To use assessment tools, you need a certain degree of understanding about what an assessment tool is and how it ought to be developed. If you use the wrong assessment tool, you’re likely to get into trouble just as if you use the wrong size hammer or use a hammer when you should be using a screwdriver.
Assessment tools are not rocket science; they’re more like Psych 101. Here are two of the most important things to find out about assessment tools before you purchase them:
- Is the test reliable? What I always point out to people is an unreliable test means every time you take a measurement you’re going to get a different answer. That’s why high reliability is an absolute requirement for any assessment tool to be able to do its job.
- Is the test valid? By validity I mean, can it do what the test’s developers and sales people say it can do? If the test you’re using doesn’t help you improve your selection process and/or if it doesn’t enable you to produce better, more reliable employees who hang around your company longer, then even if it’s reliable, it’s not valid.
Questions to Ask
If you are considering purchasing an assessment tool for your company, there are two additional things you need to find out first.
- Ask your sales representative what evidence they have that their test has worked with other companies like yours. If the test is really worth buying, then that sales rep (or whoever comes to talk with you about the product) ought to have a multitude of answers about how this test works and how it has been successful in the past.
- Ask your sales rep if they can demonstrate that their test will help you run your company more effectively and improve your selection process so you can get higher-quality employees.
Other Things to Find Out About Assessment Tools
I suggest that the first thing an employer do is develop a benchmark to compare strong employees versus average employees versus weak employees on this assessment. From this process, you’ll be able to learn if there are distinct patterns in the results of the assessment tool that differentiate these three groups of employees.
I also tell them they need to figure out on what basis the test was developed. Is there some underlying theory? Is there some notion about it? And what’s your comparison base?
For instance, in the assessment tool I’ve been a part of developing and standardizing over the years, we now have a database of 100,000 responses to our tests and we can compare an applicant’s results to this enormous database. We can compare it to people in a customer’s industry; we can tell them whether or not this applicant is like other people who have been successful on jobs like this or like those who have not been successful in jobs like this.
By and large, if you can get clear-cut answers to your assessment tools’ reliability, validity, norms and standardization, then you know your money is going to be well spent.
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