"Poor hiring shows up not merely
in poor decisions but also in poor morale. When the less competent employees
reach critical mass, their low performance standards become the de facto
standards of the organization. The longer established employees who are
well equipped for the job abandon their old high standards and conform
to the new, lower ones."
- Frank Schmidt, Ph.D. University
of Iowa
The cost of training one technician
averages $70,000 and averages $200,000 for an air traffic controller.
The last applicant seen is three
times more likely to be hired when testing is not used.
Rule of thumb: There are no "bad"
or "good" employees. But, there are people who end up in the wrong job,
which does a disservice to everyone. Consequently, the hiring process is
better viewed as a compatibility study than a thumbs up or thumbs down
process.
"We¹ve found your assessment
to be extremely reliable in determining critical competencies. Your expert
system is a tremendous tool for determining the strengths and weaknesses
of our applicants. We wouldn¹t make a hiring decision without it."
- Vice President of Human Resources
Financial services corporation
"When staffing key positions,
we feel it is absolutely essential for the best results for our company
and the highest probability of success for the new hire to use all
available information, including your expert system (ASSESS), which is
an in-depth psychological evaluation system. This is also a tool that¹s
been invaluable as a developmental instrument to help ensure the availability
of qualified personnel to meet our future staffing needs."
- Chief Executive Officer National
retail organization |
|
Hiring
By Design, Not By Chemistry
Every
new hire will ultimately contribute either to moving your business forward
or to holding it back. The acquisition of "intellectual capital" is fast
becoming the primary competitive advantage as we move toward the new millennium.
So, why handicap your organization's competition for human resources by
not exploiting the most advanced technology available for selecting the
strongest candidates and for avoiding costly selection errors?
The
Facts
•
50,000 organizations in the U.S. use testing to help them make decisions
about hiring, placement, and promotion.
•
Turnover, replacements, and retraining costs for a mid-level manager
average $320,000 (TRW Corporation study, 1991).
•
The cost spiral that results from poor hires: salary, benefits, recruitment,
training, medical claims, opportunity loss, impact on morale, customer
ill-will, legal exposure; and productivity, quality, and profits all
decrease.
•
The worst candidates are typically screened out, but it's the marginal
ones who slip through and who adversely impact your organization's
productivity and morale (and it's hard to terminate them).
•
EEO guidelines state: "... tests, when used in conjunction with other tools
of personnel assessment ... aid in the development and maintenance of
an efficient work force and ... aid in the utilization and conservation
of
human resources."
The
Benefits
•
It's objective, cost-effective, legal, and it works.
•
Candidates are uniformly impressed that the organization takes its
mission so seriously that it uses such a systematic and thorough
approach to the acquisition of human resources.
•
Testing significantly reduces turnover and the high costs associated
with it.
•
When the best-fit applicants are hired, they settle into the new position
more quickly and travel the learning curve faster.
•
The hiring evaluation report becomes a working document for the
individual and their manager. With the evaluation report in hand, the
manager has a much clearer understanding of how to motivate, develop,
and coach the new hire.
•
When correctly matched to a job, individuals perform for the satisfaction
of mastery and achievement.
The
Process
•
Job
analysis
The
job in question is evaluated with that job's immediate boss. We identify
the job's critical success factors and understand who succeeds and who
fails in this role.
•
Interview
The
candidate spends two to three hours in a structured interview with a consulting
psychologist.
•
Computerized
testing: Cognitive abilities
The
candidate is administered a battery of tests, tailored for the job in question.
Tests used assess numeracy, verbal skills, critical thinking abilities,
and mental alertness. Norms used by our expert systems are specific to
the job class.
•
Computerized
testing: Personality and vocational inventories
The
other portion of the tailored assessment battery generates insights into
goodness-of-fit issues such as thinking style, motivators, emotional maturity,
work style, interpersonal orientation, and influence style. Norms used
by our expert system are specific to the job class.
The
Information You'll Have About The Candidate
•
Career
outlook: evaluation of career history, personal mission, and
job motivators and de-motivators.
•
Cognitive
abilities: in-depth description of critical analytic skills,
reasoning abilities, verbal and numeric skills, and mental quickness.
•
Use
of cognitive abilities: receptivity to ideas, problem-solving
aptitude, and practicality/creativity of thought process.
•
Work
style: energy, pace, approach to planning and thinking, need for
recognition, need for organizational freedom, attention to detail,
orientation to action, work ethic and conscientiousness.
•
Emotional
style: optimism, restraint over feelings, objectivity about
feedback, handling stress, management of strong emotions, resilience
and composure.
•
Interpersonal
factors: sociability, assertiveness, first and lasting
impressions, perceptiveness, competitiveness, agreeableness,
acceptance of diversity, and service orientation.
•
Management
and leadership style: desire to persuade and
influence, approach to persuasion and influence, approach to managing
relationships and conflict, communication style, and adverse factors
that could impact relationships.
•
And
more: a graphic profile of 21 personality traits plus selected cognitive
ability measures; topics for special consideration and their implications;
management advice; specific follow-up interview probes to pose to the candidate
and another set of questions to ask of references; and the ability to reanalyze
the same data set and produce an in-depth developmental report.
Hire
by design. Improve the odds.
|
|
©
Copyright 1999 The Global Consulting Partnership
|
