While I am a staunch proponent of the use of pre-employment tests, I am the first to say that they are not always the best solution in every situation.

I believe there are many reasons why these tests are a valuable asset to organizations. However, they are not a simple ‘plug and play’ solution.
In order for assessments to add value they must be properly selected and implemented and their results properly analyzed. I think these things go well beyond the ‘typical’ vendor response you noted- that poor results must mean that the wrong test was used.

In my opinion, for tests to be a useful tool the following must occur:

1. They must be selected based on a well defined set of desired work outcomes and it must be established that these work outcomes are best predicted using a test. In the case of personality tests- these tests have long suffered from problems due to the difficulty of tightly linking their content to job performance. They can be ‘fluffy’ and the inability to link the test to job performance criteria is type of thing makes it hard to clearly demonsrate the value the test will have.
Not every hiring situation warrants a personality test.

2. They must be used as only one piece of information that can help facilitate the decision making process- not as an all or none proposition. Tests offer a great compliment to the structured behavioral interviews you discuss.
As you accurately suggest, as jobs get more complex, it is going to take more then just one personality test to predict performance. Complex job performance requires different types of data to be collected and used by qualified hiring personnel to assemble a predicitive picture of the fit between an individual and a job.

3. Managers and those using the tests must accept them as useful and be able to clearly understand the value they add. The less job related, the more complex or cumbersome the test is, the less managers will buy into their value.

4. Their ROI should be examined whenever possible. That is if you are testing and you have a decent volume of persons being tested for a job opening, it is imperative that you make sure to examine the predictive accuracy of the test. If the test isnt predicting, it is easy to think about refining the hiring process by looking for the problems that still exist.

5. Choose vendors wisely. There are lots of different tests and methodologies for using them available. Some of these are better then others. I am aware of many situations where an organization decides to choose a vendor who may not actually be able to provide the best test for the organizations needs. If the vendor does not have the most appropriate test, many of them will ‘perscribe’ another test that they do have.
This can present problems because if you are using a test that is not optimal for the outcomes you are trying to predict- the ability of the test to demonstrate value will be greatly reduced.

At the end of the day, all hiring activities are nothing more then a prediction about how well someone will perform a job. There are many ways to do this and testing is only one of these. Making a good hiring decision is a blend of two things- gathering enough predicitive data to help learn about an applicant’s capabilities relative to job requirements and having hiring personnel who have the experience and ability to accurately interpret this data and use it to their advantage. No matter what the situation, the mantra must be establishing the job relatedness of the data that is collected and the understanding of the benefits and limitations of this information.

Thanks for your insights- I hope mine are useful to you.

-Charles

First of all they

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In many cases, companies are implementing these tests to satisfy recent insurance company requirements. (is there any factor of our lives the insurance companies don’t control?).

I have used these tests for years, but have yet to see any proof that these tests improve the quality of anyone’s workforce.

In my experience, the performance of candidates hired using these tests were no better, and often worse, than those hired using traditional interviewing methods. When I bring this to the attention of the test creators, the industry standard answer is ‘well, then you must not be implementing them correctly’ – even though in every case we had the company manage the testing process.

There is one common thread I have seen. Candidates who pass these tests seem to have less ‘personality’ than those that failed. In a recent 8-month hiring project I just completed, we were processing 400-800 candidates per week. Everyone working there noticed a decrease in ‘personality’ (happiness, joviality, frivolity, – basically ability to have fun) during our weekly candidate processing after the tests than we had before they were implemented.

I am on a project now with a company who uses a standardized test designed for Electricians. What blows me away is that this test turns away not only the weakest electricians, but the most talented as well because the creator of the test claims that these people are ‘too smart’ or ‘too creative’ to make a good employee. To me this is a total crock. Again, this test was implemented to satisfy insurance company requirements, not because the company had any problems hiring good employees.

In 2001, I recruited for a sales company that wanted to implement the tests because of poor performance from some recent hires. I insisted that all managers and field sales take it as well (my reasoning was to set a baseline to compare against new candidates). Nearly all the managers failed the test, and for field sales, the scoring of the tests was the inverse of the commissions paid to the taker. Field sales people who had been making up to $800,000/year in commissions failed miserably (the test said resoundingly ‘DO NOT HIRE’) while fresh from college, no experience types passed with top scores. One manager made a perfect score, but his region had the worst performance in the nation and he was fired within 2 weeks after taking the test.

I would rather see companies focus on teaching solid performance based interviewing skills than waste any more money on these tests. Unfortunately, managers and insurance companies being what they are, I can only see more of them in our future.

Now, there is ONLY one area where I think these tests might help: situations where you need to hire large volumes of unskilled hourly labor. Here, a personality test would be helpful. Even in this case, these tests only work if your available workforce is large enough to allow you to throw away a percentage of candidates willing to do what you need done.

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