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When you think about it, the process of buying a used car is pretty similar to hiring an employee.

Buying a used car means the buyer can get more car for the money, have less depreciation, and make lower payments. But, if the buyer isn’t careful, she might buy a car that turns out to be a lemon — unsafe and under-performing, maybe requiring hundreds if not thousands of dollars to fix or replace.

Few people purchase cars based on the seller’s description alone. Instead savvy buyers work to discover the facts about the car’s condition before they write a check. The car buying process generally looks like this: keep reading…

The Hilton in Istanbul

In part 1 of this article, I highlighted my top 10 recently implemented bold and outrageous practices in HR and talent management.

The goal is not to recommend these practices, but instead to more clearly define the leading edge of current practice.

In this part 2, I will highlight 13 additional practices that define the leading and “bleeding edge” of HR. If your goal is to “push the envelope” in talent management, this list can give you an idea of where the average ends and the truly bold practices begin.

Although every firm cannot directly adopt the practices listed here (some are reprehensible), I find during my corporate presentations that merely becoming aware of these bleeding-edge practices can create great energy and a strong desire for individual HR functions to do more and be bolder.

Additional “Bold and Outrageous” HR and Talent Management Practices

Here are my selections for the remaining top recently implemented bold approaches that define the bleeding edge of HR practices. keep reading…

When something looks good on the surface, but completely without merit, it is called a joke. You might not have thought of this before, but many hiring tests fit that bill. I’m talking about tests that deliver numbers and data that look good on the surface, but do nothing to predict candidate job success … in other words, scores do a better job predicting vendor sales than employee performance. Let me explain why, beginning with how professionals develop a hiring test.

What Works: Professional Standards

Professionals always start with a job theory that sounds something like this: “I believe factor X affects job performance.”

Next, they draft some X items and give their test to hundreds of people, tweaking and tuning the items along the way. Then they use one or more methods to test whether scores are directly associated with job performance; for example they might give their test to everyone upon hiring, ignore the scores, and later compare test scores to job performance. This is called predictive validity. They could also give their test to people already on the job and compare test scores to job performance. This is called concurrent validity. Both methods have their pros and cons.

Drafting a stable, solid, and trustworthy hiring test takes months of writing, editing, running studies, and systematically examining the guts of the test at both the item and factor level. This is the only way to know test scores consistently and accurately predict job performance.

Bad Joke Examples keep reading…

It’s a common mistake. Promote your best salesperson, gain a bad manager, and lose both. Why does this keep happening? Sales were great and his/her top performance attracted attention, but nothing prepared you for the bad manager part. Well, there are some very clear reasons. keep reading…

I was cleaning the attic the other day when I discovered a book that Kevin Wheeler and I put together back in the fall of 2001. This dusty tomb provided me with a treasure trove of insight along with a good deal of food for reflection.

Our book, titled “ Screening and Assessment: Best Practices” includes a variety of information about screening and assessment tools including the results of a usage survey examining use patterns for assessment tools, a summary of best practices for screening and assessment, and predictions for the future.

While a full review of the information in this book is beyond the scope of this article, it provides some highlights that are worth sharing. This book simultaneously provides strong evidence for both some immutable laws around effective assessment usage as well as great insight into the changes that are driving the continued evolution of screening and assessment tools.

Assessment Usage

The survey summarized in this book is very important if for no other reason then it was the genesis of the Rocket-Hire assessment usage survey which had a six-year run here on ERE (and which will return in a new format in the near future).

In general, the usage data were not extremely surprising given the nascent state of on-line assessment a decade ago. Here are the highlights: keep reading…

Every once in a while I take notice of a new company that seems to be flying under the radar. Smarterer is one such company I believe it is quietly going about the business of changing the testing industry as we know it.

What Is Smarterer? keep reading…

As I continue to attend conferences and hear awesome speeches about analytics such as the one by Josh Bersin, I am thoroughly convinced that talent acquisition (testing and assessment included) are at the beginning of a new era. The coming decades will represent not just a new era for testing and assessment, but rather its “golden era.” I began talking about this trend almost a decade ago, and I continue to watch for signs of the major transition that is currently underway.

Way More Insight

The past decade saw Internet technology freeing employment testing from the shackles of paper-based administration and reporting. As it got easier to do tests, there was a big increase in the use of pre-employment testing and the testing industry changed. A byproduct of this shift was a veritable cornucopia of data that has better allowed us to understand the factors that predict performance in almost every job and industry.

The coming decades will be all about the ability to use data and technology to gain incredible new levels of insight around people and their relation to the workplace — and to use this insight to realize new levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

Here are some of the things that will provide unprecedented ability to understand the relationship between people and jobs both in the near and the not to distant future. keep reading…

The fact is, candidates are judged constantly now but on the basis of nearly irrelevant (to job performance) criteria and with personal and other biases. Valid, professional assessments work strongly to the advantage of candidates who want to the right job in the right environment. Not convinced? Join the webcast…

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

As we gear up for the upcoming NFL draft this weekend, teams (and their fans) are studying, analyzing, prognosticating, and deciding which talent they should hire to help them achieve their goals.

In my preparations for the draft I recently ran across a really great article by Field Yates about the role of cognitive testing as one of the many pieces of predictive data used to help teams make player personnel decisions.

As a rabid fan of both testing and football and a self-proclaimed expert in each, I feel we can all learn a lot from the situation discussed in this article.

The article uses the controversy around the fact that Morris Claiborne, a cornerback who is projected to be a high first-round pick, did very poorly on the Wonderlic Exam (a cognitive ability test that all draft entrees are required to complete). The author suggests that Claiborne’s seemingly impossibly low score may actually be the result of a learning disability that will likely not hamper his on-field performance and uses this story as a lead-in to discuss the issue of using tests as a surrogate predictor of on-field performance.

I really enjoyed the author’s take on the importance of testing as a predictor of performance.

Just like a near-perfect score doesn’t equate to guaranteed success, a far-from-perfect score does not signal impending failure.

The point is — and this is what has been lost in the recent Claiborne headlines — the Wonderlic exam will always be a part of the draft equation, at least until a better metric is derived to replace it.

The premium each organization places on a particular Wonderlic score will inevitably vary; consensus is a rarity in personnel evaluation.

But what will always remain true is that every available tool to measure a player’s ability — the Wonderlic, 40-yard dash, bench press, and most importantly his film—is a piece of the draft puzzle.

I could not agree more with the author’s take on the value of testing as one piece of the bigger picture, the value of which is determined by the situation and the goals of the individuals who are responsible for making decisions. In my own work with testing and assessment I tend to recommend a model that focuses on the collection of a variety of data points. They all tap into different things that are important for success. Some can weed applicants out at key points in the hiring process; collectively, they can be “added up” at the end of the process to provide the data needed to make an informed final decision between candidates.

Here are a few more thoughts about the parallels between the article’s main points about predicting success in sports and my own insights around predicting success in the workplace. keep reading…

Recent research confirms that top performers ranging from managers of major league baseball teams to customer service reps on the store floor have one thing in common: they are Deciders. And there are plenty of them out there just waiting to be recruited.

In the last decade, renowned industrial psychologist Timothy Judge at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza School of Business has discovered a set of four characteristics that are found in high performers in virtually every industry, every job level, and every variety of circumstance from boom to bust. Together these four characteristics make up a sort of super trait called a “core self-evaluation.” As Judge describes it, the core self-evaluation is a person’s fundamental bottom line evaluation of their abilities. That self-evaluation has an enormous impact on their job performance.

The Decider Advantage keep reading…

I have worked with hundreds of organizations over the years to help them with the care and feeding of their assessment programs. The starting point for my client dialogues are often vastly different. In some cases I am assisting I/O psychologists who are working on cutting-edge innovative programs. In others I am helping to clean out low-quality legacy vendors who have long ago lost their support base, but somehow continue to exist.

The proper use of assessments is not an easy proposition. Doing it right is something that takes dedication and hard work, and even the most advanced companies must continually make improvements. But these same companies will tell you that the results to be obtained are well worth the effort.

The good news is that it has never been easier for companies to reach a relatively mature state with their assessment programs. Accessibility to quality assessment tools has never been better. As I continue to talk to and work with companies to help them with various aspects of their assessment programs, I have developed a rough set of guidelines to help me evaluate the company’s maturity level with using predictive hiring tools.

The following is a brief list of the key markers across three levels of maturity. keep reading…

the Marriott in Kaua'i, Hawaii

Candidate selection and assessment is one of the most conservative processes in all of talent management. Many think the topic is not worth a detailed examination, but a weak assessment or interview process can be the primary cause for not hiring top candidates. For decades, the majority of firms have relied heavily on the basic trio of resume screening, interviewing, and reference checks to choose the best candidates. Fortunately, the growth of metrics, the Internet, and technology in HR is now challenging these traditional approaches.

Over the last couple of years, a significant number of new approaches have evolved, and as a result, recruiters and hiring managers now have a wide range of alternative approaches to consider. This article is designed to make you aware of some of these alternative leading-edge candidate assessment approaches that firms have tried. If you are bored with interviews, you should enjoy reading about these new approaches.

A Long list of Alternative Candidate Assessment Approaches to Consider keep reading…

How good are the people who work for your company?

An honest, objective answer to that question would likely have you describing a statistical bell curve: Some top performers; a big middle, and a few at the bottom. As an HR professional, your performance management mission is to raise the overall quality of the workforce. Your yardstick for measuring success? The metrics of your top performers.

But how do you know your top performers are really top performers?

This is a question that professional sports scouts and college recruiters wrestle with all the time. A high school star might end up a bench warmer in college. A college standout might not make it out of training camp.

It’s now a question global assessment firm SHL is able to help businesses (at least) answer.

“We provide people intelligence,” says Caroline Paxman, chief customer officer. What that means is that SHL clients not only, now, can learn about the talents, behaviors, and skills of their own workforce, but can compare them to others in their industry, and get as granular as they like. keep reading…

NASA photo taken in Vienna by Peter Wienerroither (U. Wien)

You might have read about something called 360-degree feedback. Depending on who you read, it gets good, bad, or ugly reviews. People generally agree that performance feedback is a good thing, so what goes wrong? How can feedback from multiple raters possibly be a bad thing? Why do organizations generally toss it out after a few tries? After the initial shock and awe, why does it usually die on the vine? The reasons are quite simple. keep reading…

I continue to be excited by what I am seeing in the world of assessments.

Recently a client told me about a new assessment program that made my ears perk up.  It’s called the Bloomberg Assessment Test (BAT) and it’s yet another piece of solid evidence that the use of pre-employment assessment is being seen as a value-add by business leaders across the globe.

To me the BAT says that the highest echelons of the corporate boardroom are starting to gain some clarity about the value that quality assessment tools can provide in predicting outcomes that have a direct business impact.

We have the dawn of the era of big data to thank for this. All facets of business are now using predictive data modeling to help them make better decisions. While HR is a bit behind in this area (in what area is HR not behind?), it is catching up fast as more tools are becoming available to support the collection and analysis of data. The results, even at this stage of the game, are proving to be amazing.

Those setting the pace in the financial world (such as Bloomberg) are not only on board, they are actually driving the train — showing the rest of the business world the value of predictive pre-hire data to the achievement of valued business outcomes.

Here’s the skinny on the BAT.

What Is It? keep reading…

This “think piece” is part of my series designed to expand your thinking about strategic HR.

The Top 40 Problems With 360° Employee Feedback Programs

Whether you design, execute, or you are merely asked to fill them out periodically, you should be interested in maximizing the effectiveness of 360s. I split the potential issues/problems into seven categories. The remaining four in this second part of a two-part series include: Manager Issues, Issues Related to the Survey Process, Problems Related to Anonymity, and Program Administration. keep reading…

This “think piece” is part of a series of articles I wrote to expand your thinking about strategic HR.

360° employee feedback surveys are one of the most common HR practices, but unfortunately that popularity may have led to a degree of complacency. Whether you design, execute, or are merely asked to fill them out periodically, you should be interested in maximizing their effectiveness. After years of extensive research on the 360° process, I have found that there is far too little focus on the potential problems and the many weaknesses associated with the process. My research and experience with HR leaders has helped me compile a list of the potential issues, problems, and concerns that should be considered by anyone designing the process or interpreting its results. Your survey results will improve dramatically only when program managers and users are fully aware of all of its potential problems.

The following article highlights each of these potential issues within seven categories.

The Top 40 Problems With 360° Employee Feedback Programs

The top potential issues/problems are split into seven categories:  keep reading…

Facebook, and potentially other social media as well, can be used to assess a person’s potential for job success.

That not-so-surprising conclusion is reported in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and comes out of two studies — one dealing with academic performance, the other with job performance — conducted on college campuses in Indiana, Illinois, and at Auburn University.

What is surprising about the study is that a group of modestly trained evaluators could better predict success after spending a few minutes on a Facebook profile than could a self-assessment of personality traits often used by industry.

“SNW (social networking websites) ratings correlated with job performance, hirability, and academic performance criteria,” the researchers concluded, “and the magnitude of these correlations was generally larger than for self-ratings.” keep reading…

What I learned recently is that colonoscopies and pre-employment testing have a lot in common. First of all, managers and employees dislike, maybe even detest, the seemingly invasive nature of both evaluations. Second, you can’t fake out the results — what physicians see and personality tests reveal is simply “what it is.” Both assessments, when properly administered, are objective and neutral. Finally, both the colonoscopy and personality tests are critical for detecting or preventing “cancers” from spreading in your body and organization respectively.

How did I come up with this crazy comparison? I’m not sure. Let’s just say the analogy just appeared — one of those “aha” moments — during a conversation with a client. She had just completed an evaluation of several employee assessments for her company.

Here’s a little background that prompted her search. keep reading…

I continue to be impressed by the evolution of pre-employment assessment tools. This evolution is being driven by the continued growth of the value proposition assessment provides. As a result, an increasing number of new product include embedded assessments designed to help predict which applicants have the best chance of success.

This past year has brought a proliferation of firms that are using assessments to provide a new twist on matching online job applicants with job openings (and conversely allowing firms to match their job openings to candidate data residing in a database).

To understand the origin of Internet based matching, one has to turn the clock back about 15 years to the dawn of the job board. Job boards provided arguably the biggest overall change to the status quo for the way — both in the way people are hired because of the increased ability for individuals to find out about job opportunities, as well as for those hiring, to locate viable candidates.

Things have not changed much as even in the present day. The basic Internet job search equation involves a matching process in which each party provides information about who they are and what they are looking for. Behind-the-scenes algorithms living on servers evaluate the data provided by each party and calculate a match.

Although the job boards would argue otherwise, my basic description of the matching process used by most of them can be summed up with the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” keep reading…