1. Define job fit with Plum Role Model™

Plum Role Model analyzes your job description and generates a behavioral benchmark aligned to real-world performance data.

  • Creates behavioral blueprints in seconds
  • Aligns closely with expert judgment across tested occupations
  • Standardizes role requirements across teams and geographies
  • Reduces reliance on long SME workshops
  • Easy to add input from your own job experts

2. Assess candidates before interviews

Candidates complete a 25-minute online pre-employment assessment measuring:

  • Cognitive ability
  • Behavioral traits linked to the talents needed to succeed at work
  • Motivational drivers and drainers

Completion rates average 92%, with 93% candidate satisfaction. Each person gets a personalized Plum Profile.

3. Generate role-specific Match Scores

Plum produces clear Match sScores aligned to the role's required durable skills.

  • Overall role fit
  • Behavioral alignment
  • Areas of strength and potential risk
  • Higher Match Scores correlate with stronger performance

4. Structure interviews around what matters

Plum auto-generates structured interview guides aligned to role-specific predictors, shifting interviews from subjective impressions to job-relevant evaluation.

Plum augments human judgment. It does not replace it.

What a predictive pre-employment assessment should measure

Performance depends on how people make decisions, learn and adapt, stay motivated by work, execute under pressure, and collaborate with others.

Predictor

Why It Matters

What Plum Measures

Decision-making Quality and speed of judgment in role context Role-aligned cognitive and behavioral indicators
Adaptability Ability to adapt as demands change Durable traits linked to adaptability and growth
Motivational drivers Sustained energy and engagement in core work Drivers and drainers mapped to role demands
Execution and collaboration Delivery under pressure with cross-functional teams Behavioral signals tied to teamwork and follow-through

The benefits of using a pre-employment assessment

Improve quality of hire

Hire based on validated role fit instead of surface credentials. Organizations using Plum’s pre-employment assessment report 2× more top performers in engineering and cybersecurity roles, 200% more high performers in sales, and 66% fewer low performers in customer service roles.

Reduce bias in hiring

Structured, role-defined evaluation reduces intuition-heavy screening and resume signal bias. Plum has passed an independent third-party bias audit under NYC Local Law 144, confirming fairness and transparency in automated employment decision tools.

Increase retention

When durable skills align with job demands, retention improves. In early-career programs, candidates assessed with Plum were 3× more likely to stay beyond their first year.

Defend hiring decisions

Plum’s pre-employment assessment is grounded in industrial-organizational psychology and validated against real hiring outcomes. It is 4× more predictive of job performance than a resume, giving hiring teams defensible, data-backed decision support.

Pre-employment assessment for different hiring needs

  • High-volume and early-career hiring
  • Revenue and sales roles
  • Technical and engineering teams
  • Operational and frontline roles
  • Leadership and high-stakes positions

Role Model standardizes benchmarks across geographies and teams, making predictive hiring scalable.

Plum also integrates with leading ATS platforms for in-workflow triggering and match visibility.

Pre-employment assessment vs. personality tests

Many organizations searching for a personality test are actually seeking a predictive pre-employment assessment.

Approach

Primary Output

Hiring Relevance
Personality tests Type/category labels Limited role-specific prediction
Plum predictive assessment Role-aligned durable skills and match scores Contextual job-fit prediction for decisions

Why organizations choose Plum

  • Role-specific benchmarking with Plum Role Model
  • Predictive models validated against real hiring outcomes
  • 4x stronger prediction than resumes
  • Bias-audited and compliant assessment practices
  • High candidate completion and satisfaction rates
  • Structured interview integration for consistency

Plum is built to reduce early hiring failures before they surface in performance reviews.

Frequently asked questions about pre-employment assessments

When grounded in cognitive ability and validated behavioral science, pre-employment assessments are among the strongest predictors of job performance. Plum's models are validated against real-world hiring outcomes.

Yes, when they are job-relevant, validated, and used consistently. Plum has passed an independent bias audit aligned with NYC Local Law 144 requirements.

Modern assessments balance predictive power and candidate experience within 20 to 30 minutes. Plum's assessment averages 25 minutes with high completion rates.

When assessments are relevant and transparent, candidates report positive experiences. Plum maintains high satisfaction rates and provides personalized feedback through the Plum Profile.

Ready to modernize your pre-employment assessment process?

Resumes describe the past. Interviews reward presentation. A predictive pre-employment assessment evaluates job fit before day one.

Use Plum to define role success, assess durable skills, and make structured, defensible hiring decisions.

Request a demo
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