Assessment testing makes best hires possible
There is no question that accurate assessment testing improves a company’s hiring success and leads to greater employee satisfaction. So, why doesn’t every company use academically approved, top-level prehiring assessments?
According to Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at Columbia University, it may be because many human resource professionals lack rigorous training in industrial and organizational psychology or assessment methods — so if it looks good, they may buy it — and are not good at measuring performance data.
When companies rely on “gold standard” testing, the success rates of the companies and the employees hired could help advance the company’s market position. Why? Because assessment testing prior to hiring should save a company on turnover losses caused by poor hiring practices.
Two unfortunate situations are hiring employees with the wrong skill emphasis for the job and hiring employees who are ill-suited to the company culture.
For example, a rigid corporate environment will be a disaster for an experienced and creative employee who is led by an unyielding and controlling boss. That authoritative behavior will discourage or outright stop the employee’s innovative ideas from coming to fruition.
Without an accurate assessment, consider a creative culture that mistakenly hires a “yes person” who cannot adapt to new ways of doing business, even though the old ways prove to no longer work. An accurate assessment for hiring could have helped the employer avoid an inappropriate employee choice and, at the same time, saved an employee from accepting a poor choice in job offers.
With 20 years as a full-time professor, founder, executive and author of more than 300 articles and nine books on assessment testing, Chamorro-Premuzic says the “gold standard” means “the vendor published independent scientific evidence demonstrating that test scores predict the outcomes reported (and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals).” Hogan and SHL are the two top performers in the field.
Hogan Assessments offers a series of tests to predict character traits that affect employees’ performances. “The Development Survey (HDS) describes the dark side of one’s personality — qualities that emerge in times of increased strain and can disrupt relationships, damage reputations, and derail peoples’ chances of success.” Assessing the dark side allows management to recognize and mitigate performance risks before they become a problem.
Hogan’s Personality Inventory describes “normal, or bright-side personality — the qualities that describe how individuals relate to others when they are at their best.” It helps companies choose best hires and can help develop stronger leaders. This test offers insight into how people work and lead and how successful they will be.
Hogan’s Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory describes one’s internal personality. This helps a company to understand one’s values, “what motivates candidates to succeed, and in what type of position, job, and environment they will be the most productive.”
Perhaps most fascinating is the Hogan Judgment assessment, which combines “cognitive ability, brightand dark-side personality, and values” to measure participants’ information-processing style, decision-making approach, reactions to feedback, and openness to feedback and coaching. “Good judgment involves being willing to acknowledge and fix bad decisions, and learn from experience.” One can only imagine the many emotionally charged workplace situations that could have been avoided had this assessment been used prior to employment.
Last in the Hogan series is the Reasoning Inventory, which describes one’s critical thinking skills — “the ability to evaluate sets of data, make decisions, solve problems, and avoid repeating past mistakes.” This enables companies “to identify candidates’ problemsolving styles, understand their capacity, and identify areas for development.”
SHL assessments is another “gold standard” assessment company. The SHL aptitude tests estimate one’s maximum ability level. Imagine knowing just how far a potential employee will be able to advance. Measuring a candidate’s potential and comparing it to the norm enables a business to have a better idea of who is best suited for the day-to-day work involved in the job.
This test also predicts future performance at work and identifies leadership potential through testing for five major personality traits — openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
Fifty percent of Chamorro-Premuzic’s clients are Fortune 100 companies using assessment testing, but there is no need to worry as the numbers grow. These tests also save employees from making bad choices, allowing them to continue interviewing until the right company comes along.
Without an accurate assessment, consider a creative culture that mistakenly hires a “yes person” who cannot adapt to new ways of doing business, even though the old ways prove to no longer work. An accurate assessment for hiring could have helped the employer avoid an inappropriate employee choice and, at the same time, saved an employee from accepting a poor choice in job offers.