Behavioral assessment tools must be scientifically valid to be useful, but how do you find out if they are? Here's how ...
If you’re considering a pre-employment test or employee assessment tool to improve your recruiting and employee retention results, there are six key questions you should be asking yourself and potential vendors.
The first question on that list: “Is the behavioral assessment tool scientifically valid?”
It is often said that recruiting is an art. The act of assessing and measuring candidates, though, is definitely science. When enlisting a behavoiral assessment tool to help you make better hiring decisions, or to aid in coaching and employee development, it’s important to ensure the tool is based on sound science. Otherwise, you may as well pick up a Magic 8 Ball from the toy store and save yourself some money.
The idea of behavioral assessments (also called talent assessments, personality assessments, psychometric testing, pre-employment testing) is grounded in decades of industrial psychology. The science behind these tools has been well established and proven.
How to determine if a tool is scientifically sound
Today, the commonly accepted standard for personality tests of any sort is known as the “Big 5”. A good starting point is to ensure the assessment tool that you’re investigating is based on that scale.
When speaking with vendors, here are some other key questions to pose:
In each case, there are testing models that can be—and should have been—used to confirm this information and a vendor should be able to show you evidence that their tool passes the test.
Ask for a copy of the company’s technical manual, which should outline all of this and more concerning the tool’s validity. It’s a dry read, but even skimming it will give you a sense of how sound a tool you are dealing with.
This is just the first question to ask when considering a behavioral assessment tool. Request a Demo of our assessment and we can walk you through the rest
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