Employee assessment consulting can help you make more informed choices when it comes to hiring, promoting or transferring staff members. Employee evaluation consulting paints a more vivid picture of an applicant's aptitudes and interests, helping narrow down the massive stacks of resumes that cross a hiring manager's desk every day. Placing new and current employees in just the right jobs for their interests and aptitudes increases job satisfaction, which encourages them to stay with your company.

Today's professionals change jobs several times during their careers, and so finding the right applicant at the beginning can make the difference between filling the position again in six months, or finding a loyal, longtime employee.

Employee evaluation consulting can help you:

1. Choose the right applicant for a job.
2. Identify what kind of person does well at your company.
3. Determine the best roles for your current employees, through workforce assessments.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Search for employee assessment consultants by specialty or location

When researching employee assessment consulting firms, a good place to start is finding firms in or near your city, or that specialize in your industry.

I recommend: HR-Guide.com offers a list of employee assessment companies, and Oya's Directory of Recruiters lists human resource consultants by specialty.

Before you hire an employee evaluation consultant, look at their client list

One of the best indicators of how good a fit any employee assessment consultants will be for your organization is their client list. Looking at the companies they've worked with before can tell you if they've ever worked with companies of your size or within your industry, and if they work with companies all over the country, or just in a specific region. If their client list includes several high-profile or national companies, that's a good indicator the firm is well-respected.

I recommend: Many employee evaluation specialists include a partial list of current and previous clients on their website, such as Brainbench, which offers online assessment and employee development testing, and Caliper, which offers personalized employee assessment consulting.

Learn how employee assessment consulting works

Even if you plan to hire a consultant, knowing what goes into employee assessment can help you more clearly articulate to employee assessment consulting firms what you're looking for. And, if you already know the industry standards and what makes a successful assessment, you'll be better equipped to evaluate potential employee evaluation firms, or monitor their progress and results during an assessment.

I recommend: Saterfiel and Associates features samples of the assessment reports it provides, and CareerExplorer is a free online assessment test.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  When you work with employee assessment companies, you need to be able to tell them not only what you're looking for in an employee, but also about the dynamics of your existing team. To create an assessment plan that fits your organization, they'll need to know the company's approach to management, what the corporate culture is like, and your company's goals and plans.