Companies ?Test? Unique Ways To Hire

Instead of relying on Miss Cleo to determine how an employee will perform, some companies are now turning to another form of soothsaying: pre-employment assessment tests.

Assessment providers claim they can lower turnover by giving a company insight into an applicant’s integrity, reliability and behavioral traits. Human resources experts say the tests can be effective tools, if the assessments are legitimate and used along with traditional methods such as interviews and reference checks.

Using a pre-employment assessment test along with an interview and background check can bump up the success rate of hiring a competent, productive, long-term employee to 75 percent, said Bruce Branch, an attorney and human resource assessment consultant in Little Rock.

Howard Fikes, owner of HLF Consulting of Little Rock, said he’s seen the number of companies using pre-employment tests jump in recent years. When he started his business four years ago, he conducted two to three assessments a month. Now he averages about 15 a month and is seeing yearly revenue of $250,000.

Statistics show that without using the assessments — and relying only on the interview for selection purposes — hiring the right person only occurs about 15 percent of the time, Branch said. Adding a background check increases the successful selection rate to about 25 percent.

Without an assessment, the HR director holds his breath and hopes he’s selecting the right candidate.

“People are like icebergs,” Branch said. “When hiring, all you see is 10 percent of the person. It’s the other 90 percent you’re left to observe. [And] most of the time you’re disappointed.”

Branch said his company’s goal is to make sure his clients hire the right people for the right positions.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that not all people are in the right position,” he said.

Branch said his company first helps the employers identify the open positions and what skills are needed to perform well in those positions.

To do that, Branch runs assessments from Profiles International Inc. of Waco, Texas, on the top performers who are already doing a given job. Those scores are used as a measuring stick for future employees for that position.

Fikes said he uses the Birkman Assessment, which is designed to reveal an individual’s behavior style.

“The reason that we’re interested in that is because we are finding … that behavior … is probably a bigger problem than some of the skills that people bring,” Fikes said.

A human resource director couldn’t glean the same results from an interview as the assessment tests do because most HR directors don’t have the specialized training, he said.

Branch sends his clients to the Profiles International’s Web site to answer a series of questions. The number of questions varies depending on the type of assessment. The questions range from, “In the final analysis, winning is more important than how you play the game,” to “People have criticized you unjustly.” The applicant has to answer either yes or no.

Those in the assessment industry reassure applicants that it’s not a test that they could flunk; in fact, they say, it’s not really a test at all. “How could you fail who you are?” several in the industry said.

After the test is completed, Profiles International computes the answers and releases a detailed report on the applicant to the employer.

With the results in hand, an employer will be better prepared to hire someone who is the best fit for the position, Branch said.

“It’s a proven science,” he said.

Branch said the tests his clients take measure three areas: the applicant’s thinking style, occupational interest and behavior traits.

Branch said every position that’s worth paying a salary is worth assessing.

Testing for a custodial position can reveal if an applicant would waste time or steal. The test can unmask a person who is dishonest or indicate integrity and reliability.

The tests are also designed to reveal a person’s attitudes toward drug use and team compatibility. And fooling the test is tough since similar questions are asked a number of ways.

A typical red flag for an employer is finding someone who is pushy and demanding coming into an organization that doesn’t have that type of culture, Fikes said. But if they were going into an organization that had that type of culture, they would get along just fine.

Fikes said the tests he uses, which cost about $200 each, are mostly for managerial and professional positions. The results also give an employer sample questions to ask during a follow-up interview.

Testimonial

Before Gambro BCT of Lakewood, Colo., used a pre-employment assessment test from Profiles International, it used a temp-to-hire strategy through a temporary agency, according to its letter to Profiles International, which Profiles supplied.

(Profiles wouldn’t allow any of its customers to be contacted directly.)

Linda Newsman, human resources manager for Gambro BCT, said in the letter that the assessment survey improved hiring results.

“We not only reduced our turnover from 61 percent to 27 percent, but for the first time in our history, production lines are fully staffed,” Newsman said.

By reducing turnover, the company saved money, she said.

About half of turnover problems are blamed on behavior issues and having the wrong chemistry in the company, Fikes said. By not hiring employees with the wrong behavior traits, a company can reduce the training costs associated with turnover.

Using this assessment can be expected to have a “dramatic” effect on a company’s turnover, Fikes said, but “we certainly don’t try to imply that these assessments are a cure-all for everything.”

But Do They Work?

Bob Levin, co-author of “High-Impact Hiring: A Comprehensive Guide to Performance-Based Hiring,” said he was skeptical of the assessment tests at first.

After studying them, however, he concluded that they can be a good, though not foolproof, tool when used in conjunction with interviews and background checks.

“I really have become convinced that a test that’s well developed, when it’s matched with a good understanding of what a job’s about, can really help improve the quality of hiring,” he said. “My concern is when they’re not well developed or when they’re over-hyped or misused.”

He said choosing a test can be difficult.

Levin said one easy way to eliminate the bad assessments is to ask the test’s publisher for its technical manual. If the company won’t send one, don’t buy it. The manual will list the studies that have been done on the test.

Before a company chooses a test, it should determine what it wants from its employees. The right test should be based on job analysis, which should be the first step in the hiring process for every job, regardless of what tools are used for hiring, he said.

“There is a tremendous amount of junk out there,” Levin said. “They sound good, but don’t predict performance.”

John Saterfield, owner of Saterfield & Associates in Kenner, La., agrees that some tests aren’t so good, especially with some tests charging $1 per use.

“You usually get what you pay for,” he said.

But the biggest pitfall is when a company buys the test over the Internet or through a software company and doesn’t have a clue what the results mean.

Sometimes employers will read too much into a statement on the results when it really isn’t that significant, Saterfield said.

For example, Saterfield said, if the test reports an applicant isn’t organized, the company may decide right there that it wants somebody who is organized. However, the company might be throwing out a good candidate because people who tend to be well above average in intelligence are usually not organized, he said.

Ideally, a good way to predict an applicant’s future is to look at what he’s done in the past at other jobs and in school, said Gerard Knowak, an associate professor at the Counseling Testing Center at Western Michigan University.

“To me, what assessment-type testing does is increases the probability of getting a successful person more than [random] chance,” he said. “But if you carry that too far and say for sure it does … then, I think, you’re going beyond what I think a test can do.”