Top marks for best test

[Badshah Mamun]

Top marks for best test

Good-quality assessments are a valuable tool when recruiting, writes Jim Bright.

Ben from Camberwell wants to follow up on a recent column about testing during recruiting. He writes: "At the end of the article, you suggest that Jenny take the test; within the article, you clearly question the fairness of the process - is there anywhere that you or Jenny, or myself (if I ever came across such practices), could report that employer to?"

This could be a short column, as the simple answer is "no". The bottom line is that the use of tests in recruitment is not subject to mandatory regulation. This means that, in principle, anybody can use any sort of test in their recruitment process with no restrictions on their professional competence or how they use the test. Furthermore, there are no regulations governing what constitutes a test or standards around the quality and suitability of a test.

What does this mean in practice? It means there is a huge number of people out there who are completely unqualified and should not be allowed anywhere near test administration and interpretation.

Furthermore, there is a legion of tests out there that are, to use a technical term, utter rubbish.

It would take a library of books to document the abuse of testing that occurs and a full chamber of barristers to defend me from the resulting lawsuits, because testing is a multimillion-dollar, probably billion-dollar, industry. I have seen a colleague threatened with having his house taken from him in legal costs if he did not withdraw a perfectly correct statement about the quality of a test being used in a large Australian firm.

I've seen data on one of the tests commonly used in Australia and around the world that indicated, from a sample of more than 18,000 applicants, that the test systematically made the wrong recommendation. In other words, this company would have done better tossing a coin.

Now I've got the negatives out of the way, let's consider the positives. I am on the record as a supporter of good-quality tests, administered and interpreted by appropriately qualified professionals.

Good tests have published data available that describes how they were developed, the populations used and statistics that indicate the tests accurately measure what they claim to measure.

For anyone who is not trained in psychometrics, discerning the quality of a test is difficult to do. Therefore, from the perspective of somebody taking these tests, it is easier to understand the nature of the credentials of the person administering it.

Some professional groups, most notably the Australian Psychological Society and its College of Organisational Psychologists, have stringent standards and regulations that govern the behaviour of their members with specific guidelines on the selection and use of tests.

This provides both a level of confidence for the participant and an avenue for complaint if tests are abused.

Some of the more reputable test producers or sellers offer training courses and accreditations in the use of particular tests. This offers some degree of protection and helps raise standards. It is certainly preferable to no training. However, that training and those doing the training are usually not subject to any form of accreditation, so it is not always easy to distinguish between reliable training that is high in quality and thinly disguised sales and marketing exercises.

The bottom line is, good-quality psychometrically reliable tests administered and interpreted by a qualified professional can make a valuable contribution to recruitment.

From the candidates' perspective, they can actually increase the fairness of the process, because good-quality tests do not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Indeed, it is these types of discrimination that may be the only avenue of complaint for individuals subjected to bad tests and untrained personnel.

Source: http://content.mycareer.com.au/advice-research/interview/quality-assessments.aspx