What are the usual procedures when you are going to hire someone for your company? Screen CVs and conduct job interviews? Are you sure these hiring procedures are effective in helping you select brilliant candidates?
Since company HR always wants to hire the right people to work for their companies, it allows no mismatch resulting from wrong judgment in the job interviews. What can HR do to increase the chance of hiring the right person? Simon Gluyas, Lead Consultant, Assessment, Kenexa, a provider of software, proprietary content and services for HR, comments that assessment tests are the solution.
Sounds Scientific
Gluyas says, ˇ§Research has shown that the most commonly used techniques are often the least effective ones to predict if candidates will perform to a high level in a job.1ˇ¨ These include CVs, typical unstructured interviews, and reference checks. On the other end of the scale, assessment tests are consistently proven to be an accurate prediction of likely job performance.
Assessment solutions redefine the selection process for HR practitioners. ˇ§CVs should be used in the selection process, but only to determine if a person has the right level of experience or qualification that is required for the job,ˇ¨ comments Gluyas. ˇ§CVs tell us nothing about whether the person has the right behaviours and abilities required for the job and therefore CVs should not be used in isolation to screen candidates.
ˇ§Every job has a behavioural requirement and it is important that HR can get objective information on the qualities of the candidates to determine who to hire. For example, for sales staff, certain qualities are essential, such as being outgoing and persuasive, and an ability to establish relationships with other people.ˇ¨ And such personal qualities are not shown in the academic qualifications on the CV. Gluyas reveals that so many companies have screened out candidates holding not very nice CVs but are indeed having natural talent for being top salespeople.
How to Find the Talent
To help companies that look for high-performance staff, Kenexa have a range of assessments that accurately measure behaviours and abilities. Kenexa would talk to the companies and find out the behavioural and ability requirements of the job. The top-performing staff will be assessed to discover the behaviours and abilities that are linked to high performance in the job. This information is then used to accurately assess whether candidates have the same set of talents. Gluyas says company culture is an element included when devising the tests. ˇ§A candidate may have excellent performance in one company but when he / she is put in another culture, it may be a totally different story.ˇ¨
A Step Away from Tradition
Such assessment tests can be used in any job sectors, but they are especially suitable for companies that need to hire a large number of staff, Gluyas says, adding that the concept of employee assessment has been popular in the U.K., the U.S., Europe and Australia for many years. Some of Kenexaˇ¦s global clients include Credit Suisse, British State Health Service, Merrill Lynch, Deloitte, Abbey Bank, Airbus, Cadbury Schweppes, Ernst & Young, and Toyota UK. Yet, in the Asian market, Hong Kong, China and Japan are still considered to be emerging markets. Especially for local companies, assessment tests are a relatively revolutionary concept to them who are used to traditional procedures of recruitment. Local companies are now beginning to realize the impact assessments can have on business metrics such as increased productivity and decreased turnover, says Gluyas.
Footnote: 1. Hunter & Schmit, Validity and Utility of Selection Methods, 1998