Do Assessment Tools Help With Recruiting?

¶ … pre-employment assessment tools to select employees result in hiring better workers. If one looks at job applications, sometimes companies may ask the applicant to fill out a survey or perform a test. These preliminary actions help "weed out" potentially incompatible or unqualified applicants in order to allow for an increased focus on suitable applicants. Although logically it seems like a good way to increase the pool of qualified workers and limit exposure to unqualified or incompatible workers, consistency may be a problem.

In some of these articles, the gap information reveals that most companies may not follow through with the recommendations given by these pre-employment assessment tools. If that is the case, then such tools may be ineffectual because of the lack of commitment by the business or organization in following through with recommendations. Other articles highlight the effectiveness of such tools in order to remove potentially dangerous candidate through psychological evaluations (Christian, 2012).

Exams remain the benchmark for many white-collar jobs to ensure the applicant knows the information and procedures they claim to know. However, are these exams outdated? Do these exams cover enough the job responsibilities that applicants will have? Are the potentially deterring qualified candidates? This literature review will help answer these questions. Psychological Assessments The first article deals with the consistency issue of the use of psychological assessment during selection processes in law enforcement agencies.

Author Mark highlights that few of those who apply for law enforcement jobs pass the psychological evaluation, yet agencies still hire them. "Research has also found that very few applicants pass the psychological evaluations and that law enforcement agencies may be screening out candidates who would have been successful police officers" (Mark, 2014, p. 1). The purpose of a pre-employment assessment tool like a psychological evaluation is to remove potentially harmful or unstable applicants from the pool of qualified candidates.

If law enforcement agencies willfully ignore the results of such evaluation, it removes the purpose of even having one. The article continues by examining the current psychological evaluation used by USA's ten biggest law enforcement agencies. Mark gathered data for the study by sending a survey involving questions connected to the law enforcement "selection process," to chosen law enforcement agencies and analyzed the results.

"Results showed that there was variance in the psychological evaluation procedure, with three different tests being used among the ten agencies, 50% of the agencies using more than one test, and 29% of the agencies using a licensed psychologist to administer the evaluation" (Mark, 2014, p. 1). Such results have insinuations for candidates screened in one agency but consequentially screened out by another for the same position. This means people that could be qualified for a position in these law enforcement agencies may not get the job vs.

unqualified ones or even worse, mentally unstable ones, because some agencies will not consider the psychological evaluation and will instead select based on other qualities. The entire purpose of assessment tools remains to reduce the pool of applicants to only qualified and mentally stable applicants as a higher quality employee pool means better output and increased performance within the agency. Perhaps the reason why there are so many corrupt police officers being revealed in the news has to do with the inconsistent selection process prior to employment.

Another article discusses assessments in hiring nurses. The medical field desperately needs highly qualified nurses. Nurses not only possesses the capacity to administer treatments to patients, but they now prescribe and function as the secondary doctor in some respects. Therefore, the quality of hires depends on the selection process. The article by Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez & Biddle suggest the important of choosing nurse applicants not just based on technical skill but also other things like bedside manner that may contribute to higher quality care.

"Nurse applicants' technical knowledge is extremely important to avoid negative outcomes; however, there are soft skills that factor into their success, such as bedside manner, personality, communication, and decision making" (Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez & Biddle, 2013, p. 189). Pre-employment assessment tools thus became integral in choosing the right blend of qualified applicant and compatible applicant.

Compatibility to a profession is important because if a nurse applicant is not sociable and is not a good communicator, no matter how smart they are, they may provide low quality service to patients since nursing involves more than technical knowledge. The study analyzed prior participation in several kinds of assessments in order to determine if such assessments had a positive impact on predicting future job performance as seen below. To rank applicants on divergent skills, 3 assessment types were investigated, resulting in the creation of an assessment with 3 components.

The clinical, situational, and behavioral components that were created measure applicants' job knowledge, interpersonal competency in medical facility -- related situations, and aspects of personality and behavior, respectively. Results indicate that using the assessment can predict 45% of a nurse applicant's future job performance. Practical implications include hiring and maintaining a higher quality of nurses and decreased hiring costs (Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez & Biddle, 2013, p. 189). Author Jack Kitaeff discusses the process of employee selection in a brief overview in his book.

The process emphasizes the critical importance of choosing the best candidates. Additionally, how this is true for all organizations except in some law enforcement settings. He goes on to explain that in any valid selection system, applicants that do well on tests and other tools/instruments utilized in the selection and screening process are most likely to become the high performance after integration into an organization. The same logic applies to those that do poorly and then perform poorly.

"That is the essence of validity; something we find out about the individual in the pre-employment assessments accurately forecasts subsequent job performance" (Kitaeff, 2011, p. 193). However, this is true especially in law enforcement; the best are not always selected nor are many instruments used to elect the best candidates. Traditionally speaking, police officers only have to have a high school degree and graduate from police academy to become a police officer. However, other things like mental stability and ability to handle stress are not taken into consideration.

Things like this remain important because they are the markers of a good police officer as they are the front line protection of citizens and deliverers of justice. When assessment tools are underutilized in these scenarios, the quality of employees (police officers) diminish, leading to higher occurrences of accidental deaths and unlawful actions. One of the main identifiable gaps in information is the ever-present lack of consistency examinations and variety of assessment tools.

Companies tend to use only one or a few assessment tools to select high quality employees leading to poor employee performance. More research must be made on the kinds of assessment tools most organizations and businesses use. Furthermore, adherence to results of assessment tools and consistency of delivery must also be analyzed. Many organizations commissioning high-risk positions identify the need to employ clinical psychological monitors in their individual selection systems to assist in protecting employees, employers, and the public from injury due to unproductive behavior.

Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent & Lemond explain in their article the definition of CPEs and the overall process of a CPE. "Methods for the effective, ethical, and legal development and use of clinical psychological evaluations (CPEs) for employee selection, however, have received little attention within the industrial/organizational psychology literature" (Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent & Lemond, 2015, p. 209). The current chapter pursues to present a source for human resources practitioners as well as organizational/industrial psychologists for properly utilizing CPEs in their selection approach.

This may include information concerning the role and practical accountabilities of licensed mental health experts during this distinctive phase in the selection course. "Our goal is that this chapter will remove much of the uncertainty surrounding the use of CPEs in employee selection and help give practitioners the resources necessary to effectively implement CPEs when needed. (Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent & Lemond, 2015, p. 209). Clarity provides a means for better understanding something as complex as a selection process. So many people often do not understand what goes into selecting eligible candidates.

This article help provide such clarity to help someone understand what goes into choosing candidates and what mental health professionals may screen for. Weakened Companies The opinion of a mental health professional may not matter if the company or organization is weak in implementing their necessary protocols. What may cause such weakness could be internal controls. An article by Skaife, Collins, Kinney, Jr. & LaFond (2007), observes the effect of internal control insufficiencies and their remediation on accrual quality.

Through certification of companies recording internal control deficiencies, the authors found a connection between having lower quality accruals and internal control deficits. They measured this relation through accrual noise as well as absolute abnormal accruals relative to companies not recording internal control problems. They also found evidence that companies who report internal control deficiencies have purposely-greater positive and superior negative abnormal accruals relative to control firms. Therefore, from this article, it is anodyne to assume reporting internal control deficiencies helps lessen the possibility of weakness within a firm.

Many businesses have weaknesses within their companies due to lack of communication. This article sheds light on the positive aspects of reporting, communicating, etc. The authors also established a negative impact on not reporting. "This finding suggests internal control weaknesses are more likely to lead to unintentional errors that add noise to accruals than intentional misstatements that bias earnings upward" (Skaife, Collins, Kinney, Jr. & LaFond, 2007, p. 1).

Understanding and becoming aware of an inadequacy, reporting it, then remediating the problem leads to positive outcomes such as better overall performance and evaluation of potential new employees. Companies and organizations may face a weakened state in relation to the hiring and selection process due to competition. "Employers today require flexible hiring strategies that enable the organization to compete against their competition and remain cost-effective in their hiring selections" (Carrigan, 2007, p. 38).

Because so many businesses have to make a profit and organizations like law enforcement agencies must make a quota, quality is often sacrificed for immediacy. Employers want immediate hires without taking the time to go through the pre-employment assessment procedures that are often more time consuming and at times dramatically decreases the applicant pool. Because the quality of workers have gone down, new strategies are being implemented to ensure higher quality applicants.

"Hiring strategies that incorporate a variety of pre-employment testing strategies to ensure efficient and effective hiring procedures and practices are fully being executed in today's hiring environment" (Carrigan, 2007, p. 38). Businesses and organizations see that there is a need for change and stricter adherence to effective hiring strategies because of lower quality employee turnouts.

The question is, are businesses listening or are they still sacrificing quality in order to compete and profit? Organizations may be receiving an overhaul; however, most businesses seem to sacrifice the possibility of high quality for an immediate and cheaper labor force. Only businesses like Google Inc., take the extra steps to recruit quality employees. They and other tech companies want to hire the best of the best in order to produce the next successful product.

However, businesses like Apple and Microsoft offset their costs by outsourcing a large amount of their labor. This is why the iPhone and iPad often break easily or users experience technical problems because the way in which these products are made are done so for profit and not so much for the experience of the customer. Modern Changes in Practices The last few years is seeing and will see changes in the kind of work available, the labor force, as well as employment practices.

These vicissitudes, along with amplified employer need to choose employees fit best in which particular jobs for increasing return on investment, are pushing employers toward better use of pre-employment assessments. The purpose of the 2015 study by Hendrick & Raspilleer was to examine the effects of one pre-employment assessment tool. This tool is called the Work Keys skill assessment battery and concerns employment retention. "Participants in this study included 12 companies that had conducted at least 20 Work Keys pre-employment assessments based on one job profile using a minimum of three tests.

Findings suggest a higher retention rate for those companies utilizing Work Keys as a pre-employment assessment tool. (Hendrick & Raspilleer, 2015, p. 859). Not only have businesses using pre-assessment tools provided a better employee pool, it provided businesses with higher profits. Although recent times have shown the lack of desire to improve employee quality, studies show that some organizations and businesses recognize the already available tools can help improve employee pools and thus improve a business or organizations performance.

Improved performance means higher profits for businesses and the important customer loyalty and brand recognition. Studies like this help shed light on the positive impact pre-assessment tools can have on businesses. Although the process could be, time consuming and costly at first, it pays in the end with higher quality employees. Modern businesses are looking to improve their recruiting and screening strategies. If they do not, their competition may out qualify them. Recent news shares the corruption of prison guards, allowing prisoners to escape and send contraband items.

Parole officers, other personnel that deal directly with criminals; have been reassessed considering people within these positions can be highly influential to many people and may help or hinder criminal reform/rehabilitation progress. This study examined the predictive validity of the PsychEval Personality Questionnaire / Protective Service Report Plus (PEPQ / PSR Plus) in its ability to predict job performance in a combined cohort of preemployment and incumbent probation officer candidates.

Analyses revealed a statistically significant ability to predict performance problems, demonstIn rating that the PEPQ / PRS Plus is a valid and clinically useful psychological screening tool for the assessment and selection of probation officer candidates (Herrmann & Bedwell, 2014, p. 54). Although some assessment tools have proven to be ineffective, the PEPQ / PRS Plus proves through analysis to be a useful assessment tool for employee screening. Other organizations or law enforcement agencies can use this information in determining in effective screening tool.

Other areas where they can use this is in the medical field like for nurses and in politics. People have begun to realize the key role some of these employees play in society. Because of this, strategies have been redone to include only useful information and effective methods. This will not only promote higher quality employees, but will inform employers of the importance of quality control when recruiting. Gaps in Research In a quantitative study, the authors evaluated the efficacy of taking employment tests.

Researchers have long scrutinized employment tests for psychometric concerns such as validity and dependability, but the degree to which duplicitous actions may happen on pre-employment examinations has generally been disregarded. With the growth of on-demand, unproctored, online testing, the essential step in employee screening has never been better to concentrate on. The process and design considerations that may assist mitigating the potential for cheating on employment tests proves to be the main concern for authors Kantrowitz & Dainis in their study.

"Analyses focused on detecting instances of inconsistent test scores based on comparison of standard errors of measure for the unproctored and proctored test scores (Guo and Drasgow, Int J. Sel Assess 18:351 -- 364, 2010)" (Kantrowitz & Dainis, 2014, p. 605). The results showed a comparatively low number of unreliable scores. Discussion centered around the context of future research, theory building, and application on the nature of cheating and underhanded tactics on pre-employment tests.

Since some assessment, tools may provide little to know information on the potential of an employee, the results of this study show why this could be the case. Additionally, what specific tools may be more susceptible to cheating by applicants? This is an overlooked topic that warrants further research. Conclusion This literature review identified the benefits of pre-employment assessment tools. It did so through examining recent studies and articles that highlighted the positive outcomes of using assessment tools. However, the issue then comes from inconsistency.

Businesses and organizations are looking to profit and/or compete. They may overlook assessment in favor of quick and immediate hires. Certain articles revealed gaps in literature concerning measurements of inconsistency overall a few areas. One of which is cheating in unproctored exams. When an applicant cheats in a test serving as a pre-employment assessment tool, it nullifies the purpose of such a tool to help predict future employee outcomes. When done right however, pre-employment assessment.