Last month I asked you, my gentle readers, for your thoughts and advice about pre-employment assessments. Well, y’all responded like apple addicts to an iphone release! And by that, I mean you responded in droves – not that you lost your cool for a little piece of plastic (see image at right).

First, here are some nuggets of advice you offered about assessments in general:

• Let the assessments inform your decision; but don’t let them make the decision for you. From one reader:  “While assessments can measure objective traits, I have not found one that is able to measure subjective traits such as how well a potential employee will fit into the organizational culture.”
• Assessments can create a one-dimensional organization. From another reader: “When I was hired at P&G, I was one of the three students in an MBA program that “passed” the test and secured an interview based on their assessment. If you compared the other two individuals who passed, we were very similar. P&G employees in Cincinnati were often referred to as “proctoids” because we talked, thought and acted the same.”
• Be wary of how candidates will respond to testing. Several people reached out to say they thought testing is offensive. The best quote: “I presented myself with full résumé, work samples, extensive workplace references and case studies on previous work projects.  If this evidence doesn’t trump a “personality” test that felt more like a word-plat game, then I am not their kind of guy because they are not my kind of employer/workplace.” Well said!

Several of you recommended assessments that you thought were valuable. Among them:

• The Birkman Method – Shaka Mitchell shared this: “I thought the analysis was EXCELLENT. And I went in as a complete skeptic. The instrument not only gives personal insight but it is possible to run the analysis between two test takers so that you get great comparative insights like: ‘When communicating a problem to KITTLE, DOE should be sensitive to his need for positive feedback and acknowledge that the decision is data-driven.”
• Right Path – From Ben Stafford: “I think there’s a lot to be said for Right Path. Some recent work on decision making has shown that when we objectify beforehand and tell ourselves what the parameters are, then we make better decisions than otherwise. Hiring based on a good/thorough personality test is a part of that (DISC, and a few others are not thorough at all).  One way to apply this in hiring is to grade an applicant’s answers to each interview question and then determine beforehand, what the total must be for a hire (like higher than a 120).   It’s been found that when decisions are made like this much better results come about than if someone is hired (for instance) on a gut feeling, even though the numbers just didn’t add up.”
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – While not necessarily used as a pre-employment tool, the Myers-Briggs inventory is often used by organizations to assess talent. From Lyall Swim: “My experience/recommendation is two-fold. One it is important to remember thatthese assessments are not fool proof. They simply represent one more piece of data that can help inform the process and provide context. But to rely heavily on these assessments in making a hiring decision probably means you are walking away from some great candidates that don’t fit a profile test. The book “How to Lie with Statistics” helps outline some of the pitfalls of these test. In addition, here’s great recent article on the MBTI with respect to that: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130917155206-69244073-say-goodbye-to-mbti-the-fad-that-won-t-die.

And one group recommended against using an assessment called Profiles XT. The organization didn’t think the results offered enough insight to justify the time and money invested in them.

Finally, you’ll remember that the theme of last month’s e-newsletter was my burning desire for an “eHarmony for hiring.” Well, apparently Neil Clark Warren can read minds; it turns out eHarmony is moving into the job search space! Misty Guard shared this article: http://www.inc.com/samuel-wagreich/eharmony-hire-your-soulmate.html.

Surely you recognize this endearing fellow from television. He’s the founder of eHarmony who promises his site can match you with your soul mate using 29 Dimensions of Compatibility. I saw one of his commercials the other day and thought to myself, “Self, wouldn’t you love to have an e-Harmony for hiring?”

But as Brent Musburger likes to say, nothing doing.

While we don’t have an e-Harmony for hiring, there are pre-employment assessments that can help you decide whether a candidate will be a good fit for the role and/or your organization. I know such evaluations exist; but, admittedly, I’m a novice. Once again, I’d like to solicit your advice. What can you tell me about your experience utilizing pre-employment personality assessments for candidates? 

A former boss of mine swore by these assessments. He told me he had hired dozens of people using a test. Without fail, those whose test results matched the temperament for the job succeeded. Likewise, on the occasions that he hired people despite their lackluster assessment, he ended up having to let them go.

Others I’ve worked with over the years have turned their noses up at assessments. One of the arguments against such tests is that results aren’t necessarily predictors of how the person will actually perform on the job. And, of course, there is the worrisome notion of (partially) ceding your hiring decisions to a test.

Alas, I turn to you with questions, gentle readers.

• What do you know about pre-employment personality assessments?
• What kinds have you used – DISC, Caliper, 16PF?
• What results did you see? Did utilizing these assessments improve your hiring?
• Do you utilize these tests for some roles and not others?
• What about costs? Are my clients going to have to rob a convenience store to afford them?

I look forward to hearing from you about your experience with pre-employment assessments. And if you have e-Harmony stories to share as well, that will be buttercream icing on the cake.

Three hours in a canoe. Sounds like a bad first date, a sub-par reality show, or a game risqué teenagers play, right?  In fact, it’s none of the above. It is actually a bit of hiring advice a client recently shared with me.

Here’s the very simple counsel: don’t hire anyone you wouldn’t want to spend three hours alone with in a canoe.

It’s pretty solid advice if you think about it. Work is full of difficulties: deadlines, miscommunications, competing goals, board meetings, donor mishaps, and the like. If you’ve hired someone you work well with, you can overcome these trials and tribulations together.  But if you’ve hired someone you don’t get along well with or don’t respect, well, one of you might end up going overboard.

If the Three Hours In a Canoe Rule holds, so does the opposite. That is, don’t hire someone simply because you would want to spend three hours alone with him in a canoe.

Case in point, a friend of mine tells the story of a gentlemen her organization hired because everyone adored him. He was witty, charming, high energy, and infinitely intriguing. Let’s just call him The Most Interesting Man in the World. Well, it’s a good thing people liked him because it turns out he wasn’t worth a hoot on the job. Sure, everyone wanted to go to happy hour with him after work, but that was about the only value he added to the organization.

In retrospect, the hiring managers realized they had swooned over him during the interview process and overlooked some critical flaws. Instead of paying attention to the substance of his answers, they had focused on his humor and charisma – your classic case of all sizzle and no steak.

In the end, The Most Interesting Man in the World became The Most Unemployed Man Inside the Beltway. And the organization was better off because of it.

Alas, next time you make a hire, remember the Three Hours in a Canoe Rule and its opposing directive.

A while back, a client of mine developed a raging case of heartburn after learning a new hire didn’t have the writing skills the client thought he did.  The employee excelled in other areas, but no Billy Shakespeare was he.