I Hate Assessments

I Hate Assessments

People think assessment are a psycho-logical window to the soul of their would-be employee….

DISC, Myers Briggs, Caliper, and probably hundreds if not thousands of others are fighting for market share, each selling their unique ability to “shed the light” on who that person really I, deep-down.

Illuminating their deepest inner-secrets that their faux-resume has hidden.

It was murder, wasn’t it?

Used correctly, these can be useful tools….or complete wastes of time and money.

Can a 20 minute questionnaire really spits out 12 pages of DEFINITIVE DOCUMENTATION of a person’s personality?

Of course not.

A psychological assessment is merely a TOOL used to find the tendencies of someone, that can be used in conjunction with all the other tools used in the hiring process.

One of many, including phone interviews, video interviews, reference checks, auditions.

I recently had a client give a sales assessment to an engineer after he had a “great interview” to the point they were going to make him an offer.

The engineer didn’t score well. They cut him loose immediately.

Let me say this again…an engineer didn’t score well on a sales assessment and they cut him loose.

THAT IS THE EQUIVALENT OF GIVING A MATH TEST TO DETERMINE SOMEONE’S GRAMMAR SKILLS.

This is wrong on so many levels. It’s the wrong assessment. It’s being used as a go/no-go gauge. The decision maker isn’t trained appropriately. The rest of the people involved are afraid to say anything to the hiring manager because they might get fired.

Ah, big company dynamics. Gotta love it.

I told them that they need to call the assessment company, ask them if their assessment should be used as a Go/No-go decision tool…and if they say yes, go ahead and cut them loose. But if they say no, make the candidate an offer.

The response was “You don’t even know what assessment it was”.

Yeah I know…because it doesn’t matter. NO assessment should be used as a go/no-go tool.

This kind of bull-spit has led me to hate assessments.

Not because they don’t work.

Because people aren’t trained on how to use them and they use them WRONG.

I happen to think assessments do a pretty good job of highlighting “personality tendencies”.

Stands to reason…you’re answering questions about yourself.

After all, nobody knows me better than me.

Mine says I’m not detail oriented. And I’m not. So right-on Caliper.

Let’s look at a sports example, the 40 yard dash…used in most sports to assess their speed and athletic acumen.

Based on the 40, Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray would be the best in the business.

Also based solely on the 40, both Peyton Manning and Brady would have waddled home without a contract. Yet they are the best (or among the best) ever.

Most people think that high scores are all that matter, when in reality, on many assessments, a score of 3-5 in some areas (like aversion to conflict) might be ideal.

Low scores are sometimes POSITIVES for a given position.

And most people know their weaknesses (because they ranked them on the assessment), and they create strategies to overcome their weaknesses.

Hiring is complex, and requires an analysis of a myriad of skills.

I’ll say it again. Assessments are simply one of many tools that should used to understand tendencies.

That information should be used to dive deeper into potential weaknesses to understand if it’s really a problem or not.

You dive deeper with more discussions…more behavioral-based questions, reference checking, and with a real-world audition, perhaps.

If you’re gonna use assessments, please, please, please, get trained on how to use them, and what to do with the results.

And, there are other, perhaps better ways to assess people….but that’s a topic for a future rant.

Happy Hunting.