We all know how important it is to hire the right candidates. If an employee does not have the right competencies to perform the job, or is not a good fit for the culture of the organization, this individual will have to be replaced.
The market is flooded with testing services and self-administered tests that purport to measure everything under the sun.
Will pre-employment assessments help you to make better hires? Not necessarily.
Testing can be expensive, and for some organizations, the benefits will not sufficiently justify the costs.
Before you invest in a testing program, ask yourself what you wish to accomplish. If you have a high turnover rate or a history of bad hires, or
there is another compelling reason that you need to screen for certain competencies, pre-employment testing can be very useful.
If you have been generally happy with your hires and your turnover rate is low, there may be no reason to implement a screening program.
If you do decide to test, the more specific you are about the skills and characteristics for which you wish to screen, the more likely you will be to obtain good results. Selecting the right assessment tool is critical. The quality of tests can vary widely, and you want to be sure to choose one that will effectively measure what you want to measure.
The test must measure skills or work behavior that is important to performing the job for which the applicant is being tested. The test must be administered to all candidates in a fair and uniform manner. A test cannot have a discriminatory impact against any race, religion, sex or ethnic group.
If a particular test produces a significantly different rate of hiring men than women, for example, the test might be considered discriminatory.
Tests should be validated. This means that there should be a demonstrated correlation between individual performance on the test and subsequent performance on the job. Scoring of the test, whether a target score or pass-fail standard is used, must be applied consistently.
It is much easier to do a good aptitude tests than psychological tests, because aptitude tests measure skills that are more directly relevant to the job. Psychological and personality tests present more of a gray area, and are therefore more open to challenge.
If you do decide to use psychological tests, closely examine the job description to determine the characteristics you are seeking to measure. Do not attempt a “one size fits all” approach. Since it is unlikely that one test will be relevant to applicants for all positions at an organization.
Do not attempt to devise your own tests unless you have in-house expertise in the areas of test development and validation.
(Written by S. Smith)
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