Cutting the High Cost of Poor Employee Selection

Feb 24
13:42

2009

Ira S Wolfe

Ira S Wolfe

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When you consider the high cost of a bad hire, the ROI associated with better pre-employment testing is significant. The cumulative effect of including personality, cognitive, and interest assessments increases the odds of success to nearly 70% and as high as 87% from the 50/50 success of using the only the interview.

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Copyright (c) 2009 Success Performance Solutions

A survey (Optimizing Recruiting Activity by Candidate Segment) found that 68% of people who quit coming to a restaurant did so because of attitude or employee indifference towards them. When considering the life time value of a customer,Cutting the High Cost of Poor Employee Selection Articles studies indicate it costs roughly 300 to 700 times an hourly worker's rate each time you have to fire and replace them - especially if this was your guest's first experience.

Research repeatedly indicates that pre-employment testing produces positive results. Analysis by DDI reveals that effective assessment testing can reduce hiring decision errors and increase the probability that a candidate who is hired has the skills, motivation, and experiences necessary to succeed. An ERE survey supported this conclusion with 70% of hiring managers stating that testing is beneficial to the organization.

When choosing which test types to use, companies should first consider what factors they hope to predict. Next they should make sure the tools are capable of predicting such factors and that they will fit the company objectives. Third, any assessment including the interview must ask valid, reliable, and job-relevant questions.

Since job success depends on different factors such as attitude, personality fit, general reasoning skills, and experience/education, organizations should be aware that no single test assesses all characteristics. Research suggests that assessments tests are most effective when used in conjunction with one another.

For instance, it is well documented that the reliability of the traditional interview at predicting job success is roughly 52% - that's just slightly better than flipping a coin! But when you add a reference and background check to the mix, the success rate jumps to 62% - better, but still a less than reliable process to select your organization's most important assets and to effectively manage recruiting and hiring costs.

The cumulative effect of including personality, cognitive, and interest assessments increases the odds of success to nearly 70% and as high as 87%. When you consider the high cost of a bad hire, the ROI associated with better pre-employment testing is significant.

Let's just say you intend to invest $10,000 in recruiting and hiring employees. By using the traditional interview as the primary method of screening employees, a business will hire 2 employees for every 1 that works out. The cost of hiring successful employees will consequently nearly double to $20,000.

But by adding selective testing to the process, you can improve hiring success up to 40% and reduce the cost of hiring from $20,000 (using only the interview) to under $15,000. Bu incorporating an interview, reference checks, and personality-attitude-interests-abilities testing into a hiring process called job matching, a business can nearly double its hiring success rate and simultaneously cut their hiring costs in half 'a substantial savings and ROI for any business.