important statistics: using hiring assessments to show potential employee performance
Laszlo Bock, the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, recently discussed the value behind different types of candidate interviewing processes. Bock evaluated these talent acquisition processes in order to best address the issue of being able to identify and evaluate talent during the hiring process.
What Bock noted in these evaluations was that assessments are the most effective way to evaluate a candidate’s potential to perform the responsibilities of a job.
Specifically, Bock noted that:
1. Use a “Work Sample” Evaluation
Using a “work sample” evaluation is the most effective tool, indicating that it can explain up to 29% of an employee’s performance.
2. Use “Ability to Perform” Assessments
“Ability to perform” assessments are the second highest predictor for a potential employee’s performance, measuring up to 26%.
According to Bock’s evaluation, the holistic use of these hiring assessments can give a company up to a 55% evaluation on how a candidate will perform as an employee. Bock pointed out how a “work sample” evaluation (which can be more commonly identified as a “job simulation”) is especially effective for positions that are very task-oriented, specifically calling out call center positions as prime positions to most effectively take advantage of job simulations. Bock also noted that “tests of cognitive ability” (otherwise known as personality and skill tests) are predictive to the candidate’s ability to perform in a job because they measure “the combination of raw intelligence and learning ability [that] will make the most people successful in most jobs.”
The value of using Hiring assessments
The value of assessments, on a superficial level, speak for themselves: the risk of making poor hiring decisions based on intuition or confirmation bias, and the quantifiable data that comes with good hiring assessments can help support a hiring decision. Additionally, a good assessment that enables customization can target specific traits and responsibilities that would yield the highest success in a particular position, and then test candidates to see if they possess these skills and qualities.
While the use of assessments are not perfect (Bock discusses the use of assessments with in-person interviews to get a full view of the candidate), being able to evaluate up to (and even more than) half of a candidate’s ability to perform the position in question is an incredibly powerful tool to leverage in the hiring process.
To learn more about the hiring process, download FurstPerson's e-book on five talent acquisition commandments below.
