A quarter of invited candidates never start the aptitude test

According to VCO Group data from Young Talent Programmes in Vietnam, about a quarter of candidates invited to sit an aptitude test never start it. The figure ranges from around 20 per cent in well-run programmes to over 30 per cent where the round is less well organised. The gap of more than 10 percentage points between the two ends is the portion a company can recover without spending anything more on attraction.

The largest loss in the funnel is not where most programmes are looking

When a Young Talent Programme does not have enough candidates reaching the interview round, the common reflex is to conclude that this year's candidate pool is weak, or that the attraction budget was insufficient. Both conclusions lead to the same action: spending more money to pull in more applications.

Operational data shows the largest and most easily addressed loss sits somewhere else entirely. It sits between the moment a candidate receives the invitation to sit the test and the moment they actually log in to take it. About a quarter of candidates disappear in that gap.

What makes this worth attention is that those candidates have already completed the hardest part. They found out about the programme, spent time preparing an application, submitted it, and passed the CV round. The attraction cost for them has already been spent. Losing them at this step means losing that entire investment.

The range is the number that matters, not the average

Looking only at the average of about a quarter, it is easy to conclude that this is a natural feature of the market and nothing can be done. The picture changes completely once you look at the range across programmes within the same dataset.

Range of no-show rates among candidates invited to sit the test

The programmes in this analysis recruit the same target group and compete on the same candidate pool. The gap of more than 10 percentage points between the two ends therefore reflects how the round is organised, not the quality of the source.

Converting that gap into a business number is straightforward. For a programme inviting 1,000 candidates to sit the test, each percentage point equals 10 candidates. More than 10 percentage points equals more than 100 candidates whose attraction cost has been paid but who never enter the assessment round.

If a programme's rate exceeds the average by 6 percentage points or more, the cause is almost certainly in how the round is organised rather than in the source. The three things to review first are the content of the invitation email, the length of the test, and the number of days candidates have to sit it.

A common approach that does not deliver

One measure is applied fairly widely on reasoning that sounds sensible: shorten the window in which the test is open, so that only genuinely interested candidates get it done in time. The idea is to use time pressure as a filter for seriousness.

The data does not support this. In the analysis, when a candidate sits the test within the open window, whether early or late, bears no relationship to the score they achieve. In other words, someone who sits it on the first day and someone who sits it on the last day produce equivalent results.

The consequence is that shortening the window does not filter out weaker candidates, it only raises the no-show rate. The company loses more candidates without gaining anything on quality.

A point in the other direction also needs stating clearly. The group that does not sit the test has, on average, weaker profiles than the group that completes it. There is therefore no case for investing in a broad reminder campaign to pull the whole group back. The portion worth addressing is the more than 10 percentage points created by how the round is organised, not the entire absent group.

International evidence: this is a system design problem, not a candidate motivation problem

The conclusion that drop-off is a design problem rather than a question of candidate interest has broad support in international data.

Sova Assessment published the case of Sky, where the company consolidated separate assessment tools onto a single platform. The completion rate rose from 51 per cent to 86 per cent while administration time fell by 90 per cent. The same source also points to a large gap between processes that are not optimised for mobile devices and those that are fully optimised, with completion rates of roughly 35 per cent and 72 per cent respectively.

The most widely cited case is Unilever. After moving the entire first round to a digital format, candidate completion rose from 50 per cent to 96 per cent, the hiring cycle shortened from four months to four weeks, and the company saved more than 50,000 hours of screening in the first 18 months. What both cases have in common is that nothing changed about the candidate pool, only about how the experience was organised.

On market benchmarks, CareerPlug's analysis of more than 10 million applications puts the average completion rate across industries at around 6 per cent, with hospitality highest for drop-off at 68 per cent. A separate survey records 34 per cent of candidates considering themselves abandoned if they receive no response within 7 days.

A counter-argument worth considering

Not every drop-off rate is a loss to be eliminated. There is an argument worth considering that when an application form is made too easy, the natural screening function of that step disappears, and the entire burden of sorting falls on later rounds.

On that view, drop-off at a video interview round or a testing round is not entirely a system fault. Part of it is doing the job the application form has stopped doing.

The sensible reconciliation is to distinguish two kinds of loss. Loss from technical friction, including login failures, an interface that does not work on a phone, unclear instructions, and invitations landing in spam, is the kind to eliminate completely because it does not distinguish good candidates from weak ones. Loss from commitment level, where a candidate weighs it up and decides not to give 45 minutes to a test, is the kind that carries information.

In VCO Group data, the more than 10 percentage points separating the best-organised programme from the worst-organised one belongs to the first kind. That is the part to address first.

A checklist for the season ahead

The four groups of interventions below are ordered lowest cost first, with impact measurable straight away.

Four groups of interventions that reduce the no-show rate

None of the four intervention groups changes the content of the test, so results remain comparable across seasons.

Three things to do

1. Measure the most recent season's rate of invited candidates who never sat the test and compare it with the average of about a quarter. If it exceeds that by 6 percentage points or more, review how the round is organised before reviewing candidate pool quality.
2. Test the entire assessment flow on a phone and remove any duplicate account creation step, since this is technical friction that does not distinguish good candidates from weak ones.
3. Stop using a shortened test window as a way to filter for serious candidates, because when a candidate sits the test bears no relationship to the score they achieve.

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of candidates never start an aptitude test?

According to VCO Group data from Young Talent Programmes in Vietnam, about a quarter of invited candidates never start the test. The rate ranges from around 20 per cent in well-organised programmes to over 30 per cent in less well-organised ones, drawing on the same candidate pool.

Does shortening the test window filter for serious candidates?

No. In VCO Group data, candidates who sit the test early and those who sit it late within the open window produce equivalent results. Shortening the window therefore does not improve the quality of the group that passes, it only raises the no-show rate.

How do you raise the completion rate on a recruitment assessment?

Four intervention groups are low cost with impact measurable straight away: rewrite the invitation email to state the duration and the equipment needed, test the whole flow on a phone and remove duplicate account creation, keep the test window wide enough, and staff a technical support contact during evening hours.

About VCO Group

VCO Group operates the assessment infrastructure behind Young Talent Programmes and Management Trainee schemes in Vietnam, covering application intake, aptitude testing, automated interviewing and Assessment Centres. VCO Group serves young talent and candidates with under three years of experience, working with large enterprises and multinationals in Vietnam. Its assessment and candidate management platform is called Testalents. Head office in Ho Chi Minh City.

If you would like to benchmark your own selection data against the market, or discuss the Young Talent Program Insight Report, contact Mr. Dung on 0334 889 068 or visit vcogroup.com.vn.