What Makes For A Good Behavioral Assessment
We often get calls from organizations looking to improve people related matters, and they feel a good behavioral assessment would be a valuable tool to help them reach their goals. The question is, what makes a behavioral assessment good? Let’s look at the key components of a good behavioral assessment so your organization can get the information you need to achieve some really cool goals.
The primary component that separates a good assessment from an every day assessment is the level of data reliability, figured on a test retest basis. You want to make sure the assessment you choose has a data reliability upwards of .80, or 80% accuracy because it will dramatically expand the width of decisions you can make and seriously help you achieve the goals. The only way to achieve this high level of data reliability is to use a normative assessment that has been normed off of working America.
Start by knowing this. There are two kinds of behavioral assessments. 1. Ipsative assessments. 2 Normative assessments. An ipsative assessment is really a self-opinion survey. It subjectively asks the candidate their opinion of themselves so it is only as accurate as a candidate knows themself, or is willing to disclose information about themselves. Ones opinion of themselves can change, moods can swing, and that accounts for the low data reliability. Usually a .4 – .6. Data that is only 40%-60% accurate does not lend itself to good decision outcomes. Plus, ipsative assessments are also easy to fake and are better suited to allow candidates to reveal what they think people want to hear, and not what hiring managers want to know. This category of assessments can be identified because they normally report in a four category format. Four numbers, four letters, four colors etc. Data (more like opinions) from ipsative assessments is not empirical or based in science so it becomes irrelevant very quickly.
It is better to discover what a good normative assessment like Talent Traits® can offer. High data reliability on candidates allows the organization to:
• Learn behaviors about people that are not known or hard to detect.
• Help leaders understand their leadership DNA with great accuracy.
• Hire, place, and onboard the right people with great confidence.
• Develop high performing company specific success patterns to hire to.
• Scientifically compare candidate behaviors to each other and working America.
• Re-use the assessment for years beginning with job placement to on boarding, to coaching and managing, to leadership development, to succession planning, to team building.
Other critical components to understand when evaluating a good normative assessment like Talent Traits® are:
• Ensure the assessments targets a specific level of employee like high level executives, mid level, or entry level.
• Ensure data accuracy with questions that Siri cannot help with or have limited Googleability.
• Reporting is at no additional cost. When pulling reports costs extra, then usage is limited thus impairing good decisions.
• Ensure the assessment runs off of a modern data platform so anybody involved can take the assessment and evaluate data on mobile devices in real time and not have to wait to get back to the office or have access to a laptop and internet service.
Ipsative assessments are fun and can have some level of application to team building efforts. But if the purpose of using an assessment gets strategic, then it is time to move from fun to achieving serious goals. That will take a normative assessment like Talent Trait® with high data reliability.