Talent Assessment Tools: Hire Effectively

Adapted from How to Use Assessments To Hire Effectively by Dana Borowka.

This is mainly because of a lack of basic foundations in the subject, and a lack of exposure to the scope of employee assessment programs.

But how do you choose the most beneficial assessments?

Add to that,  the lack of regulation in this sector has only added to the confusion. Only organizations that have keep official departments that are focused to human capital development can value such a critical tool in the hiring process.

The SMEs and the smaller private firms lack the necessary insight into what could possibly end up saving them up to 40% in hiring/placement costs alone!

But before you can choose the most ideal assessment tools/vendors, it is helpful to understand the following –

• Testing for selection purposes first used by the ancient Chinese.

• Modern practice of scientifically evaluating the validity of selection assessments did not begin until the early 1900s.

• As selection research proliferated throughout the 20^th century, several key developments influenced test validation.

1. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlined the need for fair selection practices (amended Act in Title VII)
2. This established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
3. The EEOC and other enforcement agencies issued the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures in 1978.
4. The Uniform Guidelines remain the defining legal guidelines in personnel selection to the present day.
5. The Uniform Guidelines served to solidify the fundamental role of test validation in personnel selection from a legal perspective.
6. The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) published the first edition of the Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures in 1975 in order to outline best professional practices in this area.
7. The SIOP published the fourth edition of the Principles in 2003, which now serves as the definitive set of professional guidelines in this area.

• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is created during W.W II.

• It had yes-or-no responses to a series of questions.

• It is used to diagnose mental illness.

• The Industrial Age gave way to newer hiring practices.

• Science into hiring was the tag of the time.

• Psychologists utilized the same MMPI psychopathological test to screen job applicants.

• The test includes true-false questions.

• The mechanism of the questions proved intrusive and objectionable.

• Further research and law-making paved the way for more objective personality profilers and assessments.

• A Harvard University instructor and psychologist named Raymond Cattell working in the Adjutant General’s office devised psychological tests for the military.

• After the war he accepts a research professorship at the University of Illinois.

• The University was developing the first electronic computer – the Illiac I.

• Cattell would, for the first time, be able to conduct large-scale factor analyses of his personality testing theories.

• Cattell uses an IBM sorter, and the brand-new Illiac computer to perform factor analysis on 4,500 personality-related words.

• The result was a test to measure intelligence, and to assess personality traits known as the Sixteen Personality Factor questionnaire (16PF).

• In 1949, the 16PF was first published.

• Cattell’s research proved that while most people have surface personality traits, factor analysis enabled identification of  hidden traits that were equally common.

• In 1963 W.T. Norman replicated Cattell’s work.

• W.T. Norman also found that only five factors really shape personality.

• Dubbed the “Big Five” approach, the theory has become the basis of many of the modern personality tests.

• Hundreds and hundreds of studies validate the approach.

The five decades of research findings, briefly mentioned above above, has served as the framework for constructing a number of derivative personality inventories. This is a topic that’s been researched to death by the field of industrial and organizational psychology.

The astounding thing is how many companies undertake such huge investments in hiring and do not pay attention to what we know about using personality assessments to pick out the people who are going to be the best.

The Hirelabs Holistic Profile Assessment Instrument™ is based on the original Five Factor Model [Tupes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1961)]. It aims to exemplify the basic global personality traits of candidates, with consistent review of their performance correlated to scores elaborated in detail in the HireLabs Instrument Report™.

To get started on our Sense™ system, or to experience a live demo at your institution, please contact HireLabs Inc. on +1 (650) 492 5007 or +1 (650) 492 5088.