Pre-Employment Assessment Tools: Effectiveness and Consistency

Introduction

Pre-employment assessment tools used to select employees can result in hiring better workers. When reviewing job applications, companies may ask applicants to complete a survey or perform a test. These preliminary steps help "weed out" potentially incompatible or unqualified applicants, allowing recruiters to focus on the most suitable candidates. Although this approach logically seems like a good way to expand the pool of qualified workers and limit exposure to unqualified or incompatible ones, consistency may be a problem.

Some of the articles examined in this review reveal that most companies may not follow through with the recommendations provided by pre-employment assessment tools. If that is the case, such tools may be ineffectual due to the lack of organizational commitment to acting on their results. Other articles highlight the effectiveness of these tools in removing potentially dangerous candidates through psychological evaluations (Christian, 2012). Examinations remain the benchmark for many white-collar jobs to ensure applicants possess the knowledge and understanding of procedures they claim to have. However, are these exams outdated? Do they cover enough of the job responsibilities applicants will actually face? Are they potentially deterring qualified candidates? This literature review addresses these questions.

The first article addresses the consistency issue surrounding the use of psychological assessments 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 tool like a psychological evaluation is to remove potentially harmful or unstable applicants from the candidate pool. If law enforcement agencies willfully ignore the results of such evaluations, the purpose of conducting them is undermined entirely.

Psychological Assessments in Employee Selection

The article continues by examining the psychological evaluation procedures used by the ten largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. Mark gathered data by sending a survey about the law enforcement "selection process" to selected agencies and then analyzing 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 findings have serious implications for candidates who are screened in at one agency but screened out by another for the same position.

This means that qualified individuals may be denied positions in law enforcement agencies while unqualified—or even mentally unstable—candidates are hired, because some agencies disregard the psychological evaluation and base selections on other criteria. The entire purpose of assessment tools is to reduce the applicant pool to only qualified and mentally stable candidates, since a higher-quality employee pool produces better outcomes and improved performance within the agency. The frequency of reports involving corrupt police officers in the news may, in part, reflect the inconsistent selection processes used prior to employment.

Another article discusses pre-employment assessments in the context of hiring nurses. The medical field urgently needs highly qualified nursing staff. Nurses not only administer treatments to patients but increasingly prescribe medications and function in a secondary-physician capacity. Accordingly, the quality of new hires depends heavily on the selection process. The article by Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez, and Biddle emphasizes the importance of selecting nurse applicants based not only on technical skill but also on qualities such as bedside manner that 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 become integral in identifying applicants who are both technically qualified and professionally compatible. Compatibility matters because a nurse who is not sociable or communicative may deliver low-quality care to patients regardless of technical knowledge, since nursing involves far more than clinical expertise.

The study analyzed participation in several types of assessments to determine whether they could positively predict future job performance:

"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 provides a brief overview of the employee selection process in his book, stressing the critical importance of choosing the best candidates—and noting that this principle applies to all organizations, with certain exceptions in some law enforcement settings. He explains that in any valid selection system, applicants who perform well on tests and other instruments used in the screening process are most likely to become high performers after joining an organization, while the reverse is equally true for poor performers. "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).

In law enforcement specifically, however, the best candidates are not always selected, and many screening instruments are not consistently used to identify them. Traditionally, police officers have needed only a high school diploma and graduation from a police academy. Mental stability and the ability to handle stress—markers of an effective police officer and critical qualities for individuals tasked with protecting citizens and delivering justice—are frequently not formally evaluated. When assessment tools are underutilized in these scenarios, the overall quality of officers can diminish, contributing to higher rates of accidental harm and unlawful conduct.

One of the main identifiable gaps in the literature is the persistent lack of consistency in examinations and variety in assessment tools. Organizations tend to rely on only one or a few assessment instruments, which can lead to poor employee performance. More research is needed on the types of tools most organizations and businesses use, as well as on adherence to assessment results and consistency of delivery.

Many organizations that staff high-risk positions recognize the need to employ clinical psychological evaluations in their selection systems to protect employees, employers, and the public from harm caused by unfit personnel. Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent, and Lemond explain the definition of CPEs and the overall process involved. "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). Their chapter aims to serve as a resource for human resources practitioners and organizational/industrial psychologists seeking to properly implement CPEs in their selection processes.

This resource includes information about the role and practical responsibilities of licensed mental health professionals during this distinctive phase in the selection process. "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). Such clarity provides a foundation for better understanding a process as complex as candidate selection—explaining what mental health professionals screen for and why that screening matters.

Conclusion

This literature review identified the benefits of pre-employment assessment tools through an examination of recent studies and articles that highlighted positive outcomes associated with their use. The central challenge, however, is inconsistency. Businesses and organizations motivated by profit or competitive pressure may overlook assessment procedures in favor of quick, immediate hires.