According to Swider, Zimmerman, and Barrick, staffing, recruitment, and placement specialists are commonly viewed as a critical component of human resources (2015). This is because these experts are responsible for sourcing people, conducting initial interviews and screening, making communication decisions and conducting background checks, and developing an effective staffing strategy for an organization (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015). They are also tasked with labor force planning, which includes attribute prediction that may be relevant in the future in either the recruitment expert's role or as an integral part of staffing. Assessment is a cutting-edge topic in staffing and recruitment. Assessment can be either external or internal. External assessment occurs when companies seek to employ individuals whom are not part of the business to fill the open position. On the other hand, internal assessment takes place where the available job is to be taken be an employee of the same company for instance through promotion (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015). Deciding on the right assessment method to use in staffing and recruitment can be confusing owing to the availability of numerous assessment tool. Some of the assessment approaches that can be used include structured interviews, background checks, and talent measures. There is no single method of assessment that can be considered to be the best. Therefore, there is need to properly choose and appropriately administer the chosen method to ensure effective evaluation of a candidate. The challenge is to decide on which assessment method will provide the highest impact, based on the organization’s particular needs.
Assessment Methods
The organization can create its own assessment method to assess the candidate or can implement other company’s approach. These methods include integrity tests, assessment centers, cognitive ability tests, and interviews among others. However, the most popularly utilized exercise is job interviews (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015).All these approaches are used to gauge the aspirant's skills and capabilities and to find out any condition which is likely to be the root cause of failure in performance. The assessment technique must be suitable to nature of job and it also has to be exact as much as it can be in giving the information. The accuracy of assessment approach is based on the validity and how reachable the assessment technique is. The methods are as discussed below.
Cognitive Ability Test
Cognitive ability tests usually use problems or questions to gauge an individual’s capability to reason, learn faster, logic, reading understanding and other enduring mental capacities that are essential to success in various jobs (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015). This assessment approach tests the potential and aptitude of applicants to resolve problems related to their jobs by using their mental abilities like mathematical and verbal reasoning and also other capacities such as how fast the candidate can recognize the alphabetical letters.
Integrity Test
Integrity tests measure a candidate’s experience and attitudes that are related to an individual’s trustworthiness, pro-social behavior, reliability, and honesty. This test basically asks direct queries about earlier experiences concerning integrity and ethics or interests and preferences from which conclusions are made about possible future performance in these areas (Swider, Zimmerman, & Barrick, 2015). Integrity tests helps in identifying applicants who can be involved in dishonest, antisocial, and inappropriate behaviors in the workplace.
Personality test
Commonly assed personal traits at the workplace include openness to new experience, service orientation, optimism, pro-activity or initiative, emotional stability, agreeableness, and stress tolerance (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015).This approach of assessment measures characteristics that are connected to behavior at work, contentment with various features of work, and interpersonal relationship. The method is necessary in assessing whether persons have the prospective to be effective in jobs in which performance calls for a great deal of interactive relations or work in group settings.
Simulations
These assessment methods measure specific job knowledge and skills. However, the approach also assesses overall abilities like analytical skills, interpersonal skills, and organizational skills (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015). Simulations normally require the applicant to carry out tasks that are comparable or the same to those that are actually performed in the work to help gauge their level of competence and skills.
Interviews
Interviews differ substantially in their content. However, they help in assessing things like communication, teamwork, interpersonal skills, and job knowledge among other issues. Interview is the widely used assessment method. It can be conducted by phone or even face- to- face. It enables businesses to get temporary workers who are qualified and job seekers to find temporary and dependable work that can lead to permanent employment in future. Staffing firms are given powers to recruit by the companies they represent (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015). Areas that are considered during an interview session include experience and skills, self- analysis, qualification, and salary questions.
In identifying experience and skills, interview assists in assessing the applicant capability to work and perform well in a professional environment and any experience that might have prepared the person to do so (Swider, Zimmerman & Barrick, 2015). Candidates will be asked questions related to their computer skills, office experience and capacity to adhere to instructions and their knowledge about corporate hierarchy and many others. In self- analysis, interview helps determine an individual’s accomplishments and how differently he or she can do the job. The applicant is allowed to analyze him or herself and describe his/ her weaknesses and strengths which enable the interviewers to know the person’s capability to improve, self- worth, and desire to achieve.
Interviews also help determine the qualifications of an applicant. The individuals seeking employment may not all be qualified. Some may be overqualified whereas others can be under qualified. In the case where there are few job openings that are applied for by many candidates with proper qualifications, interviewers can ask questions that enable them understand why the persons need the job and what makes them leave their previous positions for that work (Swider, Zimmerman, & Barrick, 2015). Through interview, the salary expectation of the job seekers can also be known. If the applicant salary projection and what the company offers have a wide difference; there would be absolutely no reason to continue with the process.
It is important to note that it is better to use more than one assessment method during staffing and recruitment. This is because job success in most cases depends on a number of different types of performance (Phillips & Gully, 2015). You can also raise the efficiency of recruitment and staffing by joining assessment tools that determine diverse kinds of job performance. For example, combining an ability test with a personality test can improve the general predictive capacity of your selection system by above 20 percent.
Assessment method is the process of collecting and evaluating data about an individual for the purpose of providing a new job. The assessment method for contracting new worker is affected by organizational structure, number of applicants, business mode, and the nature of the job among others factors (Phillips & Gully, 2015). Moreover, choice of organizational assessment approach depends on cost, requirement of potential employee, and time. Employment of a new worker is done through planning, recruitment and selection. It is, therefore, essential for a company to use varied selection approaches for hiring appropriate persons to fill the business job vacancy and at the right time.
Internal assessment takes place when recruitment is done internally. That is, when the company decides to have one of the current employees fill the vacant position. Any method used in identifying and attracting job applicants from within the company is referred to as internal recruiting (Dahling, Winik, & Schoepfer & Chau, 2013). There are various formal and informal ways of recognizing quality internal applicants. Internal recruiting has some advantages as well as disadvantages compared with external recruiting. However, in both types of recruitment assessment of the candidates is an importance process which helps the organization to end up with appropriate employees to take the available position. The methods used to conduct an internal assessment include skills inventories, mentoring, job knowledge tests, performance reviews, tests conducted at assessment centers, and clinical assessments. Some of these approaches are explained below.
Job Knowledge Test
Job knowledge tests refers to the use of numerous choice queries or essay type items to asses professional and technical know-how and knowledge necessary for a particular profession or work (Dahling et. al., 2013). An example of job knowledge test can be blueprint reading and basic accounting test.
Assessment centers
An assessment center is a way of collecting necessary data about a person’s abilities to perform a certain work (Dahling et. al., 2013). It puts applicants through a sequence of individual and team exercises intended to be like the situation of a particular job and identifies if the candidates have the appropriate capabilities and skills to do the work. It does this by revealing the candidate’s conduct related to the job which is recognized by a group of assessors.
In general, assessment is an essential process in staffing and recruitment. Assessment can be either internal or external. Various methods of assessment that are applicable include cognitive test, personality test, integrity test, simulations, and interviews. Interviews help to measure an individual’s self- analysis, qualifications, salary expectations, and experience and skills. It is at times more efficient to use more than one assessment method. In internal assessment, different methods such as job knowledge test and assessment centers among others are used.
References
Dahling, J. J., Winik, L., Schoepfer, R., & Chau, S. (2013). Evaluating Contingent Workers as a Recruitment Source for Full‐time Positions.International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 21(2), 222-225.
Phillips, J. M., & Gully, S. M. (2015).Strategic staffing. Pearson.
Swider, B. W., Zimmerman, R. D., &Barrick, M. R. (2015).Searching for the right fit: Development of applicant person-organization fit perceptions during the recruitment process.Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(3), 880.
