THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS
Here's what no other blog will tell you, and indeed no other assessment vendor.
THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS
There are two basic designs of employee assessment in the industry: fixed form and adaptive. Today, too many organizations make crucial hiring decisions based on the dicey results of fixed assessments.?I can understand why many organizations have lost faith in employee assessments when making serious human resource decisions. The employee assessment industry has known for decades that they have been inheriting problems which I call, The Dirty Little Secret. At the risk of being shunned by industry insiders, I will reveal the secrets you won't hear from assessment publishers.?
Every major assessment tool on the market and chances are the one you use, is a fixed-more assessment. Fixed-form assessments are traditional assessments or tests that start on question 1, end at completion, and then are scored. The issue with fixed-form assessments is that all participants, regardless of company or position, are offered the same questions in the same order, and everyone takes the same assessment. Fixed-form assessments are prone to being highly fakeable, and they provide a poor candidate experience, extended assessment times, irrelevant questions, and worse cheatable. Not to mention, the answer keys are floating around the dark web at any given moment. The issue is due to the very nature of how most of the assessments in the industry are constructed.
The problems with the out-of-date design of fixed-form assessments are evident. Search the web for "employee assessment answer keys," You'll be amazed to find answer?keys for many of the most popular assessments on the market today. By the very design of fixed assessments, they invite cheating. There are entire websites devoted to beating many of the major assessment tools. www.beatthewonderlic.com is a prime example of such sites that candidates use to prepare for and beat fixed form assessments.?
These types of fixed assessments have many shortcomings; to assess a wide range of abilities, behaviors, interests, or job match, it is necessary to have items that cover the entire range of ability levels. This means fixed-form assessments are extended, and some participants will be faced with items that will overwhelm them, while others will be bored or not challenged by the content.
The days of fixed-form assessments are a thing of the past, and progressive companies are now moving to adaptive assessment for employee selection, training, succession planning, and development. Adaptive assessments have the power to deliver accurate results and create an enjoyable assessment experience for participants, which we will explore next.?
AN INTRO TO ADAPTIVE ASSESSMENTS
?Adaptive Assessment Technology (AAT) (historically known as computer adaptive testing (CAT)) do just that, adapt to the candidate or the person taking the assessment. Adaptive assessments are enabled with the latest technology that allows assessments to adapt to each candidate or test-taker in real time. Adaptive assessments are designed so that most job applicants can never tell they are taking an assessment that adapts to them.
The science of the 'adaptive' part of the assessment happens in the background and is not visible to the person who takes the assessment. A sophisticated algorithm is used to adjust to each applicant based on how they answer previous questions and blocks of questions resulting in an improved candidate experience and significantly increased accuracy.
The assessment constantly adjusts, so the person taking it is always pushed to their maximum potential.?What is the benefit of this? The person taking the assessment is neither too overwhelmed by questions that are far too difficult nor underwhelmed with far too easy questions. This ensures desired responses to questions, allowing employers and hiring managers to evaluate candidates for the open position accurately.
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?THE BENEFITS OF ADAPTIVE ASSESSMENTS
There are benefits of adaptive assessments for both candidates and employers. For candidates, the benefit of adaptive assessments is that they are designed to challenge them without breaking them. As I mentioned before, they call it a battery of assessments. Why? Because these old fixed-form assessments battled candidates to death.?
One of the most significant advantages of adaptive assessments is that developing answer keys is impossible. Adaptive assessments address this problem by presenting questions from the question pool based on the candidate's or assessment taker's previous responses. The goal is to present questions adapted to the candidate to obtain the most accurate and reliable results.
We discussed assessment batteries used to gather the most information on a candidate possible. The drawback is the seat time for the candidate. This is solved in an adaptive assessment environment as questions are added or eliminated, significantly reducing assessment time. In fact, in most cases, one adaptive assessment takes less than an hour to complete.
Adaptive assessments are designed to push candidates to their maximum potential without breaking them, resulting in a significantly improved candidate experience.?This, in turn, encourages the candidate to continue with the assessment and answer questions slightly above their current achievement level without overwhelming them, resulting in a higher assessment completion rate.
In short, adaptive assessments offer several impressive benefits to employers looking to find great candidates and maximize the value of the candidate assessment.
The following are the main benefits of adaptive assessments for employers: a higher degree of accuracy, positive candidate experience, and faster evaluation for the candidate.?
Copyright ? 2023 John P. Beck, Jr
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"Breaking the Code: Hiring Strategies, Occupational DNA, & the Modern Organization"
Copyright John P. Beck, Jr
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ISBN: 00860005724369
Contact: John P. Beck, Jr
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