psychometric assessments

Psychometric assessments, psychometric tests*, aptitude tests, tests of verbal and numeric reasoning, personality profiles including 360º feedback appraisal can assist an organisation to select, promote and develop the right people. Such tests are of course dependent how good they are ie. their levels of validity and reliability.
*although the word 'tests' is in common usage, we try and avoid this as there are no right and wrong answers.

Profiles range of Psychometric Assessments have proven levels of validity and reliability that make them the most comprehensive and effective in the market place. However when this is added to specific job matching, that is matching the individual to the job that they will actually do, this process becomes a very powerful solution. The other side of this coin is what it can cost if you don't get this right.

All our normative assessments include a distortion index which measures the propensity of the individual to tell the truth.

For international organisations or those with staff from different countries, our assessments are available in over 20 languages.

So, what are you looking to achieve:

Objective Product
Improve recruitment Profile XT | Profile XT Sales
Reduce staff turnover Profile XT
Improve manager performance Profile XT | Checkpoint 360
Improve sales performance Profile XT Sales | Sales Indicator
Improve customer service Customer Service Perspective
Increase employee motivation Profile XT | Checkpoint 360 | Performance Indicator
Improve employee engagement Profile XT
Improve teamwork Profile XT | Team Analysis
Improve talent management Profile XT
Improve management development Profile XT | Checkpoint 360 | Skillbuilder
Assess strategic alignment & direction Checkpoint 360 | Organizational Management Analysis
Mental Toughness MTQ48
Competitive performance MTQ48

We offer a free trial of our flagship product The Profile XT (PXT) to those managers who want to fully examine what this can do for their organisation. Click here to discuss a free trial.
The PXT combines 'the total person' concept with job matching. It is available online and produces a series of specific reports (up to seven) depending on the application.

what Profiles Psychometric Assessments can do
why use psychometric assessments: for hiring
why use psychometric assessments: for existing employees

the benefits
- psychometric assessments offer a solution
job match or job fit outranks all other factors (see how this works with free job profiling)
- assessments can make a significant difference
- how do you know your candidates or staff are telling the truth
- why DISC type tools like Myers Briggs, McQuaid, Thomas and any other ipsative assessments are not valid as a recruiting tool.

the cost of a hiring mistake

- the cost
- the job match/retention & productivity link

the psychometric assessment product range:

- The Profile XT
- Checkpoint 360
- SkillBuilder
- Profiles Sales Indicator
- Customer Service Perspective
- Profiles Performance Indicator
- Profiles Team Analysis
- Mental Toughness MTQ48

what Profiles Psychometric Assessments can do
The management tools developed by Profiles International and represented by Anova Communications Group as their strategic business partner help clients to put people into jobs that fit the employee’s mental processes, occupational interests and behavioural tendencies. Most employers have hiring systems that select wonderful people but then push them into positions they don’t quite fit. The result is high levels of stress, conflict, frustration, and tension or boredom and low levels of performance. We have a better way. The use of the Profile XT can increase the likelihood of a successful hire from 26% (using interview and background checks alone) to over 75%.

We at Anova Communications Group help companies hire the right people, reduce training expenses and add significantly to their bottom line, by showing them how our methods eliminate costly employee turnover – which is costly both in terms of money, and more importantly, the effect it has on staff in terms of stress, anxiety and low motivation.

Profiles job match concept accepts people as being especially more suited by temperament and intellect for some kinds of work and unsuited for others. For years businesses have tried to hire the best and brightest. However it is futile to try to twist and bend people’s psyches in an effort to significantly change their behaviour.

You can successfully help people to develop in ways in which they have a natural inclination, but you can’t force an introvert into the role of an extrovert without a cost. It’s better to hire an extrovert for a position that requires that kind of behaviour.

Profiles assessment tools also serve business’ needs for hiring trustworthy, reliable employees, improving communication, forming effective, successful teams and improving motivation.

We offer a FREE job profiling service. This is used to objectively describe the thinking style, behavioural traits and occupational interests that are requisites for superior performance in a particular job. Survey results are compiled to create a "Job Match Pattern" that serves as a template for measuring "Job Match" and predicting the suitability of job candidates.

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psychometric assessments for hiring

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psychometric assessments for existing employees

you want employees who are dependable
In 1998, absenteeism cost employers $757 per employee, according to a report in USA TODAY. This was the direct cost reported by a survey of human resource professionals and does not include the cost of hiring others or paying overtime to perform the work of absent employees.

you can be held liable for employees' behaviour on and off the job
You must know the nature of the people you hire because their criminal behaviour could cost your business millions of dollars. Every time you hire without practicing due diligence, you may be accepting liability for their actions - even when they are "off the clock."

you can be sued for illegal discrimination
In the absence of objective data, how can you demonstrate a hiring/promotion decision was made objectively, without discrimination because of gender, race, religion, etc.

CV can be great fiction
In a survey of recent college graduates, 95% said they would be willing to make a false statement in their résumés in order to get a job. Forty-one percent admitted they had already done so, according to a report in Nation's Business (May, 1999).

testing is acceptable, even expected
It was found that 92% of job applicants accept testing as part of the job qualification process. Only 3% resent it, while 5% were neutral. (Molding Systems May, 1999, v57 i5 p56(1))

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the benefits

assessments offer a solution
Historically, employers depend upon CV’s/résumés, references and interviews as sources of information for making hiring decisions. In practice, these sources have proved inadequate for consistently selecting good employees.

When training employees, a "one size fits all" approach has failed to provide the desired results.

When selecting people for promotion, otherwise excellent employees have too often been miscast into roles they could not perform satisfactorily.
Clearly, an essential ingredient for making "people decisions" has been missing from the formula.

The use of assessments has become essential to employers who

The use of assessments has resulted in extraordinary increases in productivity while reducing employee relations problems, employee turnover, stress, tension, conflict and overall human resources expenses.

Several factors contribute to the failure of traditional hiring methods. Résumés often contain false claims of education and experience while omitting information that would help employers make better hiring decisions.

Business references are of little value because most past-employers will tell you nothing but "name, rank and serial number."

These realities are the reason interviews have become the most influential factor in hiring and promotion decisions. However, experience shows only a coincidental correlation between the ability to deliver well in an interview and to deliver well on the job. Studies peg this correlation at 14% -- one good employee in every seven hires. Even background checks don't help much. The success rate becomes 26%, but that's only one good hire in every four. Unfortunately, many employers have accepted these poor results and the high cost of excessive turnover as a business reality. They have flown the white flag of surrender.

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job match or job fit outranks all other factors
A well-documented study, published in Harvard Business Review* concludes that "Job Match" or job fit is by far the most reliable predictor of effectiveness on the job. The study considered many factors including the age, sex, race, education and experience of approximately 300,000 subjects. It evaluated their job performance and found no significant statistical differences, except in the area of "Job Match." The conclusion: "It's not experience that counts or college degrees or other accepted factors; success hinges on a fit with the job."

The only reliable method for evaluating "Job Match" is with a properly designed assessment instrument, capable of measuring the essential job-related characteristics particular to each specific job. Profiles International has assessments designed for this purpose.

We offer a FREE job profiling service which is the basis for attaining a 'job match'. This is used to objectively describe the thinking style, behavioural traits and occupational interests that are requisites for superior performance in a particular job. Survey results are compiled to create a "Job Match Pattern" that serves as a template for measuring "Job Match" and predicting the suitability of job candidates. We also have a vast library of positions based on 'norms' in the working population from cleaner to CEO! For example we have 30 job patterns covering sales positions alone. Please not that whilst our library is extensive we would only recommend that such generalised patterns are only used to start the profiling process off. The most important aspect is that the information we have is used to develop specific patterns for your business or organisaion. All positions are different due to diverse factors such as management style, customer type, culture, position in the business cycle, market definition, geography etc etc.

Assessments that include job matching or job fit include the Profile XT, the Profiles Sales Indicator and the Customer Service Perspective.
Call us for a discussion including a free job analysis survey to identify the basis for job matching on +44 (0)1491 636300, email us or click on the need help? box in the right hand column.

*Job Matching for Better Sales Performance, Greenberg and Greenberg, HBR. For information on how to get a copy of this article, click here

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assessments can make a significant difference*
Take the impact of using assessments in recruitment for example. Using interviews alone provides only a 1 in 7 (14%) chance of finding the right person. Reference checking can improve this to 26%. The use of personality testing (behavioural traits) can take this up to 38%.

When both thinking abilities (verbal/numeric ability and reasoning) and behavioural traits are assessed, the right people are hired 54% of the time.

When an assessment of occupational interests is added, successful results improve to 66%. Occupational or work interests are what the individual is really interested in while at work - this is important for job satisfaction and longer term loyalty.

The most impressive results are achieved, however, when an integrated ('total person') assessment is used - one that measures behavioural traits, thinking (verbal/numeric ability and reasoning), occupational interests, and "job matching” which improve the success rate to 75%. The Profile XT can do all this for you. Clicking on this link will also show a graphical representation of the above improvements and provide a greater explanation of how powerful this assessment is.

These integrated assessments employ cutting-edge technology and empirical data to assess the qualities of "the total person." In doing so, the individual qualities of candidates are compared to the qualities of staff who are recognised as top performers.

*This is based on research published in the Psychological Bulletin vol. 96, No. 1, Aug 1994 by Professor Mike Smith, University of Manchester.

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how do you know your candidates or staff are telling the truth when they take an assessment? The Distortion Index
All our normative assessments with the exception of the MTQ48 include a distortion index which measures an individual's propensity to tell the truth. It is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 with scores of 7, 8 and 9 indicating a high propensity to tell the truth whereas scores of 1, 2 and 3 indicacte a very low propensity to tell the truth. Scores as low as this usually make the assessment unreliable.

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the cost of a hiring mistake

the cost
One of the key challenges to any organisation is that of identifying, recruiting and retaining the right people particularly for their more highly-paid key positions.

Employee turnover in highly paid positions is a costly overhead. For example, take a typical sales executive salary of the order of £35k pa (which equates to £46k pa including employers NI, car allowance, laptop, mobile phone etc. to which can be added OTE, typically another £35k) then it is clear that the cost of replacing someone who is not successful is going to be high. Even looking at some of the more obvious aspects associated with hiring the wrong person gives some idea of the order of costs involved:

sales executive turnover cost

Advertising/recruitment fees (approx 20%) £7k
Salary Cost of Typical “Guarantee” period – 3 Months £12k
Admin/training/interviewing costs £3k
*NPV of postponed sales due to sales lost whilst replacing the bad hire £6k
Minimum cost of a bad hire £28k

This £28K figure takes no account of opportunity costs
*NPV (net present value) based on an earnings target of £750k and is a minimum based on the effect of postponing sales by one month only.

Even at these conservative figures the current “release” rate of about 20% means that two out of ten salespeople employed in the UK will turnover in any given year – at a minimum annual cost of £56K.

Looking at the total sales force and taking account of other positions that will also suffer turnover, it can be seen that the cost of employee turnover is considerable.

So, anything that can be done to ensure that new hires are fitted to their jobs in a manner that will ensure their success, and reduce the likelihood of an early separation is going to result in considerable savings to the organisation. This objective can be met by The Profile XT

the job match/retention & productivity link
There is an approach to hiring, which is proven to improve the match of a candidate to the position such that productivity and job success is significantly increased and the likelihood of turnover or “release” is dramatically reduced.

Harvard Business Review published the largest study ever undertaken into this area. This study was entitled “Job Matching for Sales Success” and it followed 360,000 people through their sales careers over a twenty year period (in US, UK and Canada) to determine what made for success in sales positions.

Success was defined as the ability a person to excel in a given position and the ability for the organisation to effectively retain this high performer. What they found was that traditional approaches to hiring sales people, where decisions are made on the basis of experience, technical skills, age, and qualifications alone tended to be unsuccessful in identifying successful sales candidates. They found that a much more effective approach to hiring salespeople was to match the prospective candidates to the target position in terms of their core abilities, their interest in the position, and their personality fit to the position and organisation.

They found that when organisations hired using such a job matching process that they could increase sales productivity dramatically, and reduce employee turnover by as much as a factor of five.

This job matching approach is proven to dramatically reduce employee turnover and will therefore reduce the cost of employee turnover if it were implemented. The saving that would result from making just one better hiring decision as a consequence of implementing The Profile XT is many times the cost of implementation. The cost of implementation is dependent on the number of staff assessed.

Knowing what makes their best performers so successful using this assessment process, allows a organisation to identify and recruit only those people who match the positions of their top performers.

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available languages
For multi-nationals or organisations with multi-national staff it is important to assess individuals in their own language. This is particularly so where an assessment is being made of an individual's verbal reasoning. It is then imperative to do it in their own language.

New languages are being added all the time, so please call us if the language you require is not mentioned here - tel. +44 (0)1491 636300 or e-mail info@anovacoms.com.

For example, the Profile XT is available in 32 languages, two different versions of English (UK, USA), two different versions of French (French, French Canadian) and two different versions of Spanish (Castillian, Latin American).

Our assessments are available in (please see individual products as they may be available in more languages):
Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English (UK, US)
French (French, French Canadian)
German
Greek
Hungarian
Italian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Spanish (Castillian, Latin American)
Swedish

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why DISC type tools like Myers Briggs, McQuaid, Thomas and any other ipsative assessments are not valid as a recruiting tool.
The Normative versus Ipsative view

The following was taken from an interview in July 2005.
Dr. Lindley is a well respected assessment specialist in the British Psychological Society:
“...Myers Briggs amongst others is a test everyone knows, but at the same time experts say don’t use it in recruitment. What can personality tests do for us in recruitment?”

Dr. Lindley: “Certainly I’d agree that Myers-Briggs should not be used for selection. The people who developed, publish and market Myers-Briggs would also stress that. It isn’t a tool for selection; rather it’s a tool for personal development. It can be used in groups to help individuals understand one another but it’s certainly not a selection test.

For selection, you want to rule out tests that are just referring to yourself rather than comparing you to a larger population. Anything that talks about how you are better at one thing than another, but doesn’t compare you to the outside world, isn’t helpful. The technical term for these types of tests is ipsative tests. An ipsative test would ask; ‘Which do you prefer, being in control or being active?’. You might like both or you might hate both and you may say you would like to be in control even though you might actually prefer to be active. You might be operating at a very low level or a very high level but all ipsative tests tell you is which one you prefer rather than how that preference compares to the other candidates”.

The Profile XT is a normative assessment that overcomes all of the shortcomings of ipsative tools described. The profile XT compares the assessed candidate to two key audiences in the ‘outside world’ referred to by Dr. Lindley above:
- The general working population as represented by a sample of more than 219,000 assessment takers that form part of the validation and reliability studies for the Profile XT (no assessment provider has a larger population of assessment takers in their validation study population, and this number is rising all the time thanks to ongoing research and the Profile XT’s increasing success).
- The population of ‘top performers’ in the position that the person is applying for in the form of the job profile (we call this a concurrent job pattern) developed from these top performers PXT results.

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