When discussing the topic of selection assessment with human resources professionals, it can be rather easy to overwhelm a non-technical audience by carrying on about job analysis, criterion validation, correlations, legal defensibility, etc. A former colleague of mine who worked as a sales representative used to say I was getting “I/O-ish” (as in Industrial/Organizational psychology) when I started using such terminology. Keep in mind that I’m the first person to advocate the merits of assessment validation for ensuring effective talent management solutions. However, my colleague made an important point that sometimes, in an effort to provide the details behind the psychometrics of implementing an assessment for candidate selection, we may inadvertently add complexity to the conversation. 

In order to provide a simple structure to explain the process for implementing a selection assessment, I devised what I’ve coined the “which hunt.” That is not a typo. I’m not referring to a witch hunt as in the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s, nor does what I’m proposing resemble the McCarthyism of the 1950s. My concept of a which hunt is a series of discovery questions that an organization must answer to create a solid foundation for a high-quality assessment strategy that will support the identification of high potential candidates during the pre-employment screening process. An effective which hunt will help a company to identify:
• WHICH characteristics should we measure?
• WHICH assessment(s) should we use?
• WHICH cut-score will increase our hit rate for identifying good candidates?

WHICH characteristics should we measure?
You cannot hope to measure the potential for a candidate to be successful until you define which characteristics lead to success in a specific job. The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is an online resource sponsored by the Department of Labor that reports profiles for over 800 occupations.  O*NET provides 277 data points for each occupation covering abilities, skills, knowledge, work styles, and other characteristics. Clearly, if O*NET is any indication, the process of defining a job profile of required characteristics can be a daunting proposition to an organization looking to implement an assessment program to measure such characteristics.
 
Rather than immediately getting into the details of job analysis or competency modeling, I find that a simple description of “can-do aptitudes” and “will-do attitudes” helps communicate the likely outcomes of this first step in the which hunt process. Can-do aptitudes refer to the mental horsepower of candidates such as cognitive abilities, demonstrated capability for job-specific skills, and mastery of specific areas of job knowledge. Put simply, having these aptitudes indicates that you can do the job, but we all know that not everyone lives up to their potential.

The will-do attitudes are often those characteristics that allow employees to meet their potential and can even lead an employee with less raw ability to actually succeed beyond those seemingly more talented colleagues. These work styles include conscientiousness, interpersonal savvy, stress tolerance, and achievement orientation, among others. Very smart, very talented employees often fall short of their full potential or fail because they do not work hard, do not play well with others (customers and/or teammates), and do not effectively manage pressures at work. 

Taken all together the required can-do and will-do characteristics form the success profile for that specific job.

WHICH assessment should I use?
The next step is to identify an assessment that measures these characteristics in candidates. As we do with most ventures in life, we might begin the search for an assessment provider by using our good friend Google. When you type “candidate selection assessment” into Google, the result includes over 1.5 million hits! Which one should you choose?

My message to human resource professionals is that the best assessment is one that measures the critical components of the success profile you identified in the first step of the which hunt. Your assessment strategy doesn’t have to measure the entire success profile (that’s why we conduct interviews, administer basic qualification questions, collect resumes, etc.), but there should be significant overlap. This may require the implementation of multiple assessments. For example at Hogan, we offer the Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory to measure can-do characteristics, the Hogan Personality Inventory and Hogan Development Survey to measure will-do characteristics, and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory to assess “will-fit” characteristics in terms of how a candidate might fit into the organization’s culture.

WHICH cut-score will increase our hit rate for identifying good candidates?
Now for the last leg of the which hunt – interpreting the assessment results. While this task seems easy enough – low scores fail and high scores pass –   the truth is that this can actually be quite challenging for multiple reasons. What do you do with scores in the middle? Is a 40 a good enough score or should I look for 50s and higher? If I have multiple scores for multiple characteristics, how do I know what scores are more important indicators of success? What if the candidate has high scores on some characteristics and low scores on others? It is a delicate process to draw the line in the sand and make appropriate sense of all the good information that assessments provide. 

This part of the which hunt gets a bit complicated despite my best efforts. The bottom line is that we must clearly understand the relationship between assessment scores and job performance. I find it helpful during this part of the conversation to use an analogy for the way a financial institution uses a credit score. If a bank is going to give someone a loan to purchase a house, they don’t just want to get a high level summary of age, income, salary, credit card debt, etc., and shoot from the hip on how to combine all of those data points into an estimation of investment risk for that person. Such an approach would be inconsistent, inaccurate, and not scalable. To make sound lending decisions over time, the bank leverages a proven, weighted equation to combine these data points into an easily interpretable credit score that is backed by research to increase the hit-rate for making profitable lending decisions (the recent housing market collapse aside). Standards have been set to categorize bad credit scores, good credit scores, and great credit scores. This is essentially how a validation study is used when implementing an assessment for candidate selection. We conduct research to give you overall low, moderate, or high evaluations of candidate potential that if used consistently will increase hit rates for selecting successful employees.

The which hunt guidelines break up the concepts of assessment implementation into concepts that are hopefully simple to grasp:  
• Before we can measure anything we must define a benchmark (i.e., success profile).
• We must use that benchmark to guide us to pick the right tool for the job (i.e., assessment).
• We have to know how to read the measurements the tool is giving us and do regular checkups to make sure the measurements are accurate (i.e., cut-scores).

When discussing the topic of selection assessment with human resources professionals, it can be rather easy to overwhelm a non-technical audience by carrying on about job analysis, criterion validation, correlations, legal defensibility, etc. A former colleague of mine who worked as a sales representative used to say I was getting “I/O-ish” (as in Industrial/Organizational psychology) when I started using such terminology. Keep in mind that I’m the first person to advocate the merits of assessment validation for ensuring effective talent management solutions. However, my colleague made an important point that sometimes, in an effort to provide the details behind the psychometrics of implementing an assessment for candidate selection, we may inadvertently add complexity to the conversation. 

In order to provide a simple structure to explain the process for implementing a selection assessment, I devised what I’ve coined the “which hunt.” That is not a typo. I’m not referring to a witch hunt as in the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s, nor does what I’m proposing resemble the McCarthyism of the 1950s. My concept of a which hunt is a series of discovery questions that an organization must answer to create a solid foundation for a high-quality assessment strategy that will support the identification of high potential candidates during the pre-employment screening process. An effective which hunt will help a company to identify:
• WHICH characteristics should we measure?
• WHICH assessment(s) should we use?
• WHICH cut-score will increase our hit rate for identifying good candidates?

WHICH characteristics should we measure?
You cannot hope to measure the potential for a candidate to be successful until you define which characteristics lead to success in a specific job. The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is an online resource sponsored by the Department of Labor that reports profiles for over 800 occupations.  O*NET provides 277 data points for each occupation covering abilities, skills, knowledge, work styles, and other characteristics. Clearly, if O*NET is any indication, the process of defining a job profile of required characteristics can be a daunting proposition to an organization looking to implement an assessment program to measure such characteristics.
 
Rather than immediately getting into the details of job analysis or competency modeling, I find that a simple description of “can-do aptitudes” and “will-do attitudes” helps communicate the likely outcomes of this first step in the which hunt process. Can-do aptitudes refer to the mental horsepower of candidates such as cognitive abilities, demonstrated capability for job-specific skills, and mastery of specific areas of job knowledge. Put simply, having these aptitudes indicates that you can do the job, but we all know that not everyone lives up to their potential.

The will-do attitudes are often those characteristics that allow employees to meet their potential and can even lead an employee with less raw ability to actually succeed beyond those seemingly more talented colleagues. These work styles include conscientiousness, interpersonal savvy, stress tolerance, and achievement orientation, among others. Very smart, very talented employees often fall short of their full potential or fail because they do not work hard, do not play well with others (customers and/or teammates), and do not effectively manage pressures at work. 

Taken all together the required can-do and will-do characteristics form the success profile for that specific job.

WHICH assessment should I use?
The next step is to identify an assessment that measures these characteristics in candidates. As we do with most ventures in life, we might begin the search for an assessment provider by using our good friend Google. When you type “candidate selection assessment” into Google, the result includes over 1.5 million hits! Which one should you choose?

My message to human resource professionals is that the best assessment is one that measures the critical components of the success profile you identified in the first step of the which hunt. Your assessment strategy doesn’t have to measure the entire success profile (that’s why we conduct interviews, administer basic qualification questions, collect resumes, etc.), but there should be significant overlap. This may require the implementation of multiple assessments. For example at Hogan, we offer the Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory to measure can-do characteristics, the Hogan Personality Inventory and Hogan Development Survey to measure will-do characteristics, and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory to assess “will-fit” characteristics in terms of how a candidate might fit into the organization’s culture.

WHICH cut-score will increase our hit rate for identifying good candidates?
Now for the last leg of the which hunt – interpreting the assessment results. While this task seems easy enough – low scores fail and high scores pass –   the truth is that this can actually be quite challenging for multiple reasons. What do you do with scores in the middle? Is a 40 a good enough score or should I look for 50s and higher? If I have multiple scores for multiple characteristics, how do I know what scores are more important indicators of success? What if the candidate has high scores on some characteristics and low scores on others? It is a delicate process to draw the line in the sand and make appropriate sense of all the good information that assessments provide. 

This part of the which hunt gets a bit complicated despite my best efforts. The bottom line is that we must clearly understand the relationship between assessment scores and job performance. I find it helpful during this part of the conversation to use an analogy for the way a financial institution uses a credit score. If a bank is going to give someone a loan to purchase a house, they don’t just want to get a high level summary of age, income, salary, credit card debt, etc., and shoot from the hip on how to combine all of those data points into an estimation of investment risk for that person. Such an approach would be inconsistent, inaccurate, and not scalable. To make sound lending decisions over time, the bank leverages a proven, weighted equation to combine these data points into an easily interpretable credit score that is backed by research to increase the hit-rate for making profitable lending decisions (the recent housing market collapse aside). Standards have been set to categorize bad credit scores, good credit scores, and great credit scores. This is essentially how a validation study is used when implementing an assessment for candidate selection. We conduct research to give you overall low, moderate, or high evaluations of candidate potential that if used consistently will increase hit rates for selecting successful employees.

The which hunt guidelines break up the concepts of assessment implementation into concepts that are hopefully simple to grasp:  
• Before we can measure anything we must define a benchmark (i.e., success profile).
• We must use that benchmark to guide us to pick the right tool for the job (i.e., assessment).
• We have to know how to read the measurements the tool is giving us and do regular checkups to make sure the measurements are accurate (i.e., cut-scores).

Whether they make your skin crawl or tickle your fancy, the use of cliches has spread like wildfire over the years. These phrases, defined by their overuse, have flooded our everyday lives, making it difficult to get through a full day without hearing or speaking several. Critics discourage their use, especially in writing, as their presence indicates a lack of imagination. Further, many of these expressions are so overused and unnecessary they can be categorized as pure fluff. There are few positive views on these hackneyed phrases; however, I tend to enjoy them (in moderation).

First, their origins fascinate me. As reported by Life Magazine, the expression "hair of the dog that bit you," a common idea for curing a hangover, is derived from the medieval belief that if bitten by a rabid dog, pressing the hair of that dog to the wound could cure the infection. The term "falling on the sword," meaning to offer resignation or accept the consequences of fault, can be found in the Bible in reference to King Saul falling on his sword to commit suicide while in battle with the Philistines. Second, and more importantly, I am impressed by their ability to deliver our thoughts in a concise, succinct manner that would be difficult to verbalize otherwise. In this sense, cliches create a common language which is beneficial as they carry so much information in only a handful of words.

Whether they make your skin crawl or tickle your fancy, the use of cliches has spread like wildfire over the years. These phrases, defined by their overuse, have flooded our everyday lives, making it difficult to get through a full day without hearing or speaking several. Critics discourage their use, especially in writing, as their presence indicates a lack of imagination. Further, many of these expressions are so overused and unnecessary they can be categorized as pure fluff. There are few positive views on these hackneyed phrases; however, I tend to enjoy them (in moderation).

First, their origins fascinate me. As reported by Life Magazine, the expression “hair of the dog that bit you,” a common idea for curing a hangover, is derived from the medieval belief that if bitten by a rabid dog, pressing the hair of that dog to the wound could cure the infection. The term “falling on the sword,” meaning to offer resignation or accept the consequences of fault, can be found in the Bible in reference to King Saul falling on his sword to commit suicide while in battle with the Philistines. Second, and more importantly, I am impressed by their ability to deliver our thoughts in a concise, succinct manner that would be difficult to verbalize otherwise. In this sense, cliches create a common language which is beneficial as they carry so much information in only a handful of words.

Recently I’ve noticed the function cliches provide when describing Hogan assessment scales, especially to Hogan novices. For those unfamiliar to the assessments, when first introduced to the scale names, the terms can seem somewhat foreign. As such, it is important to describe the scales in a manner in which recipients can relate instantly. So whether describing an executive’s tendency under stress to “push the envelope” (HDS Mischievous), or an individual contributor’s conflict-avoidance as “beating around the bush” (HPI Interpersonal Sensitivity), these expressions provide an immediate connection between the assessment results and their respective behaviors. Of course, traditional descriptors of the assessment scales are crucial and cannot be replaced, but they can be enhanced by a real-life example, story, or cliche which provide a deeper understanding of such behavioral characteristics.

Even more interesting than the origins of common cliches, is the ability of the Hogan assessment terminology to create a common language for measuring and improving performance within an organization. As a company familiarizes itself with the assessment scales and respective interpretive information, employees become comfortable replacing descriptors such as “curious,” “visionary,” and “strategic-minded” or even cliched terms like “thinking outside the box” with Hogan scales (e.g., high Inquisitive). The scales create a common language for the organization and as a result, provide a powerful benefit similar to that of the clever cliche–the ability to deliver a wealth of information in a concise, instantly understandable message.  

As a recent alumnus of the job market, I can personally attest to the fact that while there is a shortage of available jobs, there is apparently no shortage of inane interview questions:

Where do you see yourself in five years?

If you were an animal (vegetable, mineral, superhero, whatever), what kind would you be?

What would your last employer say about you?

If you were the size of a pencil and we put you in a blender, how would you escape?

But my least favorite of all time has to be: What is your greatest weakness?

Hunting for my first job, I must have answered that question a dozen times – never honestly. My top three answers, depending on the situation, were:

1. I am so driven to succeed, sometimes I work too hard.
2. I have a habit of doing all the work and giving my boss all the credit.
3. I possess the agility of a spider and the strength of six men, but I struggle to harness it for the purposes of good.

And I’m not alone. A quick Google search yields thousands of blogs, how-to articles and even entire websites devoted to avoiding an honest answer to this dreaded question.

So it was a nice surprise when before I interviewed here at Hogan (I am now two weeks on the job), I was asked to complete the full line of our assessments.

For me as a job candidate, the fact that my then potential employer would know, and have a graphical analysis of, my greatest strengths and potential shortcomings meant two things: there was no need to dodge the question, and they were still taking the time to interview me, so I must not be so far beyond help. What resulted was a fluid, comfortable interview in which, instead of wasting time and energy beating around the bush and trying to conceal my flop sweat, I could relax and express what I thought I could bring to the table.

Granted, I am new to the world of HR, but that seems much more productive than trying to explain that while I possess psychic abilities, they are only good for predicting the first two Lotto numbers.

As a recent alumnus of the job market, I can personally attest to the fact that while there is a shortage of available jobs, there is apparently no shortage of inane interview questions:

Where do you see yourself in five years?

If you were an animal (vegetable, mineral, superhero, whatever), what kind would you be?

What would your last employer say about you?

If you were the size of a pencil and we put you in a blender, how would you escape?

But my least favorite of all time has to be: What is your greatest weakness?

Hunting for my first job, I must have answered that question a dozen times – never honestly. My top three answers, depending on the situation, were:

1. I am so driven to succeed, sometimes I work too hard.
2. I have a habit of doing all the work and giving my boss all the credit.
3. I possess the agility of a spider and the strength of six men, but I struggle to harness it for the purposes of good.

And I’m not alone. A quick Google search yields thousands of blogs, how-to articles and even entire websites devoted to avoiding an honest answer to this dreaded question.

So it was a nice surprise when before I interviewed here at Hogan (I am now two weeks on the job), I was asked to complete the full line of our assessments.

For me as a job candidate, the fact that my then potential employer would know, and have a graphical analysis of, my greatest strengths and potential shortcomings meant two things: there was no need to dodge the question, and they were still taking the time to interview me, so I must not be so far beyond help. What resulted was a fluid, comfortable interview in which, instead of wasting time and energy beating around the bush and trying to conceal my flop sweat, I could relax and express what I thought I could bring to the table.

Granted, I am new to the world of HR, but that seems much more productive than trying to explain that while I possess psychic abilities, they are only good for predicting the first two Lotto numbers.

You don’t have to be in the professional world long before you will likely encounter some form of a competency model in your organization. While the development of an effective competency model is no small task, the end result is simple, easy to understand, and very effective at establishing a framework for success. When developed correctly and with the support of the organization, a competency model can be an effective foundation for strategic staffing, training and development, and performance management. However, that is where the simplicity ends.

At Hogan, we can effectively measure an individual’s performance level against an organization’s pre-determined competency model. Hogan has developed a systematic, scientific approach, leveraging 30+ years of criterion evidence, to map just about any competency to the personality constructs measured in Hogan’s assessment inventories. As a result, our clients have responded positively, and competency mapping has become a routine service provided by our research team. These robust competency mappings can be used to help organizations strategically select new hires and develop incumbents.

It is important to understand that the intersection of competencies, personality traits, and the behaviors described can be very complex. I always suggest that the organization clearly define the role of the competency model and the desired assessments in the context of the selection, succession, and/or development process. The most effective implementations I’ve seen include elements of both tools, not simply one or the other.

Through Hogan’s research process, we can develop a scoring algorithm which will accurately predict someone’s innate ability based on their responses to our core personality inventories. If you don’t have clear understanding of what underlying personality traits and values are influencing an individual’s ability, development efforts will stall. Without these key links of behavioral development, simply knowing how someone compares to your competency model only tells half the story.

You don’t have to be in the professional world long before you will likely encounter some form of a competency model in your organization. While the development of an effective competency model is no small task, the end result is simple, easy to understand, and very effective at establishing a framework for success. When developed correctly and with the support of the organization, a competency model can be an effective foundation for strategic staffing, training and development, and performance management. However, that is where the simplicity ends.

At Hogan, we can effectively measure an individual’s performance level against an organization’s pre-determined competency model. Hogan has developed a systematic, scientific approach, leveraging 30+ years of criterion evidence, to map just about any competency to the personality constructs measured in Hogan’s assessment inventories. As a result, our clients have responded positively, and competency mapping has become a routine service provided by our research team. These robust competency mappings can be used to help organizations strategically select new hires and develop incumbents.

It is important to understand that the intersection of competencies, personality traits, and the behaviors described can be very complex. I always suggest that the organization clearly define the role of the competency model and the desired assessments in the context of the selection, succession, and/or development process. The most effective implementations I’ve seen include elements of both tools, not simply one or the other.

Through Hogan’s research process, we can develop a scoring algorithm which will accurately predict someone’s innate ability based on their responses to our core personality inventories. If you don’t have clear understanding of what underlying personality traits and values are influencing an individual’s ability, development efforts will stall. Without these key links of behavioral development, simply knowing how someone compares to your competency model only tells half the story.

Choosing the right personality assessment for employee selection and leadership development can be mind-boggling. What's the best solution: recommendations from peers, online research, evaluations in trade magazines? Even more importantly, how can one be sure that a personality assessment provider will supply tools that actually work as advertised? Not all personality assessments are created equal.

Before investing in one, Hogan suggests 12 must-ask questions when choosing an assessment provider.

1. What are the personality assessments designed to do relative to the needs/goals of the customer?

3. Have the personality tests been reviewed in Buros' Mental Measurement Yearbook?

4. Is each personality test supported by a test manual that is organized according to the standards outlined in the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures?

5. Does the personality assessment provider supply technical reports containing competent validity studies (as defined by the Uniform Guidelines) using the personality tests in real organizations?

6. Can the personality assessment provider produce a summary of validation results for jobs similar to the one under consideration?

7. What standardized validation process is followed before the personality assessment provider implements a selection test in an organization?

8. How are cutoff scores established for selection purposes?

9. What process does the personality assessment provider use to systematically evaluate the performance of the tests it recommends?

10. Does the personality assessment provider maintain a research archive that can be accessed to confirm the results of individual validity studies?

11. What is the personality assessment provider's policy for supporting customers in the event of a legal challenge to the use of a test?

12. Has the personality assessment provider been involved in any legal challenges of a test, and if so, what was the outcome?

Download a printable Assessment Evaluation or see how Hogan measures up.