Corvirtus Blog

8 Questions to Ask an Assessment Provider

Written by Sam Lawson | Mar 31, 2020 4:35:40 PM

To Avoid Risk, Ask These Questions

Eight “Yes!” answers you need from your assessment provider

Most strategies and new programs fail to reach their intended results – estimates are as high as 90%. This figure is even higher for those targeting outcomes as complex as building culture and performance.

Uncertainty or misalignment around what to look for when selecting an assessment provider for employee selection, development, or promotion can derail performance and your culture. From our four decades working with organizations across industries, we have developed a suite of assessments that predict performance and results – helping your teams hire to consistent standards and strengthen your culture.

Why Corvirtus? In the same way that good leaders are good answers to the question “Why should I follow you?” good assessment vendors are good answers to the question “What differentiates you from other providers?” We provide answers to these questions!

1. Are your assessments validated? What is your approach for validation?

All of our assessments are validated for different job groups, including entry-, management-, and executive-level. When an assessment is valid, it’s scientifically proven to predict and relate to competencies that it’s designed to measure. Our assessments are statistically linked to job performance and organizational key performance indicators (KPIs), like turnover. Our team has the knowledge and resources to conduct local validation studies, which involves validating a battery of assessments for a specific organization, and sampling their employees. This is something we not only encourage for each of our Customers, but it allows us to create custom benchmarks for performance on the different assessments – helping organizations hire individuals who will perform, fit their culture, and stay.

2. How will the assessment be built? How will it be customized to our specific needs for performance and culture?

We begin by consulting with your team to understand the performance dimensions critical for success and culture-fit. Then, we customize our assessments to reflect your brand, language, and values. Certain questions on our assessments can be resurfaced to be more relevant to your culture and the situations that one might encounter on the job. Additionally, our assessment results can be customized with competencies and performance-based narratives that speak your language, helping to secure buy-in and support for the solution, while ensuring that you are hiring to meaningful and consistent standards.

Our assessments are grouped into three types – Personality and Culture-building, Ability, and Situational. Personality and Culture-building assessments screen for qualities critical to performance and cultural fit. Ability assessments measure candidates’ ability to problem-solve, learn and process new information quickly, and mental horsepower. From our research and that of the field of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology, we know that problem-solving ability is one of the strongest predictors of job performance. Situational assessments present candidates with job-relevant situations based on critical incidents, and provide insight into how candidates will behave during and handle challenging situations on the job. What’s more, we can mix and match different assessments to create unique assessment bundles for specific positions or job groups. An assessment bundle might include a test of cognitive ability, a situational assessment, and a measure of personality. Having a variety of assessment types in one bundle dramatically improves the candidate experience (we’ll explain why this is important next), while predicting the likelihood of job success.

3. Is the candidate experience engaging? What is your candidate completion rate?

Validated assessments with job-related content make candidates believe they were evaluated fairly, and educates them about your organization, culture, and expectations. This is usually the person’s first, or most in-depth, experience of your company. Because assessments use a variety of questions, and are an appropriate length to the role, candidates are likely to form positive impressions of your organization. We live in a connected world. Your candidates are part of your industry, are often your customers, and you want them to leave with a positive impression of your enterprise.

Because of our careful approach to test construction, our completion rates range from 90-95%. Extremely long assessments frustrate candidates, while those that are too short for what they attempt to measure not only affects their validity, but candidate satisfaction, as candidates may feel that they didn’t have a sufficient opportunity to perform and demonstrate who they are. To further enhance the candidate experience, we let candidates know approximately how long the assessment will take to complete – and illustrate their progress with a tracking bar that follows the candidate through the assessment, shown below.

4. Is the candidate experience mobile responsive?

While we’re on the topic of candidate experience, all of our assessments are mobile responsive and optimized. We know that more than 50% of candidates, especially those applying for entry-level positions, begin the process on a mobile device. Candidates can complete the entire assessment on a mobile device, tablet, or computer. They can also start on one device and finish on another. And, because our assessments are mobile responsive, the content (i.e., questions and response options) will automatically adjust to fit the size of the screen that the candidate is using, resulting in a candidate-friendly interface.

5. Are assessment reports adapted to meet the needs of our hiring managers?

Unlike many assessments on the market, there is no extensive training or certification required to understand our assessment results. Our results are designed with our users in mind – operators, recruiters, and managers – to provide all of the information you need, when you need it. Users are immediately provided with an overall recommendation for the candidate, as well as how the candidate performed on the different competencies measured by the assessment. Additionally, users are able to view information for each competency that describes the candidate’s expected behavior and potential to perform, if hired. The information in the assessment result is designed to streamline and inform your decision making process by providing that overall recommendation and competency-based strengths and opportunities. Beyond hiring, the assessment result provides the user with information on how to support the candidate’s success if they are hired. Our assessment results are web-based and scored immediately after a candidate submits their assessment. Results can easily be printed out or shared with others electronically.

6. Are your assessments compliant with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Guidelines? Do they avoid Adverse Impact? What is your approach to legal defensibility?

Our assessments have never been called into legal question in our four decades of work. Our assessments are ADA-compliant, and our interface is designed to counter color-blindness and individuals with visual impairments. None of our assessments are time-sensitive, meaning that candidates may complete them at their own pace. Furthermore, our assessments auto-scroll between questions, significantly reducing the probability of a candidate missing a question. Combined, these features create a legally-defensible and positive candidate experience that keeps them engaged throughout the process, reducing candidate abandonment. Our assessments also comply with the standards set forth by the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, and we provide candidates with the option to provide information to the EEOC. While this information is entirely optional for candidates to provide, collecting it allows us to monitor our assessments for adverse impact to ensure candidates of protected groups are not failing our assessments at a disproportionately higher rate than others. We have you covered.

7. Do you partner with us to document return-on-investment?

All of our assessments are validated, but what about demonstrating results for your unique enterprise? As part of our partnership with you, we measure the return-on-investment (ROI) of our assessments by linking assessment results to your own key performance indicators, like turnover, customer/stakeholder satisfaction and outcomes, and performance measures valuable to your culture. We relish the opportunity to show our Customers the impact our assessments have when it comes to hiring and retaining top performers, and on their bottom line. To this point, one of our clients with locations across the country found that employees who failed the assessment but were hired were twice as likely to be terminated. After just one year of implementation, Corvirtus assessments have helped companies achieve the following:

8. Will we have dedicated members of your team to provide support?

Ticket systems are not our thing. We believe in forming positive relationships with each one of our Customers – each one has a dedicated account manager at all times, as well as access to I-O Psychologists and practitioners. You will never need to worry about waiting long periods of time for a response or have a concern addressed. Our account managers are committed to exceeding your expectations and addressing problems or questions immediately via phone or email.

Are you ready to better understand candidate behavior, characteristics, and traits and reduce your time to hire? With our customizable predictive skills testing and hiring assessments, now you can. Contact us today to start a conversation.

Read our blog: Increasing Your Odds Using Hiring Assessments to Beat the House