Is assessing candidates ever worthwhile?

There is a world of providers that supply an array of Psychometric tests designed to assess candidates in with a view to minimising the risk factor during the selection process. But do such tests provide real results in terms of getting the best candidates or are they just more emperor’s new clothes?

There is a world of providers that inhabit the outer reaches of HR land that supply an array of Psychometric tests.  Such tests are designed to assess candidates in a myriad of ways, with a view to removing the risk factor (or at least minimising that risk) during the selection process. But do such tests provide real results in terms of getting the best candidates or are they just more emperor’s new clothes?

“Psychometric tests are designed to measure candidates’ suitability for a role based on the required personality characteristics and aptitude (or cognitive abilities). They identify the extent to which candidates’ personality and cognitive abilities match those required to perform the role.”

In other words, they are tests that are designed to see whether someone is a cultural fit as well as possessing the right aptitude – verbal, numerical etc.  All of that sounds plausible and for years has carried weight.  Prior to creating Jobtrain as a business, I was an HR practitioner and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) qualified. I am also trained to the British Psychological standard (level 2, for those who care about these things) and I’ve used the market leading tests on many occasions in previous roles.  But I now have to confess, that I have done so with some unease.  Do they really identify the ‘best’ candidate?  And can the norm groups that they measure against really reflect your own organisation when they are so broad in their definition?

A few years back there was a study conducted by two academics (Robertson & Smith) from The University of Manchester who looked at the correlation between the criteria used to assess candidates and their predictive qualities.  In simple terms, does each individual factor including for example age, experience and handwriting (yes some people do believe in the science of graphology), have any capability in the prediction of future work based performance?

Their findings show that what we can learn is that even at the top end, where all the cognitive and behavioural toolkits are combined i.e. assessment centres, there is still only a 65% correlation.  This means that there is a 1 in 3 chance of the person you appoint being a bad fit, for whatever reason, in spite of psychometric testing.

So, are we introducing a scientific approach where another strategy is needed?  At its most simple, asking questions of candidates that are designed to determine whether they have the basic requirements to do the job seems of most value. For example:  I worked with a retailer who each autumn has a significant requirement to hire delivery drivers in the build up to Christmas.  Their advert resulted in over 5,100 applicants.  However, the client also asked candidates two very simple questions:

  1. Are you entitled to work in the UK?
  2. Do you have a valid driving licence?

By asking such strikingly obvious questions, an astonishing 1,800+ candidates failed to meet the most basic criteria for a delivery driver.

A second option is to look at more behavioural based questions. Such questions seek to identify how candidates may act in a given work based situation.  This type of question can be very illuminating and, although they may look simplistic at times, they do seem to add value in identifying the right people. I thought it would be helpful to share just one of these questions with you:

Question: what would you do if a customer spotted a mistake with a delivery?  Would you:

  1. Apologise and explain how it will be resolved? OR
  2. Carry on with your deliveries and inform your branch at the end of your shift?

In this instance, the questions are weighted so that some responses score 10 out of 10 while others may score a 5 or a zero. After just 5 or 6 questions the company can then identify people who appear to have the right mindset, drive, or even ethics, to work in the organisation.

This is Pareto’s Law at play – as a recruiter, you really want to spend 80% of your time with the 20% of candidates who most closely match your needs and it’s essential to identify those people quickly.  Why is this important? Because research, conducted by jobsite.co.uk in 2017, told us that 70% of active candidates typically apply for five jobs a week and do so over a three-week period. If your organisation is taking 2-3 weeks to identify and respond to candidates, you run the risk of missing out on the top 30% of candidates who applied to work with you, simply because other companies moved quicker to secure their services.

Whilst psychometric testing and situational questions have great value in helping assess candidates at one level, does it really help you find the person who would fit into your culture and reflect the values around which your business operates?

So if we don’t just rely on psychometric testing is there an alternative?  I think there is, I would strongly argue the case for a fresh look at Values Based Recruitment, or Strengths Based as it is sometimes referred to.  Such an approach focuses far more on values and attitudes rather than competencies.

In one instance a care organisation achieved £700,000 savings in its recruitment budget over just 15 months, whilst improving the standard of care to the children it looks after. Phenomenal.  How did they do this? They simply focused on showing people with honesty what a role caring for children actually involves.  It is not all about the nice things – it can be very tough. They then set about trying to assess people by attitude, by values, during the recruitment process.  That covered everything from the application form, the interviews, the interactions with team members (that one was critical). In short, the process had to reflect their own values at each and every stage.

So what can we learn from this?  We believe that people work best when they are passionate about the job that they are doing and they all share common goals.  So perhaps that passion, those shared beliefs and the desire to be a part of your team is really what you need to assess in order to improve your recruitment.  As Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple remarked:

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to love what you do” Taken from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer & Pixar Animation Studios, commencement address to Stanford College on June 12, 2005.

Organisations all want candidates and potential staff to come to their place of work feeling that they love what they do and if they don’t love what they do they at least like what they do because they like their work environment. Finding the best candidates isn’t the only answer when it comes to getting the best workforce; cultural fit is also really key. Psychometric testing is only part of that process for finding the best candidate, we must think holistically when using assessment to make it totally worthwhile or we could miss out on the best fit for the job and the company.

 

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