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Assessment Techniques Demystified
By Justin McAvoy
Formal assessment has an extensive history dating back to more than 100 years, however it is only in the last ten years that it has come to the forefront of the HR field. Many thought - and perhaps hoped - it would be a passing fancy, but assessment has come a long way and is today considered as a crucial component in talent acquisition.
In fact, assessment has developed into such a specialist area that it can, at first, appear to be quite a daunting process. With so many different assessment techniques available, knowing which ones are going to be most effective in meeting your requirements is difficult, especially if you are not well-versed in the rather complicated ‘assessment jargon’.
Why Use Assessment?
First and foremost, you need to know why assessment is key to the recruitment process in making the difference between a good hire and a costly one. If you consider the earlier methods of hiring (and ‘firing’), you will find them to be perhaps not the most objective ways of making recruitment decisions. Factors such as who that individual knew, how prestigious their educational institution was and even how attractive they were, all played a part in the recruitment process. But what about the individual’s abilities and working style? By simply reviewing a piece of paper with basic information on previous work experience (i.e. the curriculum vitae), you are never going to tap into and assess the true talent of that individual. In addition, it is not going to aid in predicting if that individual is a high performer: the value of assessing this should not be underestimated as typically, a high performer outperforms an average performer by a substantial 40%.
Clearly, using assessment techniques in the recruitment process is key, as it allows for the evaluation of an individual’s capability, technical abilities, competencies and the prediction of future performance. The available assessment techniques provide a standard, validated method of measuring an individual, and give a strong foundation on which to gather qualified information. As this information is both objective and consistent, you are able to benchmark candidates against each other, as well as against your initial requirements of the role for which you are recruiting. This ensures you make a well-informed decision in hiring the right candidate - saving you valuable time, resource and money in the long run.
Furthermore, by using various assessment techniques, candidates undergo a suitable, rigorous assessment process that is both relevant to the role and challenging. This enhances an organisation’s position as an employer of choice which sources top talent, adding credibility and strength to their employer brand. It also provides the candidate with a transparent means of assessment, giving them good visibility of how they are being benchmarked against fellow candidates with similar experience. To come out on top in an objective and fair assessment process gives the candidate an element of ‘real success’, and gives them added confidence that they will perform well in the role.
A crucial point to remember when using assessment techniques is that a holistic approach must be taken in order for the assessment to be as accurate as possible. Isolating, emphasising or relying on only one part of an assessment can lead to a costly misinterpretation of information, and is not considered best practice. Gathering as much information as possible is instrumental in better predicting high performers.
Assessment Techniques Diagnosis
Choosing the most relevant assessment techniques is critical to the success of the assessment, your recruitment process and therefore your hiring decisions. However, as previously mentioned, selecting the correct assessment techniques from the many different options can be quite a painful process.
To ensure you make the best and most informed decision, you must in the first instance fully analyse what it is you are looking to assess, advises Suzie Andrews, Specialist Assessment Consultant for Reflect. Ensuring that you are measuring key components that are relevant and important to the role and job level for which you are recruiting, is fundamental to the success of the process. This can be achieved through job profiling and analysis. “Start off by getting input from all those who have interaction at some level with this role to understand the behaviours required for success,” says Andrews. “This can include the direct line manager, suppliers and colleagues. Use this information to clearly define the key criteria, core competencies and behaviours for this role, making sure that these are relevant and validated, and keep in mind that they may vary from role to role.”
Armed with this information, you can now identify which of the assessment techniques will correctly measure the key criteria you have developed. “The most commonly used assessment techniques can be segmented into four broad areas: interviews; questionnaires; assessment centre exercises; and ability testing,” explains Andrews.
Interviews should ideally be competency based (using the core competencies established during the job profiling process) to get the most useful information possible. Based on the theory that past work behaviour is a good predictor of future job performance, the competency based interview should include asking the interviewee for detailed examples, picking up on areas that need further drilling, e.g. establishing how the individual managed a difficult situation, what issues they faced and how they tackled these issues.
Questionnaires can include psychometric personality questionnaires. Personality questionnaires consider how people like to work and their behavioural style, with a focus on how an individual approaches a job rather than the ability to perform that job. This is the most commonly misused technique as too much emphasis is placed on the results of the questionnaire. Andrews recommends a more effective way to maximise this technique is to combine it with the competency based interview, using it as an information tool to drill down into certain key areas of behaviour.
Assessment centre exercises have high face validity (the assessment tools look relevant to the role and organisation) as they are designed to ensure selected candidates undergo simulations and situational exercises relevant to the role and day-to-day work activities. A candidate’s performance here can be an effective indicator of their abilities. The types of exercises may range from group discussions (to judge a person’s leadership and communication skills) to role-plays on dealing with difficult colleagues or managers, as well as presentations.
Ability testing is a strong assessment technique for focusing on a specific core ability and is particularly useful when trying to establish if a candidate has a core technical ability required for the role, e.g. numeracy for financial roles.
Post Assessment: The Most Neglected Technique
Once you have decided on which assessment techniques will most effectively measure the criteria you defined in the preliminary job profiling process, and implemented the assessment process, you may want to give yourself a pat on the back for successfully assessing and hiring top talent.
However, there is still one more (usually neglected) technique that could significantly impact your recruitment process - post assessment evaluation. This involves an ongoing analysis of the process after the hire is made to measure subsequent performance. It is a crucial step in identifying any areas of the assessment process that need to be improved or perhaps re-tailored; to ensure what is being measured is constantly relevant to the role and aligned with the business. Factors that can impact and instigate the use of this technique include businesses change, internal restructures and role changes - the latter of which is the one factor that can almost be guaranteed to change at some point as a business develops and grows.
In conclusion, the key to any successful assessment lies in the first stage of analysing what your needs are and establishing the key criteria for success within a particular role. It is only on this basis that the relevant assessment techniques can be correctly selected and implemented. While the initial stages seem daunting, the result of acquiring top talent, and the resource and cost benefits associated with this - as with most things in life - far outweigh the initial input, and can significantly improve the way your organisation recruits and retains the best in the market.
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