Posts Tagged ‘pre-employment testing’

August 4, 2011

Eight Changes in the Apply Now Element of the Candidate Experience

The Internet has changed the nature of the Apply Now candidate experience. Paste your resume here is a thing of the past for companies leading the wave of change in how candidates get considered for a job. Leading edge companies are creating an interactive online candidate experience. In this new format the candidate can learn more about the company and the job while the company can learn more useful information about the people applying for the job. This article will help you understand how to obtain the most value from the Careers page of companies deploying best practices for online employment applications.

1. The Resume is becoming less important.
Job seekers put a great deal of time and energy into writing resumes, often seeking assistance to create a good looking and great sounding document. However, research shows that about one third of resumes contain misrepresentations. Tell your career story truthfully, recruiters check the facts. Recruiters use word search technology to indentify resumes with specific skills and experiences. Technology puts resumes in “yes” and “no” piles based on the word search criteria. Unfortunately, people use different words to describe the same experience. And, resumes do not contain objective information that can fairly differentiate between candidates. As such, companies that are most concerned with advancing the best candidates are developing online questionnaires to quickly gather objective, fair, and consistent information about you. The resume is best used during the interview, to guide the conversation in a manner that uncovers the value your past experiences will offer in the new position. Given a choice of completing an online application questionnaire or pasting your resume, go for the online questionnaire.

2. You are a decision maker in the recruiting process.
Sometimes people get a few weeks into the new position and say, “I didn’t know this was part of the job.” or “This is not what I expected.” When people have that reaction, they have a tendency to begin looking for a new job quickly. In essence, they may quit before they even begin. To help reduce this reaction, leading edge companies are creating what is known as realistic job previews (RJP). This is not a job description. A RJP is a detailed and balanced overview of the job, describing both the exciting as well as the demanding aspects of the work. When you have more information about the position, you are better equipped to decide if the job is right for you. Look for buttons on the Careers page that say things like: Job Overview, Learn more about this job, Day in the Life, or other indications that more detailed information is available. A RJP often includes videos, or pictures of people on the job and audio files describing what people find rewarding and challenging about the work. Take time to carefully learn more about the job and make an informed decision about applying for the position.

3. Company culture impacts career satisfaction.
Each company has its own unique “feel”, it places value on certain behaviors and has a distinct management style. You may thrive in one culture and be stifled in another. Companies that want you to “fit-in” with their culture are providing an overview of their values, management style and performance expectations on their web page. Look for the sections on the web that are labeled: About Us, Who We Are, Working at ABC Co., Company Values. Be sure to look for information about career development, advancement, and what might be said about how they make working for their company a rewarding experience. Take time to learn about the company’s culture so you can decide if it offers the type of work environment you value.

4. Assessments add objectivity and fairness.
Almost 50% of companies use some form of pre-employment assessment to learn more about candidates. In most cases, this is a good thing. Assessment falls into several categories: 1. Work style or personality, 2. Reasoning or thinking ability and 3. Skills or Capabilities. Each of the three main types of assessments will be covered in more detail below. Because resumes are very subjective, and can vary so widely from people applying for the same position, assessment allows a more fair and consistent method for candidates to present themselves. There are well-developed standards for the use of assessments in employment practices and, for the most part, companies follow these recommendations, called: The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Methods. These guidelines come from the EEOC and state any testing, assessments, and even the questions used during the interview must be related to the demands of the job, and must treat all candidates fairly and consistently. In addition, the company has to show that the assessment does not discriminate against applicants. If you encounter what seems to be an assessment, it will typically begin with a thorough explanation of what you are being asked to complete. Take assessments seriously, they are your best opportunity to create a clear picture of your qualifications for the job.

5. Work style or personality is a strong predictor of job performance.
How you go about your work, or your preferred approach for handling the day-to-day demands of the job is often called your work style. Questionnaires have been used for decades to help people describe their preferred work style. In the last 10 to 15 years much has been learned about measuring people’s preferred approach to work. A work style questionnaire will typically present one or more statements and ask you to select the one that best describes you, or asks whether you agree or disagree with how it describes your preferred approach. The worst thing you can do when completing a work style questionnaire is to fake your responses or try to guess what the correct response should be. In work style there is no right answer. What is most important is to accurately and candidly describe yourself. Most companies will have conducted research on which work style characteristics relate to effectiveness and satisfaction in the job. If you have those traits, you may be more successful in the job than those people who have a different style. If you try to second-guess the answers, you may end up taking a job you won’t like, because it requires and demands a different work style than you naturally bring to a situation. This can cause stress and job burnout. When faced with completing a work style questionnaire – be yourself.

6. Each job has reasoning demands.
Solving problems, interpreting information, composing communications are just a few examples of how thinking ability is required on the job. Internet technology has made it easier for companies to present candidates with a sample of common thinking challenges faced in day-to-day work situations. In essence, companies that use this method can get a small sample of how you will respond to the thinking demands of the job and at the same time, you get a sense of the nature of the work. It can be quite helpful for you and the employer to see how effectively you are prepared to handle the thinking demands of the job. Reasoning tests may be presented with a fixed time for completion, such as 10 minutes. This levels the playing field a bit, in that on the job we do not have unlimited time, so the company gets to see which applicants get the most correct work done in the allotted time. If you find yourself at the beginning of a test of your reasoning capabilities, read the instructions carefully, take time to study the sample questions and then work as quickly as you can. If you have time left at the end, go back and see if you can complete any questions you skipped. Your score will most often be based on the total number of correct answers. When completing an assessment of your reasoning or thinking skills, work quickly, and accurately. Most are not pass-fail so don’t stress out if you miss some.

7. Knowledge and skills can be transferable.
Computer and software skills, technical capabilities and occupational knowledge are valuable resources you can transfer with you from one job to another. As a best practice, more companies are asking candidates to complete a skills or knowledge test as part of the application process. If you can apply your education and training to the job better than another candidate, the company will need to spend less time and money training you. You can prepare for an online job knowledge or skills test by taking time to review technical manuals, certification training materials and the proper procedures for job-specific skills.

8. Test Drive the Job with Simulations.
The multi-media nature of the web now allows elements of the job to be recreated in engaging, interactive exercises. You may encounter videos or audio conversations that stop and ask what you would do next, or how you would respond. There may be data entry activities which evaluate your speed and accuracy on working with data, computer database activities which examine how well you can navigate and find answers, or even prioritization and delegation exercises. These types of simulations for pre-employment testing teach you something about the job demands and often portray elements of the company culture. Being asked to complete a simulation is an indication that the company takes hiring decisions very seriously. The effort to develop company-specific simulations ensures recruiters are able to identify and hire the most qualified candidates. People who perform well on the simulation are very likely to perform extremely well on the job. If you encounter a simulation, treat it like going to work for a day. Give it your best thinking and your most sincere effort.

Summary
The nature of applying for a job is evolving. Using Internet technology, companies and candidates can learn much more about the degree of job-fit that might exist. The more comprehensive the application process, the better the quality of the hiring decision for both employer and candidate. As more information is exchanged between the applicant and the company, both parties are better equipped to make a sound decision. This leads to greater job satisfaction, higher levels of productivity and a more competitive organization.

Online applications are a big win for everybody. When you encounter a comprehensive online application process, it is most often a sign that a company is working hard to: deliver and exceptional candidate experience, increase the objectivity of the recruiting process, ensure all candidates are treated fairly, and improve the likelihood you will be successful when they offer you the job.

Best of success in your career pursuit!

July 5, 2011

Pre-employment Testing Made Simple To Understand

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
~ Albert Einstein

Pre-employment testing is a measurement resource which can aid in the candidate evaluation process and support hiring decisions with objective data.

At a recent meeting to discuss our response to an RFP, the client stated; “We really appreciated how your proposal was straight forward and easy to understand. We can’t say that about all the responses we received, in fact, we had to read some of them three times to try and figure out what they were saying.”

If you are looking for someone to explain pre-employment testing or assessment in simple terms, call us.

We understand assessments.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | July 5th, 2011
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, Tags: assessment pre-employment testing | Posted in General

April 1, 2011

Candidate Experience – Negative Impact of Technical Issues, Part 4 of 6

This is part four of a series connected to the Candidate Experience Monograph

We asked job seekers about the impact of career page technical difficulties. Specifically we wanted to know about the propensity to leave the application process, how much effort and time might be invested in resolving an issue and if the occurrence of technical difficulties created a negative brand impression.

Likelihood to Exit

Candidates want an easy to use experience. And the data suggest there is limited tolerance for poorly functioning features. They want simple and effective resume uploads, and links that work and are easy to understand. 59% of candidates are very likely or somewhat likely to exit before completing an application process if the encounter a page or process with frustrating or challenging functionality.

Technical Issues Trigger Exit Behaviors

Let’s look at it from a learning and administrative burden perspective. There are some major applicant tracking system (ATS) that have broad market presence. However, the candidate must register, create a profile, answer screening questions and perhaps complete some form of pre-employment test for every company where they apply. The candidate bears the burden of completing repetitive tasks, providing redundant information time and time again. After doing that a few times, it is easy to see why the effort-to-value balance can tip toward quick exit behavior. And a candidate’s experience with a significant lack of acknowledgment may contribute to a degree of non-committal behaviors.

It is important that every recruiter apply for the jobs they are filling, and do it from their home computer or a public PC. Only by sitting in the candidate’s seat can one fully appreciate what the candidate has been asked to complete. It is from this point of view that you will be in a position to assess the ease of your process.

Time and Effort

Stop and think for a moment about your own web navigation behaviors. How quickly do you bounce from one page to another, give up on a slow load, glace at a page and click away? Candidates are no different on the career page. Twenty percent of candidates will exit in less than a minute from a frustrating or troublesome web encounter.

Most Candidate Attempt to Solve Technical Issues

In a way, this rapid judgment is a measure of commitment to apply, degree of interest in a career with your company, and impatience with yet high expectations for a flawless process. It begs the questions – Were they serious candidates? Is it better they self selected out?

One to three minutes of effort can seem like a life time on a web page. However, 45% of candidates are willing to invest that amount of time to resolve a barrier to completing their job application. Over 30% of candidates are willing to invest even more. So it would seem the vast majority of candidates are willing to put time and effort into finding the way forward in their career pursuit.

Self-help, FAQs, on-line support may be the best way to help candidates work through the issue as only about 15% of candidates prefer calling technical support for assistance. So it seems there is self-sufficiency in the ranks of candidates. They want to be able to figure it out themselves. Therefore, having resources on your career page to support do-it-yourself trouble-shooting is important.

Brand Impact

Candidate’s associate your technology with your brand. Over 50% of respondents stated that encountering technical problems may cause them to look elsewhere. More importantly is that they stated they are Very Likely or Somewhat Likely to reduce their perception of your organization. A poor functioning career page creates a brand negative reaction.

Technical Issue Create Brand-Negative Impressions

The brand-negative impact of a poor web experience became so evident in a comment left by a candidate for one of our clients. At the conclusion of each Virtual Job Tryout candidates are presented a number of multiple-choice and open-ended questions about their experience. This comment reaffirms that candidates who apply at your organization are most likely applying at your competitor and they make observations about the differences.

“You guys need to talk with COMPETITOR, their process is broken, this was pretty cool.”

Brand management and those focused on delivering the customer experience speak of the Net Promoter Score (NPS). This is the response to the question: “Will you refer others, based upon your experience? Over 90% of candidates completing a Virtual Job Tryout state they will refer others. That feedback is evidence the pre-employment testing experience left a brand-positive impression with the candidate.

Consider asking your candidates, ALL of your candidates, about their experience applying for a job with your company. In 2008 I conducted a small candidate experience survey at Taleo World. At that time, less than 15% of companies stated they asked candidates for feedback on their job application process. Based upon the number of brand impressions made through the careers page, it only makes sense to get some feedback. And it makes a lot of sense to make sure your career page delivers a brand positive candidate experience. When you deliver a meaningful candidate experience, they will tell you. Your candidate testimonials will provide insight on how well you are meeting some of their expectations.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Five, Part Six

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | April 1st, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience pre-employment testing Surveys Virtual Job Tryout | Posted in Candidate Experience, Surveys

March 28, 2011

Alchemy and Algorithms – Recruiting by Ego or Evidence

Alchemy attempts to take common materials and transform them into something rare and valuable. I don’t think anyone has succeeded in this endeavor to date.

Algorithms Can Be Derived from HR Analytics

Unlike alchemy, algorithms can turn raw goods into gold. The raw goods can be candidate evaluation data and the gold is on-the-job performance. However, many recruiters have not invested in the data collection and analysis required to create an algorithm. As such, they make decisions based upon anecdote and conjecture.

Stock traders want to predict future prices and values of individual companies and broader indices. Recruiters want to predict future behaviors and on-the-job results of candidates. Algorithms are used by the best-in-class of both of these disciplines. And the results they achieve are documented by superior outcomes.

The reason both of these professions use algorithms is to identify meaningful relationships among complex data sets.

Variables that drive company performance and market fluctuations are complex. And, there is likely no doubt in your mind that variables which drive people’s performance are complex, very complex. In fact you might assert people are unpredictable. If that was really the case the workplace would be chaos. And that is just not true. There are some predictable elements.

Algorithms are special equations, expressly for the purpose of teasing out insights and conclusions from complexity.

When used well, the outcome of algorithms increases the probability of making a correct decision more often than not. An algorithm based upon pre-employment testing brings a sophisticated level of HR Analytics that can dramatically improve your quality of hire.

Algorithms were used to determine the premium for your auto insurance, your credit score, the offer you received for a vacation package, and the books recommended for you in on-line shopping. In each case two or more large data sets were analyzed to determine the nature and significance of relationship that exist between and among the variables.

Big Bucks for Equations.

In a current algorithm competition $3 million is being offered for the equation that takes large data sets of health care and lifestyle information and calculates the likelihood of an individual being hospitalized sometime in the future. The underlying assumptions are two-fold. You could be charged a higher insurance premium based upon your probable path to the hospital, or you could be given a specific preventative intervention to reduce or eliminate the necessity of being admitted for medical care.

Why a competition? The analysis and mental energy required to derive the equation is significant. Asking one individual to undertake the work may take a long time. A competition can attract the intellectually curious and competitively driven statisticians. Having a solution sooner than later is valuable.

How much would your organization pay for an algorithm that predicted your customer’s behavior? Or possibly a more accurate question is how much has your organization already paid in an effort to better understand and predict your customer’s behavior. Go ask your chief marketing officer.

Ego or Evidence?

Best-in-class recruiting professionals use algorithms. (We can introduce you to some of them.) Each hiring decision is supported with evidence. But, just like the challenge in the competition, developing algorithms require thoughtful effort. When I describe the process of developing a recruiting algorithm, I get two reactions. One says,”That seems like a lot of work.” The other states. “That seems like it can add significant value to our process.”

Algorithms are derived from analyzing large data sets. Three data sets are required for transforming recruiting raw goods into job performance gold:

Candidate Evaluation data – pre-employment assessment
Behavior/Competency Evaluation data – supervisor ratings
Productivity Evaluation data – objective metrics of on-the-job performance

Recruiting professionals working at the leading edge of candidate evaluation capture 200 to 300 data points from candidate evaluation. The data encompasses work history, work style and work samples.

Similarly, job performance, as defined by 100 to 200 data points from ratings and metrics for each individual provides a robust description of the complexity inherent in any job and the company culture in which it occurs.

When a recruiting professional embarks on capturing this level of data on their staffing process and its outcome as job performance they have the raw goods for the algorithm that predicts the future and answers the essential question – which candidates are more likely to be successful on the job. Working with this type of information delviers a very powerful recruiter experience, adding both efficiency and effectiveness.

Differentiated Workforce

And, that ability to differentiate among candidates is competitive advantage. Michael Porter the strategy guru at Harvard states competitive advantage comes from business processes which are difficult to replicate. In their book The Differentiated Workforce, authors Beatty, Becker and Huselid assert competitive differentiation comes from efforts that align jobs with strategic capabilities. (see page 10).

Using an off-the-shelf assessment, and generalized validity is defined as a ‘Me Too” strategy, one that is easy to replicate. An algorithm which predicts candidate performance in your organization is impossible to replicate. Call us to explore what it might take to transform your candidate experience into competitive advantage and a strategic business driver.

It’s not alchemy, it’s algorithms. And they really do turn raw goods into gold. Employees who perform at gold star levels.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | March 28th, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience HR Analytics pre-employment assessment pre-employment testing Quality of Hire Recruiter Experience | Posted in Candidate Experience, HR Analytics, Recruiter Experience

February 24, 2011

Patty Van Leer on Helping Candidates Make an Informed Career Decision

Candidates are decision makers too. Patty Van Leer of NAS Recruitment Communications understands that. I had a chance to speak with Patty at Taleo World. I asked her what we can do to help candidates make a more informed career decision. She offers three clear suggestions on what can be done to the candidate experience. Click PLAY below and hear what she has to say. Then scroll down to read more.

A good deal of the media in the talent space focuses on how recruiters and hiring managers make their decisions. Very little is directed at the candidate. However, Patty’s suggestions are grounded in core elements of best practices for selection system design. Let’s look at each of her recommendations a bit closer.

Provide a better definition of the job opportunity

Realistic Job Preview (RJP) is a structured, balanced, and candid approach for describing the job. Well developed RJPs portray the challenges and rewards, demands and satisfiers, expectations and opportunities both in the job and the company. When done well, RJP can contribute to an exceptional candidate experience and help the candidate make a more informed decision.

A well designed RJP serves two purposes:

Reduce unwanted candidate flow
Increase commitment and retention with new hires

RJP can help candidates achieve a deeper and more thorough understanding of the job. This will trigger a select-out reaction from a small portion of the candidate pool. Research suggests this might be in the single digits: +/- 5 percent. These individuals made a well informed decision that this is not the job for them and withdraw from the staffing process. This in turn reduces early turnover or false starts and saves a great deal of recruiter time.

RJP establishes performance expectations and defines in advance a range of demands that will be faced on the job. After the new employee honeymoon is over and the full brunt of performance demands arise, well informed employees say “I knew this was coming, it is not the whole job and they told me it was going to occur.” They also know those less rewarding or challenging aspects of the job will pass. The result is an associate that is willing to work through the tough issues and remain committed.

The negative consequence of UN-balanced or UN-realistic job preview is also two fold. The first is new hires who realize they have accepted a job they are not interested in either quit or perform poorly. The second is the ‘bait n’ switch’ reaction. New hires feel the company was not forthright in describing the opportunity. This undermines trust and also contributes to poor engagement and lower levels of productivity.

The proliferation of streaming web video and personal video technology has made it easy to create images and stories from the workplace. When done poorly the R in RJP is left off and the video becomes Hype, not Help.

Help Candidates See How They Fit the Role

A long standing and common recruiting practice is the workplace tour. What better way to give someone a taste of the job than a look around? This allows candidates to see the work station, feel the energy of the environment, observe and maybe interact with prospective co-workers. A tour however is a far cry from experiencing the job. Tours are also very time-consuming and may be disruptive to work flow.

Another long standing recruiting practice is the temp-to-perm hiring model. Individuals are given an opportunity to go through training, learn the skills and processes for the job. They provide a work sample over weeks or months to demonstrate their capabilities. If a new hire does not “work out,” they get terminated and a replacement is moved in. This remove and replace is actually a form of staffing waste and rework. If the new hire seems to learn well and perform effectively, they may get moved from contingent to full employee status.

This process is one of the most accurate methods of getting the best read on person-job fit. It is also one of the most expensive and lengthy hiring methods. One of the unintended consequences is a new hire perception that the organization is not well equipped to make hiring decisions.

An effective alternative to temp-to-perm evaluation can be a job simulation for pre-employment testing. An individual completes a series of exercises that mirror or even recreate a range of on-the-job tasks, demands, and typical interactions. Some simulations are more generic examples of job performance while other might be highly accurate recreations of elements of the job.

Simulations allow you to collect a broad range of work samples, work history, and work style data in about an hour. The results from simulations used for pre-employment testing can be almost as accurate as temp-to-perm methods of determining job-fit. Simulations by their nature give candidates direct feedback about job-fit, in part due to candidate reactions to the nature of the exercises. Overly complex, uninteresting, or under-challenging reactions can help the candidate make a more informed decision.

Explore Culture Fit and Hiring Manager Fit

Hiring managers have a lot to do with how culture is perceived and experienced in an organization. However, culture is bigger than any one individual. Culture is palpable, yet elusive. Companies work hard to describe their culture. Some companies are good at articulating and living their culture with clear intention.

Culture is driven by the behaviors that are valued and rewarded. As such, culture can be conveyed and evaluated through culture fit or values clarification and compatibility exercises. The mere act of discerning importance among a range of culture attributes is a powerful self-reflection for a candidate.

Candidates and recruiters/hiring managers can use the results from a culture fit exercise to dialogue along the lines of culture expectations, career motivators and fit. Hiring managers who are culturally self-aware and willing to candidly disclose their alignment with corporate values can provide the candidate with insights regarding their expectations for culture fit. That conversation can help a candidate make a more informed decision.

Career Change Motivators

In addition to the three factors Van Leer mentions above, providing candidates an opportunity to assess their underlying reasons for desiring a career change can foster a very dynamic dialogue. The Virtual Job Tryout can contain such an exercise.

Through a forced ranking process, candidates are invited to consider and contrast an inventory of job specific career aspirations and motivators. The result is a top down list of most-to-least desired outcomes from a career change. Recruiters can then use this prioritized list to explore and position the opportunity in relation to the candidate’s expectations. This gives both parties greater insights to making a well informed career decision.

If you are interested in learning more about how all of these elements can be delivered in a seamless and highly engaging candidate experience, call to talk.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | February 24th, 2011
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, Tags: assessment Candidate Experience culture fit assessment pre-employment testing Simulations Virtual Job Tryout | Posted in Candidate Experience, Recruiter Experience, Videos

February 10, 2011

Do You Have A Talent-matician?

Kevin Wheeler wrote a great article on ERE asking about selection science and measurement. His is suggesting staffing professionals adopt better methods for candidate evaluation or assessment and make more effective use of HR analytics to link candidate evaluation data to business outcomes.

Here are a few questions around measurement discipline, the answers to which may be revealing.

Ask your CFO – “How much has been invested in the data capture and analysis system you use to report EBITA?”
Ask your EVP of Sales – “How much has been invested in the data capture and analysis system you use to report daily sales performance?”
Ask your EVP of Manufacturing ; “How much has been invested in the data capture and analysis system you use to calculate process yield?”
Then ask your EVP of HR (self) – “How much has been invested in the data capture and analysis system you use to create a differentiated work force?”

In every case, for Fortune 1000 companies, the answer to the first three will be hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars. Unfortunately the answer to #4 typically pales by comparison. Why?

I have never sat with an executive who stated their organization was just like their competition. In fact, great pride is expressed in how their people, their products, their services are different than others. The work that true talent-maticians (I just invented that) do is using HR analyitics in quantifying, to the degree possible, the human variables that contribute to those differences. That requires, rigor, discipline, experiment design, and time.

Michael Porter of Harvard suggests competitive advantage comes from business processes which are difficult to copy. Authors Becker, Beatty, Huselid, in The Differentiated Workforce present a similar framework for evaluating HR practices that put forth a ‘Me Too’ or a Differentiated outcome. An example of this is the use of off-the-shelf assessments without local validation. By default the user states, we are willing to use a measurement tool developed for and by someone else and calibrated by another organization to provide data on our talent decisions. Sounds like a Me Too tactic. One path to a differentiated workforce is at least conducting a validation analysis on how the measurement tool (pre-employment test) is adding value to your decision process. The underlying premise is that a good assessment provides a degree of better data and therefore, better decisions. With in-house validation, you document the relationship between assessment results and business outcomes.

Without an in-house validation, the test is not calibrated to performance in your organization and outcomes are anecdotal. The practice that gives assessment a poor reputation is poor implementation.

In an earlier work by the three authors above The Workforce Scorecard, they document those organization hiring a higher percentage of employees with validated evaluation methods achieve higher levels of financial performance. Aon and SHRM conducted a significant piece of research in the mid 1990s that included a glimpse at staffing process outcome (out of print but avaiable from the research dept). Survey participants stated the most lacking qualities in new hires were defined as work style, and basic reasoning. Those traits or attributes can be objectively evaluated with a variety of pre-employment tests. Companies stating they were most satisfied with staffing process outcomes were using the most comprehensive candidate evaluation methods.

Companies hire engineers to solve complex measurement problems.
Companies hire actuaries to solve complex measurement problems.
Companies hire statisticians to solve complex measurement problems.
Companies that know their competitive advantage comes from their people hire industrial organizational psychologist to solve complex measurement problems in staffing. These folks are the talent-maticians.

Even if you do not measure variables that provide insight to performance potential, performance variation exists. In fact you hired your best performer and your worst performer with the same evaluation process. In manufacturing terms that is known as performance variation and is marked by upper and lower limits. You see, staffing is a business process with a yield to measure and manage. To do that requires data capture and analysis.

However, enter another piece of data. It has been known for some time that a structured interview extracts better candidate evaluation data than an unstructured interview. In a survey on Use of Objective Candidate Evaluation Methods I conducted with SHRM (write for a copy), very fascinating evidence of interview practices emerged. Only 55% of respondents stated they use behavioral interviews with questions written in advance (an intentional discovery process). When asked if the interviews were supported with behaviorally anchored rating scales (a method to discern an effective response from an ineffective response), only 24% of respondents stated this practice was used. Staffing practitioners are largely ignoring known practices which at the simplest level produce better outcomes. Implementing assessments requires the same rigor the CFO expects from data capture and analysis in financial matters.

In some jobs, learning more about what factors contribute to retention can add signnficant value. However,most companies do not even measure and track the cost of early turnover. In a survey on Staffing Waste I conducted with SHRM (write for a summary), only 8% of 636 respondents stated they track and report the costs of what I call False Starts – new hire turnover that occurs in less than 120 days. The analogy would be a head of manufacturing that does not measure defects and scrap rates. Manufacturing is held accountable for managing the yield of that process. In my paper Staffing Waste: Identify it, Measure it, Reduce it, a range of examples for applying measuremen- based process improvement to staffing is offered. You can read it here

Yes Kevin, the future of staffing practices will include more measurement, more science, more accountability for understanding and managing process yield. There are exceptional methods to evaluate candidate-job fit. It can be measured, it can be analyzed and it can contribute to the bottom line. However, the practice leaders are already out there, doing the work right now.

For one example kook at the 2010 ERE Award winner KeyBank. They reduced staffing waste in one position by over $1.7 million in one year by bringing science and measurement rigor into their staffing process. They were able to add objective candidate evaluation in a manner that measured candidate-job fit. The retention and gains in a range of job performance metrics are impressive.

We have many more examples of how talent-maticians drive economic impact from staffing process improvement. To explore the scope of opportunity you might have, see our ROI calculators.Call me. We can discuss your opportunity.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | February 10th, 2011
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, Tags: assessment employee selection HR Analytics pre-employment assessment pre-employment testing selection science staffing waste | Posted in General, HR Analytics, I/O Psychology, Surveys

January 30, 2011

Do We Need Internal Recruiting? Ask the CFO.

Kevin Wheeler posted an article on ERE that got the recruiting community fired up. He asked, “Do we need Internal Recruting at all?” His premise seems to rest with effectiveness, accountability and differentiation that a recruiting function may or may not deliver.

With 32 comments as of this post, it ranks near the top of the charts for getting folks riled up.

Here are my two cents, with a few more details than what I posted on ERE.

The dialogue is all good. It may be like the question about cars, is it better to buy or lease? And the answer is: It depends.

Kevin’s main point may really be rooted in economics. When an internal team has the same mandate to measure, track and report economic impact that an external provider does, there is most likely performance parity.

Unfortunately, the issue lies with the fact that many CFOs and CEOs do not hold internal recruiting teams accountable to document contribution and deliver continuous staffing process improvement. And without a mandate for economic accountability, the accounting infrastructure to document contribution is often lacking. A vice president of sales or manufacturing would never be allowed to operate with the poor economic reporting and accounting infrastructure that is deployed for the business process of recruiting. As such, it is common for internal recruiting teams to use ATS based reporting, thus relying on activity based measures instead of economic measures.

Henry David Thoreau gives us words to ponder for this situation: “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

One gauge we use to explore the economic accountability of a recruiting team is how literate they are about job-specific performance metrics and how quickly they can access data sets of performance metrics. Ask a staffing professional, internal or external, if they measure and report on the cost of time to proficiency (total investment from sourcing to self-sufficient performance) for the position with the highest hiring volume. Ask who owns the budget for staffing waste. The answers to those questions reveal a great deal about the accountability expectations set by the CFO and CEO for recruiting.

Reporting on days to fill, requisitions open, requisitions per recruiter, and opinion-based quality of hire while good to know are a bit like busy ant metrics. Recruiters with economic accountability use HR analytics to document and report reductions in staffing waste and rework, increased yield in new hire productivity, reduced time to proficiency, increases in job family average performance metrics and the like.

From my experience, corporate resources flow to those who build a good business case and then document return on investment. Outside providers have to do this to earn repeat business. The best internal providers do so as well. Here is an example of how Key Bank documented high ROI from using pre-employment testing as a form of measurement rigor to reduce staffing waste.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | January 30th, 2011
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, Tags: HR Analytics pre-employment testing Quality of Hire recruiting ROI staffing process improvement | Posted in General, HR Analytics, Recruiter Experience

January 25, 2011

Get Your Game On! – Three Questions about Your Candidate Experience.

Game designer and TED presenter Jane McGonigal had an article in the January 22, 2011 WSJ “Be a Gamer, Save the World.” She states we (the royal We) spend three billion hours a week gaming. The average 18 year old spend 80 minutes a day gaming and extreme gamers spend up to 45 hours per week connected to a digitally delivered challenge. The quick lesson here is that engaging experiences hold our attention. The first question is: What kind of engagement does your candidate experience deliver?

Charles Handler, in his Candidate Bill of Rights suggests a candidate assessment should last no more than 30 minutes. Is that to free up time for gaming? Or is that because the assessments he is thinking about are a form of torture. Maybe he is seeking to limit the pain of a putting a candidate through poorly designed on-line assessments. He wants to limit (but not ban)– Applitorture. Or, the degree to which the applicant is subjected to mental or physical anguish from the act of applying for a job.

McGonigal goes on to suggest gaming can create a “blissfully productive” feeling. And that “When we play, we also have a sense of urgent optimism. We believe we are up to any challenge…gamers spend on average 80% of their time failing in game worlds, but instead of giving up, they stick with the difficult challenge…”

Again, a quick lesson here is that an engaging challenge, even if it is difficult and demanding, will hold attention, and maybe even attract attention. McGonigal supports this with asserting “..we like and trust someone better after we play a game with them – even if they beat us.“ The second short question is: What demanding challenge does your candidate experience deliver?

When done correctly the candidate evaluation experience can be demanding, challenging, and highly engaging. The candidate experience can be Applitainment. Or, the degree to which the applicant obtains amusement or pleasure from the act of applying for a job.

McGonigal has used games to solve world problems with EVOKE. And by her estimation believes if we spent about 21 billion hours per week gaming we can solve issues such as starvation, global warming and the like. The task of creating a game challenge for recruiting is far less demanding, but can be equally productive at solving a quality of hire problem.

By bringing a dose of gaming mindset it is possible to create an assessment that combines the intellectual stimulus of solving a variety of tough day-in-the-life problems, the social context of competition for the job, and a rich graphical experience that presents your corporate culture and work environment. And to quote McGonigal again,…”so many gamers feel they become the best version of themselves in games.”

Now, the third question, In what way does your candidate experience bring out the best of an applicant?

A universal question we get asked is “How long is a Virtual Job Tryout?” Followed by “We are worried about keeping it short.” Do you think game designers ever ask how to keep their user experience short? I think game designers ask, What challenges can we create?, What problems do we want them to solve?, What thinking do we want to push?, What environment do we want them to feel and sense?

We ask similar questions – What do you want to know about the way your candidate thinks, solves problems, and works with others? What do you want your candidates to know about your job, your unique company? A universal response is, “We want to know if they can be successful in the job and fit our culture.” Success is complex, so a simple candidate evaluation experience just will not do. To confidently assess job-fit and culture-fit requires robust candidate evaluation, the type of evaluation a simulation for pre-employment testing can deliver.

On average, Virtual Job Tryouts we have deployed take less than an hour to complete. One of the longer Virtual Job Tryouts we have deployed takes 75 minutes to complete. About 20,000 candidates a year complete it, vying for 2500 open positions as a medical technician. That translates into collecting more than 25,000 hours, or twelve and half (12.5) person-years of candidate engagement time to provide decision support for the hiring demands of one position. This company has rich evidence of which candidates can best solve their patient service challenges.

When asked about their candidate experience, here is what the applicants have to say:

98% Agree or Strongly Agree – The Virtual Job Tryout helped me gain a better understanding of the position.
95% Agree or Strongly Agree – Having experienced the Virtual Job Tryout, I am in a better position to determine if the job is right for me.
99% Agree or Strongly Agree – Based upon my experience, I will gladly tell my friends about employment opportunities at this company.

And after 75 minutes of applitainment, a survey asks for feedback and reactions to the engaging and demanding nature of the candidate experience. Here are some verbatim responses:

It was an awesome experience, it felt like I was actually working for COMPANY. Thank you for this experience I now have a better understanding of what is expected of me.
What a wonderful way to begin an interview process! I thought your virtual tryout was well thought out and based on the various areas you are testing, gives you a good picture of not only the ability to draw blood with appropriate equipment, but gives you a look into the candidates thinking process. All employers should do this to screen their candidates.
The Virtual Job Tryout was wonderful, I enjoyed the experience. It was very interactive and not nearly as dull as a paper test might have been. It kept my attention.
I was impressed with the Virtual Job Tryout. I felt like it helped me understand the job and made me very excited to have a possible opportunity to work for COMPANY!
Was a very good way to find out how qualified an applicant may be.

Simulations for pre-employment testing may not be on the same interactive plane as games, but they are a significant stride in the right direction. If you are not satisfied with your answers to the three questions about your candidate experience, there are options. Give us a call.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | January 25th, 2011
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, Tags: assessment Candidate Experience pre-employment testing Quality of Hire Simulations Virtual Job Tryout | Posted in Candidate Experience, Client Case Studies

January 10, 2011

Teresa Fearis on Improving the Candidate Experience

I had a chance to speak with Teresa Fearis, Director of Global Alliances at SHL, while attending Taleo World. We discussed what can be done to improve the candidate experience.

Candidates are asked to provide a great deal of information during the application process. At a minimum they provide work history. Firms that utilize objective candidate evaluations methods such as pre-employment tests, assessments or simulations obtain even more information about the candidate. This generates a pretty lop-sided exchange of information. Teresa offers a few suggestions for improving the candidate experience based upon higher levels of information sharing. Click PLAY to hear what she has to say. Then scroll down to read more on this topic.

Provide candidate the same information the recruiter gets to see.

A candidate provides a resume and the interview will cover the content and work history. The candidate completes an assessment and it is rarely discussed. Why is this? Several reasons may come into play on this point.

Psychometric Language – Assessment results may be presented in psychometric terms versus business terms. Without proper interpretation training, explaining the nature of what was evaluated may pose a challenge. Candidates may not find this information of value.
Single Score Results – Some assessment providers reduce the candidate results to one overall score. Recruiters may be ill-equipped to accurately describe what the score means and how it was derived beyond the hollow response, “Higher is better.” Or even worse, recruiters may use terms such as Pass and Fail, which in most cases is a poor or inaccurate way to describe the outcome. Think of it like this – “Your resume failed.” Recruiters just don’t use that language, it should not be used with assessments either.
Fear – There have been a few cases of candidates challenging the appropriateness of an assessment. Sometimes, the content of an assessment raises doubts in a candidate’s mind as to the relationship between the test and the job. This is referred to as poor face validity – it just does not look right to the candidate, which may mean it is not the right assessment for the job either. Well designed assessment reduce fear, and may create fans with positive things to say about the experience.
Descriptive versus predictive – Without in-house validation analysis, there is no documented evidence that assessment results actually have a statistical relationship to job performance. As such, there may marginal confidence in the value of score. It is difficult to have a meaningful conversation about an evaluation without underlying evidence of its value

To provide candidates with feedback on their results, the assessment report should define the candidates scores on the job-specific competencies evaluated. Very few assessment providers offer that service.

Contact me for an example of the Candidate Profile Report from the Virtual Job Tryout. After a brief review, you can decide if this is the type of information you would be comfortable sharing with your candidates.

Allow candidates to post their assessment results on their social media profiles.

In the last 20+ years of providing assessment services to companies I have never heard someone say, “We are just like our competition.” As a matter of fact, I hear just the opposite, “We are different than our competition.” So what does that have to do with assessments? Well if you use the same assessment as your competition, and evaluate the same traits and characteristics as the competition, you by default become more like them. When your measurement system is calibrated the same, the outcome is similar.

The their book, The Differentiated Workforce, authors Becker, Beatty and Huslid discuss the practices high performing organization use to distance themselves from the competition. Harvard’s Michael Porter states competitive advantage comes from the use of business process that are difficult to replicate. Using an off the shelf assessment with a scoring model based upon mass research and huge norm pools is a ‘Me Too” strategy.

Teresa suggests that a candidate may get value out of posting their assessment results on their social media profile. For companies who view assessment as a generic or universal evaluation this may hold true. However, assessment can also be viewed as company and job specific measurement rigor that creates competitive differentiation in a business process called staffing. When assessment is designed and validated for your job, the results will be of little value to anyone else, unless of course your strategy was to mirror the talent and management practices at another firm.

I think Teresa’s points on what can be done with assessment results have merit – share and make it more public. The path to that state of business practices will require more work. However movement in this direction will raise the level of accountability for the use of best practices for pre-employment testing, increase skills in user groups, and drive broader acceptance of objective candidate evaluation.

Click here see what others have said about Improving the Candidate Experience.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | January 10th, 2011
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, Tags: assessment Candidate Experience pre-employment testing staffing process improvement | Posted in Candidate Experience

January 7, 2011

SHRM HR Magazine Features Virtual Job Tryout – Effective Assessments

When doing research on thought leadership in assessments, writer Dave Zielinski was directed to us by several resources. He wrote a thoughtful article for SHRM’s HR Magazine from his findings.

Dave found out that market leaders, high performing organizations and highly brand conscious companies are using custom simulations for pre-employment testing and employee selection.

In the article, Dr. Nina Brody of Take Care Health Systems (a division of Walgreens) stated: “the assessment gives candidates a highly realistic job preview – causing some to self-select out early and others to solidify their commitment – and creates an impression that Take Care is operating at technology’s cutting edge..”

Also in the article, Beth Yates of KeyBank states, “the simulations create an interactive, highly immersive, multi-media experience; they mimic key job tasks and test for competencies such as providing client service, adpting to change, supporting team members, following procedures, cross selling, and working efficiently…”

Simulations deliver a highly engaging multi-method assessment inside a company branded candidate experience. Candidates walk away feeling like they learned a great deal about the job and the company. The company also learns a great deal about the candidate from the work sample they provide by completing the Virtual Job Tryout.

If you are a member of SHRM, check out the January issue of HR Magazine article Effective Assessments on page 61.

If you are not a SHRM member, drop me an e-mail at joe(dot)murphy at shakercg.com (you can figure that out) I can forward the article to you.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | January 7th, 2011
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, Tags: employee selection pre-employment assessment pre-employment testing Virtual Job Tryout | Posted in Candidate Experience, Client Case Studies

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