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Why Use Assessments?
 Reasons to use pre-employment assessments
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Two of three new hires will disappoint in the
first year
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Two of three employees would rather work
somewhere else
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Ninety-five of 100 applicants will
"exaggerate" to get a job
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Most hiring decisions are made in haste -
during the first five minutes of an interview
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One of three businesses will be sued this year
over an employment issue
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Turnover costs thousands of dollars for every
departing employee
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Eighty percent of employee turnover is
avoidable
AND...
You
want employees who are dependable
In 1998, absenteeism cost employers
$757 per employee, according to a report in USA
TODAY. This was the direct cost reported by a
survey of human resource professionals and does
not include the cost of hiring others or paying
overtime to perform the work of absent
employees.
You can be held liable
for employees' behavior on and off the job
You must know the nature of the people you hire
because their criminal behavior could cost your
business millions of dollars. Every time you
hire without practicing due diligence, you may
be accepting liability for their actions - even
when they are "off the clock."
You can be sued for
illegal discrimination
In the absence of objective data, how
can you demonstrate a hiring/promotion decision
was made objectively, without discrimination
because of gender, race, religion, etc.
Résumé writers write
great fiction
In a survey of recent college graduates, 95%
said they would be willing to make a false
statement in their résumés in order to get a
job. Forty-one percent admitted they had already
done so, according to a report in Nation's
Business (May, 1999).
Testing is acceptable,
even expected
As reported in Molding Systems
(May, 1999, v57 i5 p56(1)), a survey found that
92% of job applicants accept testing as part of
the job qualification process. Only 3% resent
it, while 5% were neutral.
Assessments
offer a solution
Historically, employers depend upon résumés,
references and interviews as sources of
information for making hiring decisions. In
practice, these sources have proved inadequate
for consistently selecting good employees.
When training employees, a "one size fits all"
approach has failed to provide the desired
results.
When selecting people for promotion, otherwise
excellent employees have too often been miscast
into roles they could not perform
satisfactorily.
Clearly, an essential ingredient for making
"people decisions" has been missing from the
formula.
The use of assessments has become essential to
employers who:
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want to put the right people into jobs;
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provide employees with effective training;
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help their managers to become more effective;
and
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promote people into positions where they will
succeed.
The
use of assessments has resulted in extraordinary
increases in productivity while reducing
employee relations problems, employee turnover,
stress, tension, conflict and overall human
resources expenses.
Several factors contribute to the failure of
traditional hiring methods. Résumés often
contain false claims of education and experience
while omitting information that would help
employers make better hiring decisions.
Business references are of little value because
most past-employers will tell you nothing but
"name, rank and serial number."
These realities are the reason interviews have
become the most influential factor in hiring and
promotion decisions. However, experience shows
only a coincidental correlation between the
ability to deliver well in an interview and to
deliver well on the job. Studies peg this
correlation at 14% -- one good employee in every
seven hires. Even background checks don't help
much. The success rate becomes 26%, but that's
only one good hire in every four. Unfortunately,
many employers have accepted these poor results
and the high cost of excessive turnover as a
business reality. They have flown the white flag
of surrender.
 Don't Surrender! Assessments do help
significantly
Assessing behavioral traits improved the hiring
success rate to 38%.
When both thinking abilities and behavioral
traits are assessed, the right people are hired
54% of the time.
When an assessment of occupational interests is
added, successful results improve to 66%.
The most impressive results are achieved,
however, when an integrated assessment is used -
one that measures behavioral traits, thinking,
occupational interests, plus "Job Match."
These integrated assessments employ cutting-edge
technology and empirical data to assess the
qualities of "The Total Person." In doing so,
the individual qualities of candidates are
compared to the qualities of employees who
performing their duties in a superior manner.
These 21st Century assessments successfully
identify potentially excellent employees better
than 75% of the time.
Job Match outranks all other factors
A well-documented study, published in Harvard
Business Review concludes that "Job Match"
is by far the most reliable predictor of
effectiveness on the job. The study considered
many factors including the age, sex, race,
education and experience of approximately
300,000 subjects. It evaluated their job
performance and found no significant statistical
differences, except in the area of "Job Match."
The conclusion: "It's not experience that
counts or college degrees or other accepted
factors; success hinges on a fit with the job."
The only reliable method for evaluating "Job
Match" is with a properly designed assessment
instrument, capable of measuring the essential
job-related characteristics particular to each
specific job. Profiles International has
assessments designed for this purpose.
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