At Corvirtus, we work closely with Customers to educate them on the tremendous advantages of using our assessments to drive performance, fit, and retention. As a result, our Customers reap the benefits of an increase to their bottom line and potential for growth. In the next two blogs we’ll highlight some of the common excuses we hear from business and HR leaders for not using assessments.
1. Its an Unneeded Expense. A lot of arguments are made that you shouldn’t think of it as an expense – it’s an investment. While this is certainly true, I also understand that assessments are in fact an expense on a P&L statement, just as employee compensation is, and therefore you need to be able to justify that expense. The easiest way to think of it is as “finding extra money”- and who doesn’t love that? When you utilize pre-employment assessments you can see increases in income (sales and productivity) and decreases in other expenses (comps, turnover, and recruiting costs). And don’t forget about the cost of a bad hire – lost sales, decreased productivity and employee morale, and the negative impact on your brand and culture. In a recent CareerBuilder survey 42% of companies reported that a bad hire cost them at least $25,000 in the past year, and 25% reported a loss of at least $50,000. When you really take a look at the tangible and intangible costs of a bad hire, using assessments is not an expense – it’s an investment.
2. My Company Is Too Small – There Is No Need for Them. You could argue that small companies need assessments more than large ones because they typically don’t have the resources or time to truly vet candidates or extra financial resources to cushion the blow of bad hires and turnover (not to mention the effects of those on the customer and employee experience, decreased sales, and customer satisfaction). Large companies certainly don’t want to spend unnecessary money on these things either, but they probably have a little bit more of a cushion! Small companies must heavily rely on having quality products and exceptional service, because customers may be harder to get and retain, versus a larger company. If you are a small company trying to grow, your employees are your reputation. The quality of the employees you hire directly impacts the quality of your customer experience. You need every hire to count and to be the best for the position and your company. Using a pre-employment assessment will help you do that.
I get this objection a lot and my first response is always: “If everyone knew the right answers then you would never have anyone discontinue on the assessment” – but we typically see a discontinue rate of 20 – 30%.The second argument is more technical – our assessments include multiple ways to measure competencies, which increases the accuracy of the assessment. In addition, certain types of assessments are more difficult to fake because there are pros and cons to each response, so the candidate may not know which one is correct. One of our assessments asks candidates to choose which activities they are most likely to complete. All activities are attractive – it would be difficult to know how to fake.
4. We Open Ourselves to Legal Risk.What will open you up to legal risk is when: 1) you lack evidence demonstrating the tool is job-related, and 2) the tool is being used improperly and inconsistently. Using an assessment can actually help you avoid legal risk because it discourages managers from using their personal biases to make a hiring decision. It also provides documentation to prove you have a structured, consistent hiring process. When you are not using a tool to help hire, you cannot ensure your managers are being consistent.
Click the link below if you want to learn about excuses five through eight.
