This Is Not a Test — It’s the Future! Talent Assessment Trends for 2014

“Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon … everything’s different.”  – Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes (by Bill Watterson)

This quote from a cartoon hero who uses his overactive imagination to both entertain us and teach us valuable lessons about life represents a perfect summary of my thoughts about the future of the talent assessment industry.

To see the future, we have to be willing to take a good long look at what is happening in the talent acquisition world within the context of bigger picture trends. The mega trends that are shaping the future of how people do things on a global basis (i.e., empowerment via access to information, exponential growth in connectivity, ability to crunch and interpret staggering amounts of data, using collective intelligence to find truth) are all quietly at work setting the stage for major change in our industry. 

2014 will provide tangible evidence of the emergence of “Handler’s Law” which states that:

“As time goes on, advances in science and technology will allow talent assessments to become increasingly more effective, and the more effective talent assessments become, the less anyone will notice them.”

The days of lengthy test forms with obtuse and redundant questions are coming to a close.

As 2014 unfolds, the following trends will continuing to our progress toward Handler’s Law becoming reality.

Trend #1: Power to the People

This year we will continue to see evidence of a tangible shift in how assessments look and feel.  This is a critical evolutionary step as the dinosaurs of employment testing slowly begin to be replaced by more evolved tools. The pressure driving this evolution will be applied by candidates who expect that applying for a job should be a two-way conversation that is engaging and informative from start to finish.

Browsing the content on ERE.net from the past 12 months provides evidence that a major shift toward the empowerment of job applicants is underway. The common themes emerging center around the fact that people have access to unprecedented amounts of information, and information is power. Job applicants are people too and they are now deeply connected both to each other and to unprecedented amounts of information. Candidates will increasingly be empowered to believe that collectively their voice can force change. This empowerment is creating the following pressures on employers (and thus test providers):

• Assessment must be accessible — If applicants can’t take your assessment on a mobile device, they are going to look elsewhere for a job.

• Assessments must be engaging and be job related — Tomorrow’s (and to some extent today’s) applicants have a short attention span and like to fill it with things that entertain. If your assessment is short, looks like a game, and gives a realistic preview of the job, you will meet candidate expectations. If not, your company is going to be perceived as stuck in the Stone Age.

• Assessments must support brand identity and promises — Candidates will increasingly demand to know your brand and what it means to them and to others with whom they share connections. As time goes on, no one is going to continue seeking jobs that require a leap of faith based only on contact with one recruiter and a hiring manager. Job seekers will have the increasing ability to be directly in touch with what those in their network have to say about you as an employer and even about the people they will be working with/for if they take your job.

• Feedback will be required — We are finally entering an era where feedback about the hiring process and related assessments will become a critical part of the process. We have a ways to go, but it is coming.

There are a number of companies offering fresh and engaging products that are redefining the assessment marketplace in 2014.

#2 Assessment Is Finding a New Home “Above the Funnel”

Job boards as we know them are on the way out. Soon almost all matching of job seekers to job openings will begin outside the formal hiring process and will be based on membership in communities where verifiable personal information will be housed. Resumes are not dead; instead, they are being redefined as dynamic, living profiles that will support matching based on verifiable information such as credentials and accomplishments.

Assessment data will be a part of this picture. The insight it provides about an individual’s traits and competencies, when combined with other more objective information about an individual, will help “direct traffic” above the funnel.  Better routing of people to jobs will require both quality psychological measurement (via assessment) and artificial intelligence. The result of the combination of these two elements will be good matching at the sourcing level, increasing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the hiring process. Better sourcing supports the ability to make better hires. It’s as simple as understanding the laws of basic probability.

If you don’t believe that the way people find jobs is undergoing a fundamental change and that assessment will be a key part of it, just take a look at emerging communities being built by companies such as eHarmony, Good.co, Brave New Talent, and Youscience. The venues these companies are creating will all use assessment data as a key cog in matching people to opportunities that are meaningful and relevant.

These venues will mark the emergence of a trend I call “long tail recruiting,” which simply describes a process by which individuals and organizations engage in a more ongoing and dynamic dialogue as a result of their ability to connect to one another within or even across communities. Long tail recruiting happens as a natural part of engagement within social communities. As information and communication flows, employers and job seekers get to know one another based on common interests. Eventually, when there is alignment between the career goals of a member and the business need of a company, a transaction (i.e., hire) will occur. Such transactions are only one benefit of belonging to the community and may occur multiple times over the course of an individual’s career path and/or a company’s growth.

#3: Assessment Will Continue to Gain Traction as a Valuable Business Asset

Beyond the momentum created by the above trends, there are two key reasons why talent assessment’s star is rising fast:

• Data is the new superstar of the HR world and it is essential for showing the value assessment can provide as a legitimate business tool.

The continued evolution of analytics and big data will provide ongoing proof of the value of assessments. While “big data” may seem like a fad, we are really just getting started understanding the truths that data can provide. The care and grooming of data is becoming a business priority. I am talking to an increasing number of companies building out internal data and analytics centers within their HR functions. When it comes to assessment, this trend is a godsend because it will provide raw material that is foundational to linkages between people and business outcomes. The more the connection between assessments and business data becomes a given amongst HR and business leaders, the more popular assessment will become.

• Assessment is becoming commoditized, resulting in increasingly lower price points.

2014 will continue to see traditional pricing models for assessment being turned on their ear. The days of per-test pricing models are fading fast as testing increasingly becomes sold similarly to software. Marketplace consolidation will continue to see large and diversified companies offering assessments at a very low price point, or even as a free value-add to other enterprise software. Additionally, intense competition in the marketplace will continue to drive down prices. As time goes on, assessment companies will need to prove themselves as business partners in order to support their abilities to charge above market rates.

In conclusion, the assessment market is ripe for disruption, and as 2014 unfolds, expect to see more direct signs of a changing of the guard. The pressure to provide value to both business leaders and job seekers will force assessment providers to adapt or die.

via This Is Not a Test — It’s the Future! Talent Assessment Trends for 2014 – ERE.net.

This Is Not a Test — It’s the Future! Talent Assessment Trends for 2014

5 Secrets to Surviving a Candidate Personality Assessment

“So scale of 1 to 10: how much of a sociopath are you?”

I had been on the job precisely three days. The question came from one of my new coworkers who was curious about the results of the mandatory personality (uh, “leadership”) assessment that I had to take before I was hired. The results were delivered to me in three booklets: two of them were harmless. The other was plastered in red and ominously labeled the “Challenge Report.”

I should mention here that I’ve never done very well on tests like this. And before you give me that line about “there’s no wrong way to take a personality test,” I’m going to stop you right there. That is clearly bullshit, given that the last Myers Briggs test I took compared me to Emperor Palpatine.

The Challenge Report was no less brutal. In the place of tongue-in-cheek Star Wars references were numerous charts and graphs employed in the service of quantifying the exact degree to which my personality overlapped with Ted Bundy. I couldn’t believe I had been hired, much less allowed to roam the streets without police supervision.

Once I was over the initial shock, I got curious. A little google research revealed that the practice of giving employees some type of personality or emotional intelligence assessment is now quite common. 39% of companies do it. I also learned that the particular assessment that I took is by-and-large an excellent predictor of work performance, meaning that they are probably here to stay. So for the overwhelming majority of you who will one day have to face the Hogan (or similar assessment), I give you these hard-won survival tips.

5 hard-won survival tips for personality assessments:

Entertain the idea that the test may be accurate.

I hated every minute of going over my results, but I have to admit: it was right on the money. A year and half later, I still pull out The Challenge Report whenever I’m dealing with a difficult client, boss or coworker. 9 times out of 10, it’s me who is the problem. I had the privilege of working recently with a speaker and professor whose research centers on the subject of expertise. He told me last week that if you ask a novice to rate what they know on a scale of 1 to 10, they’ll choose 8.5. An expert, on the other hand, will chose 4.5. The minute you overestimate yourself is the minute you stop being an expert. The moral? If you want to smell like roses, you’ve got to be willing to sniff your own armpits.

The test contains voodoo magic, and knows when you’re lying.

…and by voodoo magic, I mean a wildly sophisticated algorithm that lets your future employer know if you’re too good to be true. So be honest.

Even if it didn’t contain voodoo magic, you still don’t to lie.

This is because an assessment like this gives you the rare but priceless opportunity to KNOW if a job is going to make you miserable. Does money motivate you? If an employer rejects you because they systematically pay under market value, good on them for copping to it now. You may feel like a jilted lover, but better that than a battered spouse.

Don’t wait until you’re job hunting to take an assessment.

For one thing, wouldn’t it be nice to know what your employer is going to see ahead of time? For another, these assessments are excellent coaching tools that can get push you through a professional plateau. 99 times out 100, the things holding us back in our career are not technical skills–it’s “soft” skills like our ability to play nice with others that may keep us in lateral loop when we’re ready to keep climbing the ladder. Sophisticated assessments like these are a great window into those blind spots.

Employers: don’t be a jerk.

There are a million and one ways that a test like this can piss off a candidate, not least of which is the fact that many of these questions are highly intimate, and you’re asking them before he or she is even a part of the company. The best way to not be a jerk about it is to make sure that whoever administers the test, explains the test to the candidate, and makes hiring decisions based on that information is both highly qualified and highly empathetic.

When I took the test as a candidate, I was a little irritated that the company wanted to know things like whether I preferred to do meaningful work or make lots of money. If I chose the first, was I agreeing to take lower pay? If I chose the second, was I admitting to being shallow? Was this any of their business?

Building a better candidate experience

Here’s what smoothed it over for me: the company employed a very competent, very nice woman who explained the exam before I took it and detailed exactly how the information would and wouldn’t be used. Then, once hired, she took an hour and a half to go over the results with me in person. During that time, she identified exactly why the company had hired me, what they expected me to do, and what might get in my way. She introduced me to other people on the team who shared my personality traits, and made sure to point out people who were distinctly my opposite. My first 90 days at the company were the smoothest I’ve ever experienced, because I knew the work style of every individual at the company before I’d even had time to learn all their names.

via 5 Secrets to Surviving a Candidate Personality Assessment HR, Recruiting, Social Media Policies, Human Resources, HR Technology Blogging4Jobs.

5 Secrets to Surviving a Candidate Personality Assessment

Supporting Assessment, Maximizing the Candidate Experience

Applying for a job isn’t very satisfying for many an applicant. Application processes are often shrouded in mystery because they represent a one-way flow of information that requires the candidate to provide information to a potential employer without receiving much in return.

It’s too bad, because both research and common sense indicate that the manner in which applicants are treated during the hiring and on-boarding process can have an impact on long-term outcomes such as organizational commitment and turnover.

 

Given the amount of time and money organizations often spend on building and communicating an employment brand, it’s sad to see these efforts diluted due to a poor candidate experience during the hiring process.

Pre-employment assessment is one area where the above issues are particularly relevant. Over the years, I’ve noticed a wide range of problems related to how pre-employment assessment is positioned and explained to applicants.

While I don’t know of any research that specifically ties the applicant experience with assessment to any specific outcomes, this doesn’t make it any less important. Common sense dictates that this aspect of the hiring process is an important one.

Here are some of the most common problems I have run across when it comes to assessment and the applicant experience:

• 
  Applicant unaware of the overall process. Most of the time applicants are kept totally in the dark regarding the sequence of events in the hiring process, as well as where assessment fits into the big picture. Job applicants should understand the various steps in the process they’re involved with. This helps them to understand that the company has nothing to hide and is willing to share information with them. It also helps frame expectations.


• 
  Applicant ambushed by assessment. I frequently see a situation where an applicant will complete one step in the hiring process and will then be directed to take an assessment with little explanation or warning. This abrupt transition can be difficult for them to understand and often may catch them unaware.


• 
  Scare tactics used. No one likes to be motivated by fear, but this is precisely the tactic often used to communicate to applicants that they should answer all assessment questions honestly. Honesty is important, but coercion is not the best means to achieve this end.


• 
  Assessment death march. I still am blown away by the number of assessment providers who expect applicants to complete assessments that are several hundred items in length. Further, the manner in which these items are presented can often be very taxing on the eyes. Let’s face it, assessment is not really a fun exercise, and the longer it takes, the more hacked off an applicant is likely to become. I’m fully aware of the technical requirements that often lead to the need to develop longer assessment tools, but I still feel many folks are ignoring the ramifications of long, involved assessments.


• 
  Offensive or obtuse content. Organizations often fail to screen the assessment content they’re using for offensive or non-work-related questions. This can be a big issue: just ask Rent-A-Center about this. It got sued for using the MMPI (an assessment aimed at detecting pathology).


• 
  Sharing is caring. In almost 100% of the instances when pre-employment assessments are administered, no feedback or results are provided to applicants. There are plenty of good reasons for this, but this still does not mean that this is not an important issue that needs to be addressed. Of course, it’s hard to give applicants negative feedback and the resource requirements of providing this feedback can be draining. More on this issue later.

I’m not denying that assessment can be a tedious and stressful thing for a job applicant. I’m also very aware of the value that pre-employment assessment can add in terms of increasing ROI in both the short and long term.

Beyond this, creating a good applicant experience is a critical part of building and maintaining an employment brand. For these reasons, companies should take a few simple steps to help make assessment a more positive applicant experience.

Below are some recommendations for best practices before, during, and after the use of pre-employment assessment tools.

Before

• 
  Share information. Inform applicants of the various steps in the application process, and what those steps are important. This is especially true of remote, on-line application experiences where the candidate may go through several key steps before actually speaking with a person. Remember that each and every bit of information exchanged electronically is part of a dialogue between the applicant and the organization. This dialogue definitely has an impact on both parties.


• 
  No surprises. When it comes to assessments, try to avoid abrupt transitions between other parts of the application process and the assessment experience. Have a transition page that explains clearly what the applicant is about to experience, why it’s important to both them and the organization, and how the results will be used. I usually advise against using scare tactics as part of this process. Security issues and faking are definitely a concern related to the use of online assessment tools, but motivation through fear is never a good way to go. Instead, I recommend explaining that answering falsely will not provide any advantage in the long run because the goal is to help the applicant find a job for which they are suited and that will make them happy. We all know how unhappy a poor fit can make us.


• 
  Appreciation. Once the assessment process has been completed, let the candidate know that their time has been appreciated and be realistic about what may or may not come next.


• 
  Recycling. Some hiring/assessment systems also provide the ability to identify the fact that a candidate that is not a good fit for one specific position may actually be a good fit for another. The ability to use assessment results to help make sure that a potential good hire for another position is not lost is a really neat concept. You may, for instance, have an applicant for a sales position whose assessment results show they are not a good fit for that particular job but that they are a good fit for another job for which you have an opening. To accommodate this, some hiring systems can be set up to inform the applicant of this and to encourage them to apply for another position. Even if the applicant chooses not to apply, they’re more likely to leave the experience feeling that the company really does care about helping them. This is always a good position to be in.

During

• 
  Match time demands. In general, the further along in the hiring process an applicant has proceeded, the more both parties involved have invested in one another. Thus, early on in the hiring process it’s a good idea to keep assessments short. I recommend no more than 25 minutes for an initial screen. Our experience collecting and analyzing assessment data has allowed for the creation of shorter, more powerful screening such that this threshold really isn’t that hard to accommodate. As persons move farther along in the hiring process, it becomes easier and more appropriate to ask them to complete longer assessments. In many cases, these can be tied to an on-site visit in which interviews also occur.


• 
  Screen for offensiveness and relevance. Take the time to review assessment content to be sure it’s relevant to the job and that it does not ask anything offensive. My general rule of thumb is to try not to use anything that leaves an applicant wondering, ?Why are they asking me this? It has nothing to do with my ability to do the job.? This bit of inquiry among candidates can be the genesis of legal action: just ask Rent-a-Center.


• 
  Pay attention to usability. As with any other interactive Web experience, taking an assessment does not have to be a frustrating experience. Pay attention to little things such as how much information is displayed on a page, how easy it is to navigate pages, and clarity of instructions provided. I am a huge proponent of using interactive experiences such as simulations and streaming-video-based scenarios because these are much less intimidating, and frankly, more fun for applicants. Of course, we can’t always use such things, but at least be open to the possibilities available for making the experience a more engaging one.

After

Many folks don’t realize it, but in other countries such as the United Kingdom, there are strict laws in place that require sharing feedback with applicants. I don’t expect this to occur here in the U.S. anytime soon, but I have some ideas about how we can work toward helping make assessment less of a black hole for the candidate.

Here are a few ideas:

• 
  Incorporate assessment into the matching process. Many third-party career portals provide applicants with the opportunity to build profiles that can be used to help match them with opportunities for which they are a good fit. These portals also offer the ability to access information to help applicants in the job search (i.e., salary info, career viability info, relocation info). Candidates can take self-assessments that can help them learn about the various aspects of themselves that may make them a good or bad fit for a specific job or organization. By patronizing these portals, organizations can share in the profile information that is part of a person’s application (as long as this information is not used as a decision-making tool).


• 
  Fun exercises. Embedding assessment into fun exercises that resemble simulations can provide applicants with instant feedback as they navigate a model or virtual environment. While no exercises like this currently exist, I believe they are the future of pre-employment assessment. Eventually, assessment will be embedded into a game-like simulation where the ramifications of an applicant’s personality and experience will become evident to them as they role-play.


• 
  Share during onboarding. Some of the most positive experiences I have had when applying for jobs have been those in which feedback on my pre-employment assessments was given to me as soon as I was made an offer. While this doesn’t fully fill the black hole, at least it provides some solid, quick follow up. This practice is also consistent with the idea that assessment should be used as part of the onboarding process. The data collected has meaning and can be used to create initial development plans for new employees. Take the time to share feedback during this formative time.

While many aspects of assessment are complex and require a great deal of thought, improving the candidate experience is low-hanging fruit. From a big-picture perspective, ensuring a good candidate experience is as simple as following the golden rule to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

via Supporting Assessment, Maximizing the Candidate Experience – ERE.net.

Supporting Assessment, Maximizing the Candidate Experience

Recruiters: The Love Hate Relationship with Assessments

When recruiting new hires, everyone involved in the process (employer, employee, staffing agency) wants to see the right candidate placed into the right role and be positioned for long term success right? So, why then do many recruiting companies shy away from using assessments: the very tool that typically provides a great deal of information on the predicted success?

A good staffing, executive search or recruiting firm will obviously be able to network and source potential candidates based upon desired levels of skill and experience, but a great firm should be able to understand the employer’s specific environment and be able to intuitively know whether the right candidate on paper, is also the right candidate from a cultural fit.

So, here’s the rub (IMHO) … in this age of commoditization and candidates being found (and searching) across so many social media networks and niche websites, isn’t the last remaining piece of “special sauce” the ability to understand and predict the right culture fit? If this is taken away then isn’t the staffing firm diminished to a collection of activities that can be readily and cheaply interchanged?

Well, yes and no. In talking with some of the best recruiting agencies in the country, it’s clear that they have adopted the process of assessing candidates as a part of their methodology, but they have integrated it in a manner that provides supporting information to help the process, not to drive it explicitly. In fact, they would show they use the assessment information for onboarding candidates probably far more than for selecting them in the first place. Even so, very few use the process for every candidate, and it’s probably not something that is completely transparent to the client.

Lisa Thompson, director, professional services for Pearson Partners International says, “In recruiting assignments where the candidate will play a key role, we recommend using assessments as a part of the process to determine how the candidate matches up with the organization’s critical needs as well as how they will fit into the culture. The information gained from the assessment process is combined with interviews and references to get a more comprehensive picture of the likelihood of the candidate being successful in the new role. We believe the information can also be used to help facilitate the on-boarding process and ongoing development of the employee.”

Other executive search firms, staffing firms and recruiting companies worry the information gained in an assessment might prove that their prized candidate is, in fact, a terrible fit for the culture or team in which they will be working.

How can they explain to their client that the perfect person on paper is actually a time-bomb that will explode in their environment (and would the client even believe it)?

Actually, no matter how bad it seems, the above scenario is one that should be avoided for the benefit of all concerned, but whether we like it or not, hiring people is a very personal process and emotions and bias can often play a big part in the final decision.

Perhaps the haters need to take a step back and look objectively at the long-term goals and success of their candidates and not play the short game, and perhaps the lovers need make sure that they add their own secret sauce to the assessment process to “pull through” the information and provide value beyond the hiring event itself.

via Recruiters: The Love Hate Relationship with Assessments.

Recruiters: The Love Hate Relationship with Assessments

How Valid Is This Test?

No business wants to spend time and money on a measurement method that does not work. This is why most businesses know to ask this basic question: “How valid is this method or test?” The challenge only begins here, though, because you then need to be able to understand and evaluate the answer. To help you, try following these seven tactics.

(Excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, from Talent Intelligence: What You Need to Know to Identify and Measure Talent by Nik Kinley and Shlomo Ben-Hur. Copyright © 2013.)

Ask for Evidence. We were recently looking at the validity of a popular U.S. interviewing system that described itself as being accurate and valid. On a Web page entitled “Validity,” the vendor described a wide variety of research showing that interviews can be valid predictors of success. Yet there was not a single mention of any research that the vendor had conducted into the validity of its own system. So rule No, 1 is that you need to get specific and ask vendors for the evidence that their particular method or tool is valid. And beware of statements such as, “The test is predictive,” but do not come with any specific validity figures or evidence.

Ask What Is Meant by Validity. Validity figures are not always what they appear to be. For starters, there is no one way for vendors to measure or report validity. When you are told that a measurement method has 80 percent validity, it could mean many different things. Classically, validity refers to whether the ratings and scores that people achieve on particular measures can predict their performance in a business. And by and large, this is what you should expect to hear. Yet we have seen some vendors define validity as being whether individuals agree with the results, so when a vendor tells you that a particular measure is valid, you need to ask, “In what way?”

In response to this question, you may sometimes hear phrases such as “content validity,” “criterion validity,” and “construct validity.” For many people, though, this kind of technical jargon can be confusing and can put them off from delving more deeply into the subject. But it need not do so. All you need to remember is that you are essentially trying to find out two things: “How do you know that the method or tool measures what it is supposed to?” and, “What business outcomes do results with this method predict, and to what degree?”

It is worth noting here that “performance” can mean different things. It can mean actual results (such as sales figures), managers’ appraisal ratings of individuals, and even self-ratings of performance. Beyond task performance, it can mean contribution to team performance or organizational citizenship behavior.

Furthermore, just because a measure can predict performance in skilled and semiskilled workers does not mean that it can also predict performance in managers. There are additional questions that you need to ask when told that a measure can predict performance: “What types of performance?” and, “In what types of people?” Moreover, with measures of potential, extra questions to ask are, “How far ahead can it predict performance?” and, “After how long?”

Beware of Very High Validity Figures. When looking at the degree to which methods or tools can predict outcomes, the single best predictor of performance, intelligence, can achieve maximum validities of only 0.5 to 0.6. If you hear anything more than that, start asking questions.

Check How Many People the Tool Has Been Validated With. One essential question to ask is, “How many people?” For instance, if you are told that a measure can predict, say, absenteeism in semiskilled workers, you need to ask how many people were tested. If the answer comes back with anything fewer than 100, then the results may not be reliable. For psychometric tests, ideally you should be looking for two thousand or more people to have been tested.

If the Method or Tool Uses Norm Groups, Check the Quality and Relevance of Them. Not all methods and tools use norm groups, but some rely on them. Norm groups are comparison groups, a kind of benchmark. They enable you to compare the score of a particular individual on a certain test or measurement method with the scores of other people who have also done the test. This is particularly useful with ability tests, such as measures of intelligence and physical fitness, as it can help you understand what scores mean. For example, an individual may get a score of 25 out of 30 on an intelligence test, which sounds good. But if you then find out that the average score is 27, that score of 25 does not look so good after all. We need to know how well others usually perform to understand precisely how good a score is.

As useful as norm groups may sound, the science of developing them and where they should and should not be used are much-debated issues. If you are going to use norm groups, then they should be good ones: if they are not, they may be misleading.

So what counts as a “good” norm group? You need to look for two qualities. The first is size — the number of people in the group. Simply put, the bigger, the better. With competency ratings from individual psychological assessments, the norm group may be very small  — under 100. For psychometrics, however, it will ideally be in the thousands.

The second quality you should look for is relevance. Having a norm group of two thousand white males from Scandinavia is impressive, but if you are trying to interpret the scores of Singaporean women, it is of no use. To be effective, then, a norm group needs to be representative of the people you are assessing. This can be in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, and education level. It can also be in terms of industry, function, and type of role. The more relevant, the better. For job applicants being tested with an intelligence test, for example, the best norm group is not the scores of people already employed, but other applicants for the same type of roles.

One quick way to evaluate the quality of a norm group you are already using is to look at how many of the people you are assessing score above the average for the norm group. If the norm group is perfect, then 50 percent of your people will score above the norm average and 50 percent will score below it. If almost everyone is scoring above or below the norm average, then you know that the norm group may not be relevant enough.

Moreover, for larger organizations it may be worthwhile trying to create your own norm groups specific to your business. The absolute minimum you need for competency and individual psychological assessment ratings is around 50 people. This is low, though, and you would need to be a little cautious about comparisons. For psychometrics, the minimum is around 150 people, although once again this is low. A number you could be completely confident in would be around 2,000, so our suggestions are absolute minimums. Some vendors will try to charge you for creating a specific norm group for your business. Others do not charge. Obviously, we recom-mend the latter.

Remember Reliability. For relatively objective methods such as psychometric tests and SJTs, you do not need to ask about reliability. A test cannot be valid without also being reliable, so asking about validity is enough. However, for more subjective methods such as assessment centers and individual psychological assessment, it is important to ask about inter-rater reliability. This is the degree to which two assessors agree (or disagree) in their ratings and judgments about people. The less reliability and agreement there is between assessors, the less likely results are to be accurate.

Look for Independent Reviews. This final step is an important one: always look for independent evidence of whether measures work. An easy place to start here is to ask the vendor if any such research exists. You can also do a Web search for the name of the tool. Moreover, with psychometric tests, probably the best thing you can do is to check one of the independent, nonprofit bodies that publish test reviews. The national psychology associations or societies of many countries provide this kind of service. By far our favorite is provided by the University of Nebraska’s Buros Institute. Its reviews can contain some deeply technical information, but they also contain some clear and no-nonsense recommendations on whether to use tests.

These, of course, are just questions about validity. However, businesses need to think more broadly about the issue of whether measures work. We have discussed, for example, the need to ask about incremental validity. Yet businesses also need to think about what measures need to do over and above merely predicting performance. This could include things like helping managers engage potential new employees, identifying areas new employees may need support with, and helping plan for individuals’ development. Validity, then, is not the be-all and end-all, and the most valid test is sometimes not the one that will work best for your business. Nevertheless, it is a good place to start: a test that is not valid will not be able to do much for your business.

via How Valid Is This Test? – ERE.net.

How Valid Is This Test?

Cultural Fit in the Workplace: How Personality Affects Hiring and Teamwork

People differ in their personalities, attitudes, and values, and an understanding of our individual personality is profoundly important in maximizing our happiness and productivity at work.

We spend a third of our lives at work, and people are moving around from job to job more frequently, seeking a company that allows them to maximize their potential, earn more money, or achieve a better work-life balance. For some, all of these factors will be equally important, while others will prioritize them differently.

Whatever our priorities, work feeds into many different aspects of our lives — it influences our self-identity, self-esteem, and opportunities for personal growth. If work was just about making money, it wouldn’t matter so much where we worked. But for most of us, it’s about far more than that. This is where cultural fit comes into play. But what exactly is cultural fit? Organizational psychology guru Adrian Furnham offers this definition in his seminal academic textbook, “The Psychology of Behaviour at Work”

“A fit is where there is congruence between the norms and values of the organization and those of the person.” (page 116)

Although, as Furnham goes on to discuss, fit is not only about the person and the organization — fit to coworkers and supervisor is also of importance (that’s whatwe’re working on). A simple example of how an individual’s personality might determine their preferences at work is shown in the diagram above (adapted from Furnham’s 2012 work).

The scale on the vertical axis shows the preference of each of the two personality types — introvert and extravert — for open plan versus separate cubicle offices. The introvert, who likes peace and quiet to get on with his or her work, strongly prefers the comforting seclusion of separate cubicles, and dislikes the noise and activity of the open-plan office. The higher the person’s introversion score (imagine it on a continuous line), the stronger their preference for the separate cubicles.

On the other hand, the extravert, who works best around other people, shows the opposite pattern — the more extraverted a person is, the more strongly they prefer the open-plan office. So what does this mean?

If the introvert ends up in an organization which only uses open-plan offices — or, even worse, expects all employees to attend riotous parties every weekend — this would be an example of poor fit, or strain. An extravert in the same environment would have a much higher level of positive cultural fit.

Of course, it isn’t nearly that simple. Nobody is just an introvert or just an extravert — every human being is a complex mix of interacting personality traits, all influencing each other. Measuring cultural fit is a complicated business – and there’s a large and mounting body of scientific evidence that cultural fit really is important.

Why Is Culture Fit Important?

Back in 1975, an organizational psychologist named John Morse conducted a study of the effect of congruence — fit between personality and organization — and employees’ self-ratings of competence. He split employees into two groups: one group was placed in a job using the usual procedure of the time, which did not involve any kind of psychometric testing. The second, experimental group was placed in a job which suited their particular personality were placed in more routine, stable positions.

The result? Those in “congruent” jobs which matched their personality reported feeling more competent. In other words, positive cultural fit can improve our self-esteem and make us feel more capable of carrying out our work to the best of our ability.

Good cultural fit is associated with many positive outcomes. A recent meta-analysis (a type of statistical procedure which achieves considerable power by combining the findings of a large number of studies on the same topic) by Kristof-Brown (from 2005) reported that employees who fit well with their organization, coworkers, and supervisor:

• had greater job satisfaction;


• identified more with their company;


• were more likely to remain with their organization;


• were more committed;


• showed superior job performance.

Studies of cultural fit across many countries have also found a relationship between cultural fit and mental and physical health — so if your job fits your personality, you’re less likely to exhibit signs of depression, anxiety, and the like, and you might live longer.

The average correlation between good cultural fit and these positives outcomes is about 0.43, which means that cultural fit accounts for nearly half the variance between employees in job satisfaction. Employees are not the only ones who benefit from good cultural fit. Organizations get a happier, more productive person who is more likely to stay with the company for longer and work hard to help achieve its goals. They also potentially save a huge amount of money — hiring new employees to replace those who leave in despair as a result of poor fit is an expensive business.

It’s not just the company that benefits. Friends and family of someone who has a good fit to their workplace get a happier, more fulfilled person who doesn’t annoy them by constantly whining about how much they hate their job. The really big beneficiary, however, is society itself. The more happy, fulfilled people there are in a society, the stronger that society becomes. If organizations take an individual differences approach, assessing, and taking into account the specific personalities and values of their employees, everyone benefits. Those benefits are more than worth the extra effort and initial outlay. Giving people more control over their lives, more personal freedom to be the best they can be, is crucial in building a happier, freer, more fulfilled, and more productive environment for everyone.

 

via Cultural Fit in the Workplace: How Personality Affects Hiring and Teamwork – ERE.net.

Cultural Fit in the Workplace: How Personality Affects Hiring and Teamwork