Employment Test Key Terms

Employment test key terms will assist human resources professionals

Employment tests and the key terms used to describe them are vital to know in order to hire the best possible candidates for any organization. Employees come with recommendations and resumes, but these documents are not always valid or factual. Human resources personnel hire people who will continually work with others using equipment and facilities. Although a candidate might fudge a resume or present a false recommendation, human resources managers personally supervise all candidates under controlled conditions when administering employment tests. These tests provide a level playing field for evaluation of all candidates.

 

Defensibility

Each candidate wants a fair shot at each and every job opportunity, and laws support their quest for consideration free of discrimination. Although the hiring process will surely include some subjectivity, employee testing provides defensibility of fair choices. Candidate challenges to assessment tools and processes will find the assessment's defensibility better when designed with legal factors considered at every step.
Try: Criteria Corp specializes in employee testing, and its  website focuses on the important questions for planning and staging employment tests.

In-basket exam

Hiring new workers is a delicate business, and one tool used by the experts to simulate real conditions is the in-basket test. Examiners present the candidates with contents of an in-basket. They then judge the candidate on their actions during this realistic simulation.
Try: Arizona Department of Corrections uses the in-basket exam to screen candidates, and here you will find details regarding the exam used to hire personnel.

Pre-employment assessment, psychological testing

Human resources experts strive to find the best possible employees to contribute to the success of an organization and avoid bringing in employees with psychological or emotional problems. The professionals work to provide a pre-employment assessment that will eliminate hiring people whose actions might result in lawsuits and injuries. Good pre-employment assessment instruments provide evidence of efforts to find any possible problems before hire.
Try: Saterfiel and Associates provides research and education on pre-employment assessments and other employment testing procedures. Infinet Assessment provides leadership in the field of employment and psychological testing.

Task similarity

Personnel departments, determined to streamline their activities, search for testing instruments for task similarity. In other words, they would like to use testing instruments to screen candidates for more than one job category. Testing similarity must be carefully determined in order to avoid costly hiring decisions.
Try: Human Performance Systems (PDF) provides consultation and guidance for human resources professionals tasked with screening candidates for major corporations.

Culture fair, culture free

In order to avoid any accusations of discrimination, all employee testing materials must be culture fair. Human resource officials must find and use materials free of anything that would be strange or foreign to individuals from diverse cultures. The Ravens Matrices, for example, are nonverbal and culture-fair IQ testing materials that provide a valid measure of an applicant's intelligence.
Try: Psychology Encyclopedia gives more detail information about culture- fair (or culture-free) testing. Mindware Forum leads the way to find testing instruments that are culture-fair.

Adverse impact

Professionals in charge of hiring use assessment tools with care in order to avoid adverse impact and lose good candidates. Assessment tools that do not target important skills or present baseless items could eliminate great candidates without rationale. Human resources personnel might eliminate a good candidate because of test anxiety rather than performance potential and the adverse impact of the assessment tool could be responsible.
Try: Previsor employs experts in employment assessment and the website is an excellent source of information on this topic.

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