Our assessment/evaluation tools are a fast, effective, legally protected and proven way to select the best and most productive workers available for your specific job. Improved employee selection is the best way to improve productivity, safety, retention and profit.
Our instruments…
No other assessment method can match the effectiveness, predictability, job specificity and legal protection of this test selection method.
Skills tests
Skill testing is a genuine minimum qualification model. You must know if applicants have the skill to perform the job. The problem; however, is even the most technical job is at best 30% technical. Even if there was a perfect match of the skill test to the job, there is still 70% of the job that has not been measured. For example, all teachers are certified yet there are good teachers and poor ones. All attorneys have passed the bar exam and yet there is still a difference in performance. Physicians, electricians and auto mechanics also fit this example. Skill tests are more narrowly focused measures restricting performance domain coverage. They are usually impractical to administer to large groups. These limitations on content validity and the selection ratio result in very low utility at predicting superior workers.
Select Advantage’s worker competency tests sample from the entire domain of work behaviors and distinguish superior workers. Our assessment methods provide a practical to administer program for very large numbers of applicants. High validity and selection ratios translate into a very high success at selecting superior workers.
Aptitude tests
Aptitude tests are far too general and usually focus on measuring cognitive abilities. They may be helpful indicators of an individual's interests and/or potential for certain tasks, but are not effective predictors of worker performance. Aptitude tests are not job specific and assume a huge leap in logic in how it affects performance. For example, a group of physicists would score high in mechanical aptitude, but they would make terrible pipe fitters.
Aptitude tests have serious legal problems when used to select workers, as they have historically produced insurmountable adverse impact on minority groups (Griggs vs. Duke Power Co, Albemarle vs. Moody, Connecticut vs. Teal). By including all elements of the work (interests, willingness, desires, work habits, character and other characteristics, in addition to knowledge, skills and abilities) Select's methods have historically produced insignificant levels of adverse impact, so that targeted recruiting of low performing group(s) can easily ensure their representation among the best qualified applicants.
Psychological tests (Personality Tests)
Personality tests have been developed and validated for clinical diagnostics and counseling, and they are very useful for those purposes. However, their use as predictors of job performance is very questionable and probably inappropriate. While it may be advantageous to know what type of personality an individual can bring to a company, it will not predict performance. In every job there are what seem to be contradictory behaviors. For instance, police officers must be aggressive and yet still hold themselves in check. A personality test cannot measure both of these behaviors at the same time. Another example would be sales representatives. The false assumption is that all extroverts make great sales people. In fact, most sales forces have a variety of personalities within their top performers. The bottom line is personality and psychological tests are not key indicators of performance.
Select’s tests are designed to measure all aspects of a job. That is why our tools are superior to personality or psychological testing. We can take the seemingly contradictory behaviors of a job and measure both behaviors as they contribute to the success of the individual.
Select Advantage’s tests and testing methods are scientifically documented according to the Government's Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978) and key US Supreme Court decisions (Griggs vs. Duke Power Co., Albemarle vs. Moody, Connecticut vs. Teal). The law and court cases have made very clear the requirement that employee selection practices must be related to performance on the job in question. According to the courts, “the touchstone is business necessity.” This is the very premise around which our assessments are developed.
The following summary from Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. clearly explains the legal requirement issues:
“Nothing in the Act precludes the use of testing or measuring procedures; obviously they are useful. What Congress has forbidden is giving these devices and mechanisms controlling force unless they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance. Congress has not commanded that the less qualified be preferred over the better qualified simply because of minority origins. Far from disparaging job qualifications as such, Congress has made such qualifications the controlling factor, so that race, religion, nationality, and sex become irrelevant. What Congress has commanded is that any test used must measure the person for the job and not the person in the abstract.”
Our assessments specifically measure the person for the job. Since they are a demonstrable measurement of job performance, they are powerful performance indicators and can be given a controlling factor in the selection of employees. Are you aware of any other tool that can achieve both of these aims? Adverse impact (which triggers legal liability) has historically been non-existent or at easily defensible levels. This is why we can indemnify our clients. Are these benefits important to your company?
Business necessity is a practice necessary for safe and efficient organizational operations and has been the subject of numerous court decisions. Educational requirements are often based on business necessity. However, an employer who requires a minimum level of education, such as a high school diploma, must be able to defend the requirement as essential to the performance of each job. Having the general requirement of a degree cannot always be justified on the basis of the need for a certain level of ability. All requirements must be job related, or proven necessary for job performance.
A BFOQ is a legitimate reason why an employer can exclude persons on otherwise illegal bases of consideration. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act specifically states that employers may discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, or national origin if the characteristic can be justified as a “bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business or enterprise.”
Test results are not affected by experience or non-experience on the job. The job analysis method, performance behavior identification, and rating criteria utilized by Select in developing each test, evaluates this very issue. A computer analysis is performed to determine a behavior’s inclusion or exclusion in the content domain for pre-employment selection. The rating of all behaviors includes evaluation against questions such as:
Keep in mind that our assessments are evaluating behaviors in relation to a specific job not learned skills on a specific job. Our assessment tools allow applicants from a wide range of backgrounds (life experiences, training, ability to think & evaluate, etc.) to match the behaviors of outstanding workers. This is one of the many reasons this method is so powerful and predictive.
Each section can stand alone as a valid predictor of job performance. However, each section has strengths and weaknesses not shared by the other two. When used together we reduce the error variance associated with any one section & produce more comprehensive coverage of the performance domain.
Yes, our tests are designed, validated and documented to predict performance in the work activity for which they are developed. There are three types of validity, all of which are equally valid:
Content Validity is a logical, non-statistical method used to identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, interests, willingness and personal characteristics necessary to perform the job.
Criterion Validity assumes through statistical inferences that a test predicts how well an individual will perform on the job.
Construct Validity involves establishing statistical relationships between measures of theoretical characteristic inferred from research and job performance.
Select’s program is developed following the Content Validity method and we also track Criterion Validity on a client by client basis.
Our tests sample and measure the work behaviors that cause differences in on the job performance. It is our thorough attention to the criteria of job success (job analysis) and careful representation of these criteria in the content of our tests that give our tests greater predictability than other tests. We judge applicants with the same criteria that make or break workers on the job. For example, Johnny Hardworker is your best employee. Have you ever asked yourself, “If only I could find another Johnny Hardworker?" Select provides a valid objective way to find as many Johnny Hardworkers as you need. Here’s how: we would sit down with a room full of Johnny Hardworkers and ask them to tell us what it was that separated them from every other worker. The end result would be a tool that was the “perfect” Johnny Hardworker that you could now use to measure every applicant against. The higher the score the closer they are to Johnny Hardworker.
The other major reason our tests predict performance better than other tests is that our assessments are only utilized for specific jobs. We do not use “canned tests” or “one test fits all” which are normalized for your work environment. Our program uses tests that are uniquely designed to measure performance in a specific job, which makes them more powerful, predictive, and defensible.
Yes, we do and should, provided they follow our procedures, which are common sense steps centered on consistency in cut points. Proactive use of valid “alternative selection procedures” is exactly what the law requires.
Yes, our testing methods discriminate in favor of those applicants with the best ability to perform the job being tested for. The test will also discriminate against those who lack ability. This bias results from the job specific content of our tests, derived from scientific investigation of the work behaviors which cause observed differences in worker ability to successfully do the job.
This is the only employment discrimination allowed under America’s civil rights laws. The employer’s business necessity to test for the work behaviors which distinguish superior workers, is self evident in our job analysis documentation. The integrity of our scientific instrument is the “touch stone” for proving you have measured the person for the job and did not illegally discriminate against any individual or group.
Each test part contributes unique information regarding an applicant’s values, work habits and work sense. The thoroughness in sampling all elements of success in the job ensures the resulting measure is fair to all qualified applicants. Work competency is the only unifying measure in the construction of each test, making work competency the only discriminating factor in the final score.
Our use of multiple test methods provides independent confirmation of work competency while extending coverage of the total job. This careful summing of worker ability across all job elements ensures anyone with ability can be “discovered.” The inclusion of all work critical behaviors provides a fair and level playing field where only the best qualified have the best chance of winning.
Our attention to the details of this science have allowed our employee selection programs to pass muster with Federal, State and local EEO enforcement agencies and courts. Our instruments have a solid, documented record of promoting diversity employment goals in government, business and industry. Our methods have proven to be fair in form as well as effect—producing no significant adverse effect on any group.
The discrimination produced by our methods is really about your business—not just diversity and fairness. These methods allow you to control good performance through good selection. The discrimination in our tests serves your business mission.
Yes. These testing methods have been challenged but have easily withstood every challenge. In fact a Federal EEO administrative law judge ruled the program to be “valid by definition.”
If you have any further questions or would like to see more information on any of our programs, please contact us directly at 800.377.0554 or use our Contact Us Form Online.
