CareerJournal posted this article – Six Things You Should Know About Pre-Employment Tests – earlier this week. The article is an excellent story for executive-level candidates to read closely.
First, an interesting stat:
Pre-employment testing is on the rise. In the past five years, 60% of companies have increased their use of workplace-behavior assessments, according to a survey of more than 500 human-resources professionals at U.S. companies…
Second, a good point:
“If you answer honestly and don’t get the job, it means the position wasn’t a good match for you in the first place,” he says.
Third, something we can confirm in our activities:
Senior executives are not exempt. In fact, the higher you aspire to climb the corporate ladder, the more likely you are to be evaluated on how well you might fit in personality-wise, says Joel H. Wilensky, an executive recruiter in Sudbury, Mass. His clients require most candidates to undergo assessments, he says. “It’s almost an absolute for jobs that pay salaries of $300,000 and up,” he adds. According to Mr. Testa, Mindbridge administers personality assessments to all prospective hires to see if they’ll fit into the company’s culture. But he says the company most closely scrutinizes the results of assessments from senior-level candidates. “We have the most to lose if they are a bad hire,” he says.
But the article ends on a horrific point:
Weak results may not matter. Ms. Sawyer says in 2002, a candidate for an executive position at a client of hers was hired even though results from a behavioral assessment suggested he was a poor fit. “He did well in the interviews and they thought he had the innate competencies to do the job,” she says. “They said, ‘We’re going to dismiss it and go on our gut.’ “
Please – PLEASE – do not dismiss weak results because your gut says something different. I guarantee this company fell in love with the candidate during in-person interviews, assessed him and then dismissed the assessment results. Notice how there is no discussion of whether the candidate succeeded in the position.
The subtle but dangerous mutiny on a hiring process occurs when subjective, gut-level decisions start trumping objective assessment results.