The enormous challenge for most test buyers is sorting out the claims of the salespeople that their test is the ‘latest and greatest’… In most cases, the test is just the latest and greatest absurd claim.

When it comes to making hiring decisions, there are good tests and poor tests. Poor tests include resume reads, application reviews, reference checks and most interviews, which, as typically practiced, fall way short of the standards set by the U.S. Department of Labor?s Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. Lack of consistency and lack of objectivity leads to lack of reliability and, therefore, lack of validity and hence non-compliance.

Poor hiring tests also include ones that were not intended for employee selection, like Meyers-Briggs (MBTI), and others that are ipsative or self-reporting, as Dr. Williams correctly points out.

Nevertheless, prevailing hiring practices rely upon a collection of poor tests (e.g. resume reads and unstructured interviews) that create legal and regulatory jeopardy. Only proof that selection procedures were properly developed (job-related), thoroughly validated and fully documented can preclude a finding of discrimination in the presence of adverse impact.

But there are good web-based tests (even excellent ones) that will consistently deliver valid, job-related, timely assessment results, from convenient, low-cost, reliable, online platforms. These good tests do follow the referenced Guidelines and Standards and their publishers can show employers how to prove it.

There are even some tests that can rightfully claim broad-gauge validity, such as an assessment for integrity, reliability, work ethic and attitudes toward substance abuse. Every employer (even the EEOC) wants honest, dependable, hardworking, drug-free employees; by acclamation these qualities are ?job requirements? of high ?business necessity?, at every level, in every organization. The publisher?s validity study, conducted in accordance with the APA Standard, as required by the Guidelines, completes the package.

While not every change is an improvement, every improvement is a change. To improve, we must change. Theory of Constraints Thinking Practices tells us to improve we must decide ?What to change?; What to change to?; and ?How to effect that change?.

We ought to change prevailing non-compliant, dysfunctional hiring practices. We ought to change them to compliant employee selection procedures that do a much better job of avoiding hiring mistakes and matching people with positions; and we ought to take advantage of excellent web-based testing options that offer proven performance, together with a rigorous EEOC compliance framework and the legitimate expectation of exceptional results.

As Dr. Williams wrote: ?You can trust a good test to produce good employees.? There are good (even excellent) online assessments out there. Dr. Williams closed with ?Let’s all work hard to move hiring into the 21st Century?. I ask: Why not work smart to move hiring into the 21st Century, quickly, painlessly and profitably? We have the necessary tools at our disposal. We need to pick them up and use them rather than continuing to talk/write about the inadequacy of the tools we do use (e.g. resume reads and interviews), while we tacitly accept the ?miserable performance? (so wrote Peter F. Drucker) that ensues.