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Why Use Employee Assessments in Your Hiring Process?

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We all know that turnover is expensive; however, so is the cost of having an under-performing employee who continues to work for your company. Consider also that terminating employees is more difficult due to the number of laws that exist. Is it any wonder that companies are becoming more diligent and taking additional steps in the hiring process to ensure they are hiring the right people? By “right people” I mean, candidates that have the same characteristics as your current top performers and ones that fit the job and the culture of your company.

X Factor Company Culture

Many different studies conclude that the companies that have proven to be great at identifying, hiring and retaining top talent are the most successful companies in their space. These companies usually have higher market capitalization values. One of the reasons is because having a top performing organization is hard to replicate, and leads to great cultures and the “X factor” that makes companies grow at accelerated rates and become more creative.

Many companies, when hiring, struggle with finding that right person for the job. While using tools like applicant tracking software and external job boards makes the process more efficient and helps with initial screening, help is needed when you get down to the short list of candidates you are considering.

As a result, more companies are using employee assessments to help with this process.

Identify Success Factors in Top Performing Employees

To start, consider how good of a job you have done in determining what the true success factors are for the job. A starting point should be to determine the traits/characteristics your top performers possess. This needs to be an objective process that you can utilize when interviewing potential candidates. To accomplish this, we recommend that our clients give their top performers a validated employee assessment to identify these success factors. From this you can develop a job success pattern against which potential candidates can be compared. This makes the process more objective, allowing you to be more prepared in your interview process and to focus on the areas of concern. It also helps to reduce the subjective nature of the questions and the answers that we typically see in an interview.

When you consider the fact that most of us are not that good at interviewing, we need all the help we can get. In fact, the interviewees are usually better prepared than the interviewer. Unfortunately, we tend to hire candidates that are more like us as interviewers, regardless of what the job requires. To make matters worse, we tend to reach that conclusion early in the interview.

The cost of these employee assessments and the additional time you spend in determining success factors really do pay big dividends. The payoff shows up in reduced turnover, shorter learning curves, less conflict in the workplace and better overall job and culture fit. You should work with your trusted advisors to help guide you through the process of selecting the right employee assessment tool and learning how to use it in your hiring process. Like they say, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

If you’d like to learn more about which employee assessment tools might be right for your company, contact ExactHire.

SMB Pre-Employment Screening Guide Ebook

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Pass or Fail? Employee Testing vs. Employee Assessments – Part 2

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Now for the review of the employer group I had referenced at the end of my last blog. This particular group is a small, non-profit organization that employs a number of high-powered people. They move at a fast pace and raise unbelievable amounts of cash. They have been very successful over the years.

So, why were they interested in using employee assessments?

The organization recently went through some changes within their board of directors and the decision was made to focus more corporate energy on talent management and overall job performance of their key staff members. The goal of this initiative is to help them identify and groom the next group of leaders as they head into the future.

To help with this, this organization engaged us at ExactHire to assess their current key performers to better understand what things they had in common, what differences existed, and what key traits and characteristics stood out as critical for good job fit and employee engagement within their group.

There was good communication with the employees as to the potential changes coming down the road, but many were understandably nervous about this assessment process. Going back to my last post, many of these folks saw this as a “test” that had to be passed.

As we gathered everyone together for group feedback after the assessment results were compiled, it was obvious that many people were still apprehensive. After walking them through what the assessment measured and what various results actually meant, however, it was wonderful to see a visible change in attitude for most of the people in the room. Realizing that there was no “pass” or “fail”, most were able to actually confirm that the results really did identify who they were and how they were likely to handle certain work-related situations.

In turn, the HR Director for the organization now plans to use the employee assessment tool results as a platform for internal conflict resolution, in addition to the original career-pathing use.

The moral of the story? Be sure to first know the difference between tests and assessments. From there, go out of your way to make that difference clear to your employees and applicants before asking them to take any assessment. Getting them comfortable and open to what you are doing will always aid your goal of obtaining the best job fit possible for your organization and its employees.

Pass or Fail? Employee Testing vs. Employee Assessments – Part 1

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A thought occurred to me last week after a meeting with one of our clients — why don’t more organizations use employee assessments?

Here at ExactHire, we use and promote the use of assessment tools for many employee issues. Among those uses are hiring, team building, succession planning and 360 degree feedback for performance reviews.

Then it hit me…most people (and therefore organizations) see these tools as “tests”, not assessments. Tests mean I either pass or fail, right? Flashbacks to high school and college cram sessions start to dance in your head. The knot in your stomach you had when opening your report card becomes a very vivid memory. Sound familiar?

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of true employment “tests” out there. For those positions where one needs to have proficiency in particular areas (technology skills, proficiency with tools & machinery, etc.), tests can be very appropriate.

However, for most positions in most organizations, “tests” are not applicable. But, assessments are. Why?

When hiring or promoting people, organizations want things to work. So do the people involved. Who wants to take a new job or be promoted to a new job where they don’t enjoy it? Everyone involved wants the same thing…job fit. Simply put, get the right people in the right positions to achieve maximum efficiency.

Where these processes fall down is that they involve people. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that assessments replace the human element involved in hiring/promoting people. I am suggesting, however, that very few of us are good enough at judging others to consistently make good decisions in these areas. This leads to hires & promotions that regularly either don’t work well (at best) or are outright failures (at worst).

As you can probably gather from my remarks to this point, we are big believers in using employee assessments to improve the odds of making better decisions when hiring or promoting people. In my next post, I’ll take you through a recent client experience where many of the employees who took part in an assessment pilot initially felt they were being “tested” vs. assessed. What we saw with them may interest you as well. Read Part 2!