Are online job candidate assessment services/tools worth the cost?

Putting the right person in the right job is crucial to your company's success.  Business Success Tools uses a 3-step job benchmarking process that provides the structure and tools necessary to improve hiring success.

#1 - Benchmark jobs, not people - Because we want to make sure the talent the job requires matches the talent the person has to offer, we benchmark jobs.  After all, we may find that those employees you thought were A players, are actually C players when we compare them to what the job actually calls for.

#2 - Assess the job candidates using a suite of candidate assessment tools - We measure the exact same talent and performance factors for each job candidate as those identified as most important during the job benchmarking step.  This multi-dimensional view identifies a job candidate's behaviors, driving values and motivators, as well as a hierarchy of over 75 key performance competencies.

#3 - Match the most talented job candidates to the job's requirements, as defined by the job benchmark.  Matching the best talent to the needs of the job helps us remove bias and guesswork during the hiring process.

Yes, if chosen wisely, assessed mindfully and it is objective in nature to an extent to result out the correct information related to a candidate.

Hi Tony,

The cost of replacing an employee, particularly one in an upper-management position, can average three to five times their annual salary, but many employers have found that pre-employment assessments can save them significant amounts of time and money. Since studies show that personality assessments can be a reliable predictor of an individual's fit with a company and of their overall performance, it makes sense that some companies are willing to invest in such screening tools to save themselves money in the long run. Certainly, online job assessment tools aren't the only thing being used as part of the hiring process and most employers will admit that they may or may not be the deciding factor when it comes to making a hiring decision. Results of an assessment test may contradict or completely support the conclusions of an interview, but ultimately the employer needs to make a decision based on what they feel is best for their company. However, if they're unsure about a candidate and an assessment supports the idea that they may be a bad fit, it can help finalize a decision. So, definetly my support is that online job assessment helps in finding new employee...

Viewing the topic in two aspects viz, the cost effectiveness & secondly, the so selected candidates for application in the described job.

Firstly, it is really difficult to attend all interviews by candidates in person everywhere particularly, the companies are far and wide & located overseas. So, the on-line assessment is to bear this in mind & add it in overhead expense while doing so.In most of the cases, the company finds its cheaper because the candidates and the companies are very much spread over a very large geographical area to be covered.

Secondly, the on-line assessment is accepted on the basis of the system the company has.Mean to say that the assessment may be considered for the inbuilt facility the company has,particularly, to train him/familiarize him before placing him on actual job.

That is the profile is matched with the job, system available & the personality through CV presentation. So, by and large, it facilitates right candidate to the job.

As discussed here in the support team, always there is an expert individual in the job field ,analyze the result & forward the recommendation for selection.

May be a few failure but that can not be to a significant level.

what i believe is human intelligence should be used where it is required. Assessment/screening of candidates could be done using some software or online methods. the result should be used by HR people to understand the candidate's capabilities. Online assessment could help in pre-screening and screening part of recruitments. 

HR people should have more time where they could match the candidates quality with job requirement. Online assessment tools can give them both time and the initial report to work on.

It depends. I have laid out the arguments against DiSC and Myers-Briggs
http://snipurl.com/v0j2u. In my view, and that of reality they indicate tendencies and whilst they do raise the effectiveness of hiring decisions from 20% to 40% (CIPD) they are not predictors of success.

What does score is competency based hiring like the OMG suite and skills based hiring using empirical methods based on required skills. I reproduced an article from Dave Kurlan of OMG in my blog http://snipurl.com/v0j9i on the 10 Reasons for HR and Sales Management to Hire Winning Salespeople Using Assessments. To put this in perspective the data that drives this article is based on around a half million salespeople and is externally verified at 95% accurate.

Finally there is a chart  http://snipurl.com/v0jhx showing how ineffective hiring is using the traditional CV 2 Interviews and a presentation method (CV2IP) .

And really finally the screening MUST be carried out at the beginning of the selection cycle, not after the managers have already made their decision.

Yes, but only if the detailed assessment results are properly matched to the nature of the specific job in question. This means it still requires a strongly subjective value judgment be made by the decision-maker, in many cases is the hiring manager who is not trained in psychometrically matching character atributes to succesful job execution and long-term retention.