Building a Process that Includes Assessments
Many managers don't understand assessments are just one piece of the hiring process. Contributing to the challenge of using assessments is the fact that there are thousands of instruments -- and some of them are of questionable value at best.
By Paul Connolly
Personality and behavioral assessments for hiring are sometimes poorly designed, misunderstood or overly relied upon.
"It's dangerous to put too much faith in the assessment results alone," says Santa Barbara, Calif.-based consultant Marc Gamson with Medina & Thompson. "Many managers in and outside of HR don't understand the limits of assessments. Instruments are just one piece of the hiring process,"
Contributing to the challenge of using assessments is the fact that there are thousands of instruments on the market and, scientifically, some of them are of questionable value at best. And many firms fear claims of cultural bias in using personality assessments.
These concerns are all valid. HR must be careful when considering assessments for selection.
Estimates vary, but about 30 percent of all companies use assessments. The percentage is higher within the Fortune 500. Many organizations demonstrate that unbiased, scientifically sound assessments can be an aid in selecting qualified talent aligned with the corporate culture when used as one tool in a more comprehensive process that primarily relies on HR discipline and diligence.
It includes collaboration with hiring managers to draft concise job descriptions followed by a series of personal interviews to verify and qualify the assessment data.
"We've had a lot of success using assessments for selection, especially at the executive level," says Delaware North Director of Talent Acquisition Sherri Steinback. "The instruments are helpful in hard-to-fill positions that have no precedents and for positions that are critical and timely in nature, for example, to get a person in place for upcoming contract negotiations."
As the economy improves, there is an increased demand for faster hiring decisions to fill new and vacant roles. At the same time, human resource departments are expected to accomplish this with fewer people of their own.
Also, HR managers are striving to play a more strategic role in their organizations by recruiting and selecting capable talent aligned with corporate culture and the need to accomplish business goals in a highly competitive and volatile environment.
A more intentional, diligent and methodical use of assessments in the hiring process can help with all of these challenges as organizations regroup for what may be a chaotic climb to a higher economic plateau during the economic recovery.
Assessments, as part of a repeatable, documented process, are proven to screen faked answers as they provide a snapshot of traits and tendencies. Most importantly, they serve as baselines for personal interviews. This all can help prevent costly staffing mistakes.
Delaware North Cos., with over 50,000 employees, is a 95-year-old privately held firm based in Buffalo, N.Y., that provides food service and hospitality management for properties as diverse as New Meadowlands Stadium, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and The Queen Mary.
The company is presently coming to terms with an enormous pool of applicants.
"We average about 400 management hires a year and we're seeing more activity as a result of the improving economy," says Steinback. "For every position we post, we're inundated with resumes."
Amidst this talent tumult, Steinback focuses on her mission to make all hiring more of an opportunity rather than a demand to staff up.
"We have a very progressive strategy when it comes to talent and it's important to have assertive practices in place," she says. "It's really easy to get caught up in a reactive process of filling a need, as opposed to doing the critical thinking needed at times like these."
Building a Process
Assessments should be considered part of the hiring process, rather than a discrete gauge of hireability.
The process should start with establishing clear job descriptions with the personality, behavioral and performance competencies and traits needed for each position. An assessment process should set measurable traits that match the culture, mission and long-term goals of the organization.
Gamson says successful implementation of assessments requires using superior instruments as guides for interviews and evaluation. Organizations should "know what they need in the position first and foremost, before they even go out to search," he says. "This includes determining and documenting what it takes to succeed within the company."
From this kind of input, a set of instruments can be applied to balance and analyze -- or "triangulate" -- the data with multiple interviews.
Similarly, at Delaware North, there's a lot of preparation before assessments are used. This calls for dialogue between stakeholders, hiring managers and HR in order to be responsive to business requirements. Steinback puts hiring managers to work with a questionnaire to establish baselines for particular jobs.
"The assessment provides the hiring manager with a tool that helps her be more objective, accountable and thoughtful in her decision making," says Steinback. "Assessments give another lens to look through to see what candidates have to offer."
Using multiple quality instruments can help inform personal interviews for candidate selection. The data they provide can also be a basis for feedback and coaching during onboarding and beyond.
Gamson stresses this in his practice. As a consultant, he also hires outside firms to conduct the assessments and interpret the results.
"With the data you get from instruments and the feedback from a professional, you can support a rigorous interview process and are better able to figure the candidate out," he says.
Assessments offer a precise glimpse of the candidate, but it's a narrow glimpse. In the case of personality tests, they reveal tendencies but not behaviors, so you are unlikely to get the most complete picture of the applicant without an interview. Example: you want someone who is outgoing and the personality assessment says "Not very sociable."
Based on this, the person is ill-suited for the position. However, in an interview you learn that this person had a prior manager who helped him see this as a career blocker and encouraged him to become more skillful when interacting with fellow employees. You also learn that with some hard work, he successfully made improvements.
The personality tendency, however, will not shift despite the new behavior. But the new behavior is ultimately what you are looking for.
Personality is key with Delaware North talent acquisitions for properties as diverse as airports and baseball teams. "The most consistent thing we look for in candidates is service orientation," says Steinback. "Delaware North prides itself on creating special experiences ... . We make memories."
Service orientation can be assessed. You can measure a person's tendencies to adhere to standards, awareness of how others are reacting to the experience, and the ambition to take appropriate action. Then, this should be confirmed through personal interviews.
Choosing Instruments
With the range of assessment types and the alphabet soup of brands and vendors, it's no wonder so many firms avoid using them. Some organizations have had negative experiences with unreliable instruments or by relying too much on test results alone.
And even the best assessments should never be used as a sole determiner. Regardless of the product you use, reputable assessment authors advise using more than one to get accurate results.
The most common types of assessments you will encounter are personality assessments and motivational assessments. Most today are Web-enabled for convenience.
Personality assessments determine if the candidate can do the job, based on the baselines established by management and the hiring manager.
Motivational assessments reveal how well the applicant fits the organizational culture. One major contributor to unwanted turnover is mismatched talent that happens when you have carefully selected people who can do the job, but don't fit the culture.
It's like my college roommate who, early in his career, was recruited away from a Wall Street firm to a utility company with the promise that the company was "becoming more entrepreneurial."
Once there, however, he found himself mired in analysis paralysis trying to secure multiple approval signatures on the design of a short marketing brochure. The culture was anything but entrepreneurial, so my once-eager friend resigned after three months.
There are hundreds of both types of instruments on the market. Unfortunately, quality varies greatly and some should be avoided. So what should you look for?
The reliable and most useful assessments are published by companies that are members of the American Psychological Association (APA), SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) or some similar professional association.
The test should be available for review in the Buros Mental Measurement Yearbook, and have a technical manual that is specifically organized by the standards outlined by the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures.
There should be a summary of the validation results obtained for job titles similar to the one for which you are hiring, and the company should be willing to make a statement that they will support you in the event there is a legal challenge to using the assessment.
The good assessments are extremely accurate and informative and require certification -- whether it's a qualified employee within the organization or an outside consultant -- to be analyzed and applied properly.
"By going through a disciplined assessment process, you learn much more about the candidate and the candidate knows more about himself in the organization," says Gamson. "This accelerates the learning curve going in."
Paul M. Connolly, Ph.D. founded
Performance Programs Inc
. in Old Saybrook, Conn., in 1987 to provide workplace surveys, personality tests, and executive assessments for organizations. Before that he was director of consulting services for Management Decision Systems of Darien, Conn., and a consultant with Lopez and Associates of Long Island, N.Y. His Ph.D. in general psychology is from Fordham University.
July 26, 2010 Copyright 2010© LRP Publications
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