Why use hiring assessments? When I ask prospects about why they don’t, they say that I can tell a good one from a poor one just by talking with them, you know, I use my gut. I will often try a bit more logic with them but I usually end up walking away because they are dead-set on using their gut while their turnover rate increases and their productivity rate continues its downward trend. By the way, the difference in productivity between an average hire and an excellent hire is about 30%!

An analogy I’ve borrowed from a good friend of mine in the assessment business is asking the client if they’ve ever purchased a used car and if they did, did they have a third party mechanic look over the car and provide an objective account of its condition. The mechanic will tell you whether the car is in good shape, poor shape or someplace in between. The mechanic could come back with something like this: “the brakes will need to be replaced in 5,000 miles and the transmission fluid is dirty. Otherwise, the car looks in fine shape.” With the information, the buyer can return to the seller and make an informed decision. The buyer could say, no deal; or how about replacing the brakes and the transmission fluid and then I’ll have my mechanic look it over again. Or, perhaps the buyer could try to get a reduce price since the brakes and transmission fluid needs replacing. Again, the buyer has objective data with which to make an informed buying decision.

That’s what valid and reliable hiring assessments can do for you when you are looking to hire someone. It provides the selecting official with an objective view of the candidates cognitive, behaviors and interests which have bearing on the position that is to be filled. The results are compared against a performance model which is created by assessing the best of the best in a job category who have 18-24 months in the job. Why this time frame? Because you want to compare against those who are excelling and not those who are taking their time to get the job right.

The reports helps the selecting official to focus their interview if they want to interview at all. If you want objective data that is reliable about the person you are interviewing, then you know where the interview needs to go if you are going to consider hiring the candidate.

In the last year, I have been working with a nation-wide client whose retention rate in a customer service position went from 30% to 95% retention in about six months. The use of assessments reduced the turnover rate by two-thirds? That’s a lot.

So what do you think?