FAQ

Talent Assessment is a method of screening, interviewing, and testing the candidates you have attracted to your company for an open position.

The most common uses of Talent Assessment are to assess candidates for open positions, to assess employees to identify high-potential employees, and to help assess employees being considered for a promotion.

When using an outside firm like ours, the company handles the overall process, and we perform a specific part of it. Usually, in pre-hire, development, and promotional assessments, we are introduced by the company as a consulting partner. We then prepare participants for the assessment process, guide them through that process, prepare and distribute the appropriate feedback reports, and provide feedback to participants and company leaders involved in the project.

As management psychologists, we use assessment tools designed for whatever the specific purpose is, and confirm that they meet all ethical guidelines around psychological testing.

In general, we use online questionnaires and interviews, depending on the project. We can also create “assessment centers” for clients.

Psychologists (unlike non-psychologist consultants who have no formal licensure) are required by our ethical code to use valid and reliable instruments for any work we do.

Other than questionnaires that gather basic information about a participant, we use well-researched tools backed up by appropriate psychometric research.

We encourage all of our clients to use the assessment data and feedback reports we provide as just one part of their overall hiring and leadership development decisions.

Yes. All of our pre-employment, development, and promotion assessments include feedback both to the participants and to the supervisors, HR, and other key stakeholders as needed.

In fact, we provide feedback to job candidates for any assessments we give them. This is always with the employer’s knowledge and permission. Candidates for jobs where they receive assessment feedback have a much more favorable view of the prospective employer than they do of companies who use assessments but provide no feedback at all.

Assessment tools used in pre-employment screening and development assessment must be shown as valid for whatever they purport to measure. Any test publisher should be able to provide documentation that the instrument being used was developed, designed, and shown to be relevant for the advertised purpose.

Not all assessments can be used for all purposes. For example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a popular development assessment, but the publisher will not validate its use as a pre-hire assessment tool, because it was not created for that purpose.

Most companies can benefit right away by ensuring they have a well-organized approach to staffing their company, succession planning, hiring, development, and other basic HR processes.

One mistake we consistently see companies make is deciding to immediately fill an open position just because it is open. We recommend, instead, that they do a review of all the functions of that job to ensure that there’s not some other way of doing those functions. In fact, there may be employees who would take on those functions if they were simply asked, especially if those functions would help them grow and develop in some way or are things they would enjoy doing.

With regard to improving your hiring practices, it’s best to be highly organized and make sure that the process represents the company well. If your screening and interview process seems disorganized or contains questions that don’t seem to relate to the job, candidates can be easily turned off to your company.

Doing things that are intentionally frustrating to the candidate or cause them anxiety in some way are strongly discouraged.

Having an outside firm like ours do an “audit” of your employee hiring process can be extremely valuable. We are typically able to identify changes a company can easily make that radically improve the hiring process.

That depends on the company and what they view as the key drivers of their success.

For example, if a company strongly values having entrepreneurial employees who are comfortable taking the lead on projects, are innovative, and interact well with other people, those key issues can be included in any type of talent assessment.

If there is a gap in talent at the company, for whatever reason, that may also drive the issues the talent assessment will help address. For example, a company with high turnover found out from exit interviews that many employees were complaining that managers were overly harsh and demanding without providing any support, training, or development opportunities. If the leaders at that company want to create a healthier culture, we would likely scope out what qualities the ideal manager should have based on the feedback. That profile could be used to assess current and future managers.

It is perfectly legal to use tests and questionnaires as part of your hiring, development, and promotion processes. What is not legal is to use anything that results in discriminating against those protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act and any other law. For that reason, we encourage our clients to review their pre-employment screening process with their own business attorney.

We conduct a needs assessment and prepare a profile of the ideal candidate.

We then review each candidate’s application materials, conduct an interview and use questionnaires to learn more about him or her.

We give you a feedback summary and talk through it with you. The report covers the goodness-of-fit between the candidate and the position’s requirements as well as your company culture. Training recommendations are also provided.

We generally get involved after and employer has done their own recruitment, initial screenings of applicant resumes, and at least one phone screening and/or in-person interview.

We recommend they do those first because the employer is in the best position to decide which candidates are an initial match based both on their relevant employment experience and how well they establish rapport with the interviewers.

After the employer establishes there is a good match, we begin our part of the process. At the end of any of our assessments, the hiring company gets a written summary of our findings and follow-up by phone as needed.

There are many valid and reliable assessments of personality. In fact, for law-enforcement positions and other roles where the public safety is involved, personality tests are a required part of the process.

In most of our pre-employment/talent assessment, we are looking at business-related work styles that have implications for how that candidate may perform in a given role.

Some applicants will try to appear in a highly favorable light, offer answers they think the interviewer is looking for, and exaggerate good qualities or tried to minimize negative ones.

Experienced interviewers will be able to pick up on deceptive techniques.

All kinds of firms use my services, from an entrepreneurial firm of just 3 staff to a consumer products company that has over six thousand employees. I’ve done pre-hire assessment work for for-profit and non-profit companies, professional firms and departments of the US government. What they all have in common is that they want some outside expert help in making sure they’re matching excellent people with the job they have to fill.

I think my specialty is in developing a process that helps you learn whether or not the person has the qualities needed to do the job. So I specialize in developing that process, as opposed to a specific field, like food service. This helps me bring an unbiased perspective to your company – I don’t have preconceived ideas about what kind of person might be best for the job. I go into each project with the goal of creating the best assessment process possible so that you can get the best person and have the most information possible when hiring them.

Search firms often do a very good job at finding candidates who are interested in your opening. But search firm staff often rely on their own instincts to decide who would be the best match for the job. There’s no extra step there to confirm that their instincts are correct, except whether or not the person stays in the job for a certain period of time. What I do differently is a formal personality assessment of the candidate to make sure that they possess the personality factors needed to do the job you want them to do. I use well-researched and widely used job related personality tools that go one giant step beyond what search firms do. I want you to be confident that there’s more than just personal opinion supporting the recommendation of a candidate. For that reason, many companies hire me to help them sort through the resumes and candidates they are getting from search firms. And often I work right along with the search firm to help identify top candidates for your open position.

I’ve worked with some excellent HR department heads and staffs. To be really good in that field, you have to have your hand in many areas, including hiring, policies, benefits, promotion, procedures, and more. I have the experience, training and qualifications as a psychologist to use the highest level pre-hire assessment tools available. And because I specialize in this area, I can help you more effectively than your own staff usually can. In fact, most of my clients have an HR department, but for a number of reasons they prefer to use an outside consultant for pre-hire assessment work. Aside from looking for someone with specific professional training and experience in this area, as an outside consultant I am unaffected by any internal relationships or prior history that may bias an HR department’s decision making.

I can do as little or as much as you want. Here are some areas where I typically provide assistance: I can help you develop a profile of the ideal candidate. I can help you write effective help wanted ads or job postings. I can review resumes as they come in and sort them into categories we’ll use to decide who to screen. I can conduct telephone screenings to decide who to interview in person. I can formally test and interview finalists that you have already interviewed and decided to move along in the process, and I can write a brief summary of the fit between the candidate and the position. I can also help you plan an effective orientation to make sure the person has the best chance for success in the new job.

We think of interview questions the same way surgeon might think of their tools: The questions we use are based on years of training and experience. We have become “calibrated” to what each question tends to elicit, and what follow-up questions tend to work best based on initial answers.

Although we don’t share the questions we ask, we are happy to review your own interview questions and methods and provide helpful feedback when requested.

It is essential for two reasons: 1. It focuses a company on the strengths and development needs of all employees at all levels, and 2. It provides a sense of structure and stability for the future.

Our most successful clients review and update their succession plans at least once a year as part of their performance review process.

All assessment projects, regardless of the purpose, have a project cost. That cost is based on a number of factors and is unique to each project.

There are a few different activities involved in assessments, and those vary based on what the client has requested. Our interviews, for example, take anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, depending on the project requirements.

Most questionnaires we use take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes each to complete. The number of questionnaires a participant would complete depends on the type of assessment.