Windridge - Identify. Develop. Retain.

Interviews and Assessments

Interviews and assessments should work hand in hand during the hiring process. They enable you to interact with and understand the candidate, and they provide information not only around skills but around strengths and concerns .

When conducting interviews and when analyzing assessment results, it is important to ask yourself three questions:

1) Am I measuring someone's interviewing skills rather than their ability to perform? Using performance based hiring assessments, in addition to the interview, will help you look past most personal biases. This assessment/interview combination will enable you to probe deeper and find out more about the candidate's strengths and areas of concern as they relate to the work to be done and to your organization.

2) Are interviews and assessments decision-making tools rather than a way to collect information? Interviewing and assessment should be about gathering information.... You will then be able to make educated hiring decisions that are in the best interest of the organization and the candidate. 

3) Am I hiring someone who is just like me rather than the best person for the job?

Make sure, as much as humanly possible, you take yourself out of the picture when assessing and interviewing candidates. They are not you and their responses and scores are uniquely their own. 

Strive to hire people who are the best fit for the position, and be aware, this might translate to their scores or interview being stronger than yours... This should not be viewed as a threat to your security, but as an asset to your career and organization. Become known for making smart and objective hiring decisions and you will become more valuable to your organization.

Hiring For Quality

"When it is essential that people learn rapidly and perform at superior levels, you need objective and repeatable ways to judge candidates. No scientist would rely on interviews, feelings, or opinions to judge a scientific experiment. Neither should we in judging a candidate." Keven Wheeler

A very good article and the only disagreement I have is in the suggestion of using multi-rater feedback assessments as a hiring tool... They are simply not developed for this use. Sometimes the questions have absolutely nothing to do with the job, contain gender and race bias, and filled with subjectivity: Beware!

Full Article

Supervisor and Above Assessment

I always recommend using the Winslow Behavioral Assessment (24 trait) for any Supervisor or above position being filled. This recommendation applies to both external candidate(s) or internal employee(s) who are moving up.

The level of feedback in this performance based behavioral assessment  provides key insights and the ability to better identify whether the candidate will be able to perform under the scope of responsibility required for success in these upper level positions.

I was pleased to see this important assessment concept discussed by Charles Handler and Mark C. Healy on the ERExchange today.

"There are some key differences between successful assessment for managerial and executive-level positions (versus the assessing that is done for hourly workers):

* Managerial jobs require a slate of skills that are not often required for success at simpler jobs. These include things like leadership, business acumen, managing performance, strategic decision-making, conflict resolution, etc.

* A mistake at this level of hiring can be much more costly than for an hourly hire, mostly because managers are responsible for potentially hundreds of people and millions in both costs and revenue acquisition.

* Managerial hiring has a tighter integration with ongoing developmental strategy and activities as organizations look to maximize their investment in an individual by understanding and developing potential from within.

* There is a broad range of job complexity once you hit supervisory levels. The selection process for a front-line leader can differ vastly from that used for executive roles. Executives often complete day-long assessment centers while first-level supervisors are more likely to be presented with a simple in-basket or situational judgment exercise, which is scored automatically.

* Feedback becomes a more integral part of the assessment process. Pre-employment assessment for hourly jobs almost never provides candidates with any feedback at all.

* When making promotional or hiring decisions about managers, assessment requires a "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" approach. Trained assessors (often both external and internal members of the organization) make ratings based on a variety of data."

Candidate Selecton and Assessment Usage

Here's a very brief summary of the results from the 5th Annual Rocket-Hire Online Screening and Assessment Usage Survey - Article and research by Charles Handler and Mark C. Healy

Effectiveness of Screening and Assessment Tools
This year, 65% of prescreen users and 77% of assessment users felt their tools added value to their organization. In contrast, a full 21% of prescreen users and 10% of assessment users felt these tools did not add value. Users of metrics to evaluate their assessment results tend to report success with prescreening and assessment use.

This year's results let us know what's really going on, and it confirmed what most of our previous surveys have found:

• Having an ATS installed is now nothing particularly innovative, especially if you work in a medium or large organization. For some, it's hard to even imagine the old stacks of resumes and bulging file folders of applicant information.
• Prescreening and assessment are continuing their gradual penetration into the mainstream of recruitment and hiring.
• Qualifications screening, personality inventories, and skill and technical certifications continue to be the most popular online assessment tools. Assessments of cognitive abilities as well as fit with the company culture have expanded their footprint as well.
• Respondents report a lack of understanding, weak budgets, or a general lack of support for online tools as their primary obstacles to adoption or greater use of modern prescreening and assessment technology.
• Those organizations that formally evaluate their hiring practices tend to support the use of prescreening and assessment, but a large number of organizations are still failing to evaluate the effectiveness of their screening and assessment tools.

There clearly is a growing interest in scientifically derived hiring tools. This trend is encouraging but not particularly surprising; these numbers will continue to grow as more organizations understand the value in properly evaluating the impact of screening and assessment tools, seeing for themselves how quality hiring tools can improve a workforce.

*** As in all things communication is of the utmost importance. Make sure you communicate with your assessment provider specific organizational needs and that you receive adequate feedback on assessment results. This will enable you to more effectively use the information you are gathering.

For more information on Rocket-Hire's online screening and assessment usage survey, read the entire report at  http://www.ere.net/articles/db/150E39E8923D40A2948D5C88522DB068.asp

Testing and Selecting Employees

In an article on HRLeaders.org (http://www.hrleaders.org/) my colleague Dr. Wendell Williams (AIM -Attitudes, Interests and Motivation and MAT-Multi-Tasking assessments) discusses best practices for assuring that the assessment tools you are using meet the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing "Guidelines."

"Know all about the test(s) you are using.

Several organizations assembled test development experts to develop the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. While the 'Guidelines' outline best hiring practices, the 'Standards' outline best test development practices. That is, any test used for placement or hiring should meet the following minimum criteria:

• Based on an established theory that predicts job performance
• Follow sound test development practices to ensure reliability and accuracy
• Be shown to actually predict job performance
• Be fully documented"
  (read more here http://www.hrleaders.org/ViewArticle.aspx?id=220)

There are great assessments on the market for general training & development needs, and then there are great assessments which focus on employee's "best fit" specific to the work being done. Understand this distinction and the assessments in your hiring practices will become very useful tools.

Be Aware...

A great observation was made by Nick Corcodilos - syndicated columnist, "Remember that most candidates a company sees are not the best people it can hire. They are simply applicants - people looking for a job."

Always gather as much information on your candidate's skill sets and behaviors, good and/or bad, as they relate to the position you are filling.

Best practice - identify "best "fit" candidates before the hire.