hardly a week goes by that at least 10 or 15 of our candidates are asked to take some kind of test\u2026 These things can range anywhere from IQ tests, psychological tests, math aptitude tests, personality surveys and so on. We\u2019re constantly asked if there are any \u201csecrets\u201d to doing well on them.<\/p>\n
The concept of testing intelligence was first successfully devised by a French psychologist \u00a0in the early 1900s to help describe differences in how well and quickly children learn at school. \u00a0Thus began the argument that continues today between those that believe \u00a0testing is an indication of a lot of things and those that believe \u00a0that testing \u00a0really can\u2019t measure much of anything.<\/p>\n
Since 1973, I\u2019ve seen candidate testing ebb and flow in popularity. Believe it or not, it seems to ebb and flow depending on the economy. Testing of job candidates can be very expensive, so it\u2019s one of the first things that companies stop doing when the economy gets difficult.<\/p>\n
Job candidates \u00a0should be prepared for what I call the \u201cparadox of testing.\u201d Every company that has ever used testing as part of its selection process is going to tell every candidate that at most the test accounts for only 25% of the final decision. Don\u2019t believe a word of it! Whatever kind of test that is used, from grafoanalisis\u00a0 to psychological or psychiatric interviewing, is a qualifier that you must pass with the minimum standard arbitrarily set by someone or some group in the organization or you aren\u2019t going to go further in the interviewing process. Whether hiring authorities are companies will admit it or not, the test becomes a binary, black and white, proceed or go home qualifier. Don\u2019t let anybody tell you differently.<\/p>\n
So, when a hiring authority tell you something like, \u201coh, by the way, we have some psychological (or aptitude, or skills, or intelligence) \u00a0testing you need to do as a candidate, but don\u2019t worry about it. Everybody comes to work here has to take it and it really doesn\u2019t account for much more than 10% (or 25% or 50%) of the decision,\u201d don\u2019t believe a word of it! Testing becomes the gate that has to be passed through before you can be considered as a viable candidate.<\/p>\n
Testing objectifies the hiring process. When supposedly objective tests decide on your viability as a candidate, no hiring or interviewing authority involved in the process of hiring has to have her butt on the line, has to take a stand \u00a0on your candidacy, \u00a0or has to run the risk of being the only person who likes you and wants to hire you. Now a hiring authority is still going to have to make a decision in choosing someone to be hired. But the convenient thing about testing is that it also functions as a cover your butt issue.. If hiring you turns out to be a mistake, but you did well on the company\u2019s battery of tests, the hiring authority can turn to everyone else and say, \u201cwell, she did well on the testing!\u201d It\u2019s just another way of passing the buck of responsibility. The test becomes the qualifier, screening out tons of candidates should know one person has to and it\u2019s convenient and easy.<\/p>\n
Please don\u2019t tell me that testing is stupid and it doesn\u2019t work. Part of my graduate studies-admittedly more than 47 years ago-included extensive studies about testing. I can make the case that testing will never measure passion, commitment, focus, and, in general \u201cheart,\u201d the real things it separated top performer from an average one. But as you know, the people who manage companies don\u2019t really care what you or I think. If somebody sells a company on the idea that any kind of testing will help it hire better people in the company invests thousands in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars in this testing, it\u2019s going to use it-no matter what.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2013next week\u2014does testing work?<\/p>\n
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hardly a week goes by that at least 10 or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n