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Why don't more companies utilize pre-employment skills assessments?
Best Answer
- Recommended by:
- John McCoy,
- Kathryn Finlay Zimmerman
The last time I hired a programmer I simply gave them an assignment to write their concept of a portion of a process we were already using. I asked the applicant to return the following day with whatever he came up with. Two of the applicants were not successful but the third not only wrote appropriate code for the process but actually improved on what we had in place. Needless to say he was hired and was still working there after I sold the company. So I recommend creating small assignments related to the job to determine their ability to do the job. If they understand the small job they can be taught to do the large ones.
For most HR and middle managers, utilizing assessments is intimidating. How do you interpret them and what do they mean? Which ones do you use and when? Most assessments have certification programs however understanding the real value of the results requires practice and utilizing them in many different situations. Also, no one assessment covers all three parts of the mind (affective/personality/feeling - conative/instincts/natural performance - cognitive/skill/thinking style). Thus, to get a true picture requires integrating results from at least three different assessments. Especially for key management positions. For a manager to take on this responsibility with value is a task. What is really required is a partnership between HR and/or an expert in employee assessments to help utilize the right assessments for the most reasonable cost at the right time. Utilizing employee assessments is an art and it needs to be carefully considered so that it is not a threatening, misinterpreted, or therefore a useless exercise. Too many times assessments are taken and then not utilized to their full extent in strategic decision-making for best utilization of talent. This is due to what we see as pure lack of understanding about how to use them best. Then, everything Don Hermann mentioned above becomes the result.
For many years business operated without tests successfully. Only a few bad apples found their way into business. Then someone decided performance tests could help filter out bad apples and identify the best of the best. Sounds good but it seems we still get a fair share of bad apples. And I think we probably miss some of the best due to misinterpretation of test of test results.
I think there's a secondary consideration that no-one's touched on so far in this, in that often skills that can be tested easily using a test are often not the skills on which people place a premium in the hiring process.
Maybe you can program, maybe you can't. But if I'm hiring a programmer then the first thing I need to know is, if you can program like my other programmers (good, bad or indifferent cohesion is the name of the game for a developer), and I can't buy a test to check that I need to come up with my own.
Maybe you can use Excel, maybe you can't. But unless I'm hiring someone who uses Excel for the majority of their work then I don't really care what your skills are at interview, I focuse on what's important and work on the proviso I can always train you to use Excel for your role. And so on...
Of more concern to me, is the volume of companies that use faulty, flawed psychometric profiling in their hiring decisions, which is also vastly expensive and adds very little (if any) value to understanding an individual and their contribution to an organisation.
I applaud the initiative and dose of reality that Vince put into his hiring process. Unfortunately US law is not always supportive of this and while Vince was very successful it could have easily been different.
Yup to Don Herrman's comment. That factor is what I believe is the barrier. More so in other European Countries.
The reason most companies do not use test is cost. Tests have to be validated to be a proven predictor of success. The validation guidelines are in chapter 10 of the Uniform Selection Guidelines, very costly to prove that the test does not discriminate against any protected classes. You can find the Uniform Selection Guidelines on the EEOC's website.
I have often found that the assessment tests available are too simple and generic for the needs of my company. They are great for customer service and data entry, as well as for programming languages, but not so much for sales of a unique product, and forget about it when it comes to any position requiring creative talent.
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There could be many reasons. In that most tests are standardized little opportunity for customization exists. This is demonstrated by the simple fact that, for example, an excel skills test will test 3 separate levels of mastery simultaneously.
Cost becomes another factor. The cost of these products is all over the map. In the US we have the additional issue of test validity as it relates to EEO criteria. Is a seemingly legitimate and innocent test going to create a disparate or adverse impact on a protected class. Sometimes the test ceases to have any value because of that risk, real or perceived.
Test administration is also a challenge. Is it pen and paper? Web Based, Computer-based? Who controls the testing, how is it controlled. Where are the tests given and how should they be used (as opposed to how they may be used)?
I personally believe skills testing serves a great purpose, but that's just me.