Archives for Job Testing

Globalization has expanded the opportunities of where we work and for whom we work. But how do global firms ensure that the people they hire locally are suited - from a standpoint of analytic skills, aptitude, and personality - for globally collaborative assignments?

According to hiring consultants and human-resources executives at international companies, it’s crucial for employers to hire firms that specialize in so-called psychometric testing. Only by working with those experts, who understand local cultural issues, can you devise a test that reveals an applicant’s capabilities. Maarten Van Beek, leadership and organizational effectiveness manager for international consumer-products firm Unilever in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, says, “Our competency model is used globally, but all tests are conducted locally. We need to assure that we take local or cultural differences into accordance.”

Sound simple? It’s not. Even experts disagree on the efficacy of such tests.

Take the commonly used Myers-Briggs personality test, which measures characteristics such as introversion vs. extroversion, or how much you rely on logic versus emotion. The Web site of the Myers & Briggs Foundation says that all types appear in “all cultures studied to date.” And Dr. Dennis Doverspike, a consultant in human resource management and a professor of psychology at the University of Akron in Ohio, concurs that it’s a valid test for measuring basic personality traits on a global basis. “As long as you’re talking about modernized countries with basic educational systems, personality characteristics, aptitudes and skills are pretty much globally consistent.”

Umesh Ramakrishnan, vice chairman of Christian & Timbers, a global recruiting firm, isn’t so sure. “It may be accurate on a global basis 70 percent, but there are aspects of Myers-Briggs that don’t necessarily test across geographies,” he warns. “In one culture, someone may have a quiet intensity, whereas in another culture, if it isn’t visible, they may not be considered aggressive enough to be in sales.”

Dr. Karine Schomer, president of Alameda, Calif.-based Change Management Consulting & Training, who has worked with Indian companies for 25 years and spent eight years living there, concurs that some tests may not be constructed as well as they could be. She believes that employment testing is as advanced as educational testing. “People know that when you administer aptitude tests for sixth graders, you need to weight the test based on where they come from culturally. That hasn’t been done in employment tests.”

That doesn’t mean that the currently accepted methods of working with local psychometric terms are invalid. It only means that hiring managers need to be even more assiduous in ensuring that tests are culturally appropriate.

Have you ever encountered a test, either as a recruiter, hiring manager or an applicant, that you felt failed to reveal accurate results about the person taking it?

Editor’s note: This is the first of two posts on pre-hire tests in the flat world. Part 2 runs Tuesday: “Can You Prepare For a Pre-Employment Test?”