With today’s emphasis on leaner workplace practices, each employee plays a particularly critical role. Tough economic times that are well understood offer employers the rationale they need to optimise their workforce and while issues of talent management remain, the process begins with an effective recruitment and selection strategy. Now more than ever, your best performers are the ones who will make the most difference and as each new graduate presents an opportunity to increase productivity, an organisation’s success (or failure) will often rely on its ability to recruit, select and ultimately retain talent of the highest calibre (Taylor, 2007).
The advantages of psychometric assessments in recruitment and selection are well documented and as such have been used in the United States for over 50 years (Schmidt & Hunter, 1981). Scientific research continues to support the effectiveness of psychometric measures to predict on-the job performance and highlights the immense labour cost savings gained from accurate use. One particularly noteworthy study conducted by leading researchers in the assessment field Schmidt and Hunter (1981), suggested that the use of psychometric tests for selection and hiring alone can produce savings ranging from $18 million per year for medium sized employers (5,000 employees) to $16 billion per year for large employers (4,000,000 employees) such as the federal government.
Effective recruitment and selection techniques also promote employee engagement, job satisfaction, retention and increase performance levels (Steenwyk, 2008). As such, the realisation of the potentially damaging impacts of inadequate selection and employee development programs -
|
| |
|
- has lead to the refinement of these processes and the continued use of scientifically supported tools removing the ‘guess work’ from graduate recruitment practices.
Furthermore, recent advancements in the predicative accuracy of these technologies have resulted in even greater gains for employers, with numerous studies finding that organisational savings and return is directly proportional to increases in the validity (test accuracy) of these assessments (Goffin, Rothstein, & Johnston, 1996). The validity of these tools is further enhanced with the use of a ‘test battery’, which includes the administration of several role specific measures of assessment, securing the reliability of the selection process and increasing its predictive accuracy (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998).
An effective test battery for graduate selection and recruitment purposes will generally include tests of:
- Cognitive Ability which predicts between 20-25% of performance – (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998)
- Personality measurement which provides complimentary prediction of between 10-15% of performance – (Barrick, Steward, & Piotrowski, 2002)
- Emotional intelligence which can contribute an additional 12-20% to the predictive ability – (Stough & Gardner, 2002)
However in a climate of uncertainly it is the high performers who have the most mobility and while effective recruitment practices continue to sustain this process, the utility of such tools in the effective development and growth of graduate hires will ensure a consistent drive through 2009.
|
| |
|
