Employment Testing Blog

3 Steps to Take Before Pre-Employment Testing

You've plowed through all of the candidates and now you're ready to test those fabulous finalists.  Before jumping into the testing process, here are three things to do to make sure your pre-employment testing process will provide the results you need.

1.  Remember the job description?  Take some time to review it. (You do have a job description, don't you?)   Make sure that you've identified the Key Success Factors that will determine whether or not this new hire will be successful in their new position.  Now rank these success factors so that you will know which is the most important for the job.

2.  Based on those Key Success Factors, select the appropriate pre-employment tests and administer them to yourself and others within the firm so you can be familiar with the topics covered.  You'd might be surprised at how often this step is not taken with a new employment testing system.

3.  Develop some type of scoring methodology.  What will you consider as a good score?  Ask us for scoring norms for the desired tests and we will provide them if available.  It's easy to revert back to the school grading mentality and think that a good score has to be above 80% or 90%.  That may not be the case.  Tests can have different scoring processes and the norms might not be what you think.  

And finally remember that tests are only one part of the selection decision.  Many other factors will help predict if this person is your next rock star or just a one hit wonder passing through.

Employment Tests Help Manage The Flood of Applicants

Like the seasonal monsoon, the flood of applicants arrive each time you post a job opening.  What, you only get dozens of resumes for each position you post?  Consider yourself lucky.  Others have told us of hundreds of resumes and the highest number we've heard is 836 applicants.  For a single position.  And you might have experienced many more than that.

Well, brace yourself and don't expect it to change any time soon. Today, Fed Chairman Ben Bernancke testified to Congress that it would take "a significant amount of time" for the job market to absorb the 8.5 million jobs lost in the past two years alone. 

What does this mean for you, the one tasked with navigating through such a flood?

It means that the easy times of 10 years ago aren't coming back any time soon.  Remember when you had to struggle to find one keeper out of 3 applicants?  Now, and for the foreseeable future, you will continue to have dozens of highly qualified applicants.  And you will need a methodology to determine which applicant is the best fit for the job.  And we think that methodology should include pre-employment tests (preferably ours, of course).

The bad news is that you'll need to keep your processes in place to deal with this continued flood.  And if you don't have processes in place, by all means develop them. But the good news is that you'll continue to have your choice of the best job applicants of the last twenty years.

Computer Skills Tests for the Doctors? Surely Not...

They said it woulda happened by now...They say it shoulda happened by now. 

So what is "it"?  

"It" is the widespread implementation of electronic medical record systems (EMR).

Despite all the highly discussed financial savings and reductions in medical errors, not all of our medical facilities (hospitals, physician's offices and more) have made any sort of transition to EMR systems.  Admittedly it's disappointing to be in a doctor's office and see wall upon wall chock full of patients' folders, and that doesn't even consider the waste of paper and space.  If my mechanic can keep my car's info stored electronically,  then why is it so darn hard to get medical records into an electronic format?  

Well, there's a lot of reasons (privacy, anyone?) but that's not our question to ponder.  Here at EmployTest, we have our finger on the pulse of the testing community.  And we're seeing more and more health care companies that want to a) measure clinical staff's computer skills, and b) measure the job applicants' skills, with our computer skills tests, before the implementation of an electronic medical record system. 

Where does EmployTest fit into the picture?  Our small, yet critical, job is to measure the computer skills of the healthcare workers to determine if they need training pre-EMR.  Our PC skills tests will show if they have the very basic skills (mousing, passwords, etc) up to the most advanced Microsoft Office skills tests.    And the computer skills tests are appropriate for all job families, from custodial to physicians.  

So cheers to the progressive organizations that are implementing comprehensive EMR systems.  We hope our computer skills tests can help with your goals!

Attention to Detail Tests

A skill that seems to be missing from employees and job applicants these days is that of "attention to detail".  It's a very popular search term for people who visit our web site.  

But what exactly are "attention to detail" skills?  What does it mean to the HR person who's analyzing or writing job descriptions?   And what does it mean to the job applicant?  We suspect that, like many other necessary job skills, it means a lot of different things to different people.  

But here's our take on it. Our Attention to Detail tests come in two flavors...

• Checking Test (as in checking for accuracy):  The applicant will look at two names/numbers/email address/phone numbers and determine if they are the same or different.  There is a time limit so the user must make decisions quickly and move along.

• Data Entry Accuracy:  This tests measure the applicant's ability to correctly enter information (names/addresses, etc) into contact fields.  Do they have the attention to detail skills to enter the information accurately?  This test will tell you. 

Might there be other definitions of attention to detail?  Surely there are.  But these are the ones our clients request the most and as a result the ones we offer.

Can individuals buy our Employment Tests? No way, no how....

Some of our comrades in the employment testing industry have decided to have their cake and eat it too.  They decided that it makes good business sense to allow individuals to purchase their tests, on their own, to prepare (or practice) before they go on a job interview. 

Well, allow us to politely disagree. We do not, will not, allow individuals that are seeking jobs to purchase tests from us.  And believe me, we get plenty of requests to do just that.  Past research has shown that many of our website visitors are in fact not hiring managers.  Instead they are job seekers looking to learn more about how our testing works in order to "ace" the pre-employment tests.  

And we certainly wish those folks well.  We too want them to succeed on the tests but we do not provide them with test samples nor do we offer to sell them "practice" tests.  And these tests are often not really practice tests--they can be the same exact pre-employment tests that are being used by hiring managers to measure job skills and knowledge.

For example, if you're selling them the practice Excel test in the morning, and then that afternoon they take an Excel test administered by the interviewer, it's highly likely that they will perform better because of these practice tests. 

We value the money our clients have invested in our testing system and don't want to minimize that by selling practice tests to individuals. Is it unethical?  Well, we wouldn't go that far but definitely questionable.  When you use our employment tests, you'll have the confidence that your applicant wasn't practicing on the same test 30 minutes ago.

Behavioral Trait Testing: Are your candidates being honest?

"The closest a person ever comes to perfection is when he fills out a job application form."

-Stanley Randall

A common question our clients and potential clients ask is this:

"How can I tell if my applicants are being honest with their responses?"

And that's a challenging question.   The core problem is that applicants have an incentive to misrepresent their personality traits, skills and knowledge levels in order to get the job.  That's why pre-employment testing companies like ours exist--to help the hiring manager determine what the actual truth is. 

With skills and knowledge testing, it's much easier to manage the honesty question because, if you can control the testing environment, you've covered most of your bases.  Test them in a proctored environment.  Provide a consistent level of coaching, if any at all.  If you've taken those steps, then the applicant won't be able to search for the solutions to the questions and honesty won't be an issue.

But what about behavioral trait testing (or personality testing)?  Admittedly it's slightly more challenging to control dishonesty with these types of tests.  Because the answers, right or wrong, are wholly located in the person's head, the location of the tests matters less.  Your applicant can test in your office or from a remote location (unlike with skills or knowledge testing) with similar results.

Fortunately, a Candidness score appears in every EmployTest report that includes behavioral test content. This Candidness score helps to tell hiring managers whether the candidate provided honest answers to behavioral test questions.

A High or Moderate Candidness score indicates that questions were answered honestly and that other scores in the test can be trusted. A Low Candidness score indicates that the hiring manager may want to use other screening tools (ie interviews or reference checks) to supplement their analysis of behavioral traits covered in the test.

By using these tools, you can develop a feeling of confidence that your applicants are being honest and, if they are not, then you have the tools to spot the dishonesty.

PowerPoint skills test not required, if you're a soldier

Elizabeth Bumiller's kind of funny, kind of disturbing, article from last week talks about how dependent the US military is on Microsoft's PowerPoint program.  Everyone from the top commanders in Washington down to the field level combat officers often spend hours a day creating PowerPoint slides.

From The New York Times...

Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and says that sitting through some PowerPoint briefings is “just agony,” nonetheless likes the program for the display of maps and statistics showing trends.

The so-called "Death by PowerPoint" hasn't actually been blamed for military mishaps, but if you are looking PowerPoint experts, you might be well served to search the ranks of our military.  And we may call on them ourselves when we're developing the next round of PowerPoint skills tests.

No Employment Skills Testing Needed for these Job Applicants

No need for pre-employment testing for these job applicants, as their antics are described in this recent Career Builder survey. We suspect they will not make it past the first round of interviews.  Our favorite is the escaped dog.  Animals and interviews usually do not mix, unless you want to work for the Dog Whisperer.  Enjoy...

Pre-employment Testing and Job Descriptions: Do they match?

As the jobs in your organization evolve, are you changing the pre-employment testing to match the new job descriptions?  You do have job descriptions, right?

Some of your positions might now require a slightly (or vastly) differently skill set.  For example, in the past, your accounting staff needed to know complex formulas and advanced accounting principles.  Now, is it enough to just give them a Microsoft Excel test and a basic math test, and then let the accounting system do the rest?

Or perhaps you have warehouse or industrial staff.  Five years ago, maybe it didn't matter if they knew the difference between a computer and a forklift.  But now, they must use your new order entry system and must have a minimum level of computer skills.   If it wasn't in the past, is it now acceptable to use a basic computer skills test?  Maybe so.   

Some positions may not require skills or aptitude testing at all.  But a Personality Profile might be in order in that situation.

The point is to match the pre-employment tests to the job description. And make sure you're matching the written description to the description as it's perceived by the employee as well as your boss.    Taking those steps can prevent headaches down the road.

Employment Credit Report: Fair game during the hiring process?

Last week's Wall Street Journal highlighted a practice that's becoming more common these days:  employment credit background checks for job applicants.  Most companies perform some type of criminal background search, but the use of employment credit checks has never been widespread.

As the article illustrates, these employment credit checks can uncover the financial problems that the unemployed are dealing with:   unpaid bills, late on mortgage payments, past due credit cards and more.  So these people are caught in an unemployment Catch-22:  They can't get a job because of their poor credit history, which was caused by them losing a job in the first place.

Is this fair to perform an employment credit check on these people?  Absolutely, because if you don't, then your company could be found liable for lack of due diligence if the your new star turns out to be a thief.   Such searches are necessary for employees that will have any type of financial management position where they have access to money or sensitive information.  

But what about employees who don't have access to such money or information?  More information is usually better when making a hiring decision.  It's better to know what your company will be getting.  And if you know about a poor credit history, you can give the applicant a chance to explain the circumstances that created that history.    Employment credit background searches are just like any other type of background search:  you don't want to do it, but you need to do it to protect yourself, your employees and your clients.