Are You Using The Right Pre-employment Test?
Like nearly every other service available on the Web, easier access and convenience doesn't necessarily make for decisions better. Finding the right vendor for psychometric testing can be difficult.
The Web is full of "pop" psychology tests; most are not normed for local use. Many are dangerous to use for employee selection - be especially weary of four dimension tests that put people into behavioural "boxes" and describe your traits as colours, type of animal or as an alpha, like D, C, etc.
Not unexpectedly, employers and human resources staff are struggling. This week's article focuses on several guidelines every employer can use to help them select the right assessment for the situation.
For starters, let's get the biggest question of all out of the way. Yes, pre-employments testing is legal! New Zealand does not have the litigious processes in this area as the United States. However it is very comforting to know and understand what this country’s stance is on employment testing as most tests are developed and trialled there before being normed for local use (like all our assessments).
In the United States, the Department of Labourand the EEO Commission place pre-employment psychometric testing in the same category as the job interview, personal observations, resume reviews, and reference checks.
In fact, any process, technique, procedure, or assessments are considered tests. And any test used to screen and select an employee must be used consistently and meet the same criteria - validity, reliability, and job relatedness.
Any reputable Organisational Psychologist in NZ would follow the same reasoning. Providing you are using an assessment that is “work” related and you use these “in balance” with other selection processes (as outlined above), you are on safe grounds.
Fairness is the big issue – the selection process tends to be about discrimination – we start out with a pool of applicants and through discrimination we select out those we judge as a poor fit for the role – for this form of discrimination to be acceptable you must treating every person the same way. Every candidate goes through the same process - same interview questions, same valid psychometric profile, same back ground checks etc.
Pre-employment tests add a significant improvement in hiring accuracy when used in conjunction with the time-honoured method of scanning resumes/application forms, interviewing candidates, and checking backgrounds and references.
Many studies indicate that when pre-employment testing for personality and mental ability is used in conjunction with a structured behavioural based interview, the odds of hiring right the first time improves 50 percent or more – psychologists call this incremental validity.
Assessments approved for the workplace fall into two categories: screening and selection.
I like to use this analogy when describing the difference between screening and selection assessments: Selection tools identify how well the square peg (the candidate) will fit, the square hole (the job) without pushing and pounding.
Screening tools, on the other hand, easily identify all the non-square shapes that just won't fit at all, but may not be as accurate at finding only the square pegs that fit the particular hole.
Screening pre-employment tests therefore weed out high-risk candidates prone to counterproductive work attitudes such as absenteeism, dishonesty, aggressive tendencies, and workplace substance abuse.
The newest generation of pre-employment tests like JobCLUES also measure a few basic personality traits aligned to the Big 5 – the accepted theory of personality.
Selection, or job fit, assessments match a job candidate's abilities, interests, and more complex personality traits to specific attributes required to do the job. PreVue is a good choice here as you can create instant customised benchmarks.
Another premier tool is our competency based assessment, ASSESS – here you can align the applicants innate abilities to the specific competencies required. For more on this download our White Paper on competency modelling.
One value added component of many online assessments is the inclusion of personalised behavioural interview question and guides. Based on how a candidate responds to the test questions, a list of behavioural interview questions is generated, providing a specific and structured interview guide.
By choosing appropriate pre-employment personality, attitudes, mental ability, motivations tests, a hiring manager can save time, reduce time-to-hire; lower hiring costs, and improves the success of finding candidates who fit the job and the organisation.
When combined with a structured behavioural interview and a background check, a personality and mental ability test will increases hiring success from a toss of a coin to a around an 75 - 80% chance your choice is the right one. Not perfect by any means, but a darn sight better than your present process!
To learn more about "pre-employment testing", call us at 09 414 6030 – talk to Brent or Rob and ask about a trail test drive (no charge). Visit our website