Armchair Testing

Recruiters want to test job applicants over the Internet. It turns out not everything is meant to be Webified.

By Joanne Gordon

Phoenix-based Inter-Tel, a telecom software company, used to have its sales applicants take a written personality test to see who was self-motivated, outgoing and energetic. Each three-hour test cost the company about $60, and it took days to get results from the testing firm. All told, testing ran $600 per hire because only one out of ten candidates got a job.

Last year the company swapped its paper-and-pencil version for an on-line test. Applicants now take a test from their own computers before being considered for an interview. A compter-generated report is available in minutes to hiring managers. Because it weeds out people up front, recruiters waste less time interviewing unqualified candidates. Cost: $25 each hire.

The Internet has already revolutionized the job hunt. Now, in the next step, online testing is being hawked as a tool to screen job applicants. A slew of small outfits, such as Fitability Systems, Q-Hire and Epredix.com, are crowding into the market, while big test providers, like Chicago-based Reid London House, are exploring the Internet too.

Atlanta-based Fitability has sold its screening test to 63 companies, including Inter-Tel and Yahoo. The tool measures job candidates against traits that it culled from a database of 130,000 professionals’ profiles.

Sounds good at first blush, but think carefully before committing your company. An online test provider charges anywhere from $25 to $125 for each person who takes the test—costs decrease as test-takers increase. But Internet tests have limited use. Like automated telephone interviews that screen entry-level workers, Internet testing can replace only the most basic types of psychological assessments. The tests can predict someone’s integrity and some personality traits, but not more complex characteristics like cognitive ability. An applicant can obviously cheat on a math test. “We can predict a trait but not if they will be successful at a particular job,” admits J. Reginald Campbell, Fitability’s chief executive.

Online testing also raises reliability questions. Security is the most obvious pitfall. It’s impossible to know who’s really taking the test—the ex-con applicant or his brother the priest.

Also, good results are in part dependent on controlled conditions for all test-takers, such as a quiet room with good light and a time of day when people are alert. People who are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with computers may be at a disadvantage.

Thus companies could be vulnerable to discrimination suits by applicants claiming they’ve been unfairly eliminated. That’s one reason even the test providers say that their Internet assessments should be used along with a face-to-face interview.

A few employers are writing their own online tests. Ford Motor created a 30-minute assessment last year for finance, marketing and other salaried positions. But it’s confined to asking applicants about job history, business knowledge and willingness to, say, relocate. Ford concluded that Internet security wasn’t stringent enough to ask applicants to complete psychological tests online.

Unless your company reviews thousands of applicants each year, we would not recommend writing your own test. Research, writing and validating a legally defensible personality test—online or on paper—can cost from $100,000 to $300,000. Add to that salaries for an on-site industrial psychologist and a technology staff.

Is employment testing worthwhile? It’s been used since the early 1900s, and today about 40% of midsize and large companies put applicants through some sort of psychological assessment, according to the American Management Association. The Association of Test Publishers claims its members’ sales of employment tests are growing 10% annually.

Proponents echo Daniel Masden, an industrial psychologist with Temple-Inland, a Diboll, Tex.-based wood products company, which uses 15 different tests: “If we can eliminate just one bad hire, we’ve paid for our testing for the entire year.”

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Forbes; April 16, 2001