As degrees and education are being sidelined from job requirements (primarily due to job requirement inflation), employers need to determine if the applicant’s skills meet the level required to be successful for the job. The jobs themselves likely don’t require degrees, but rather specific skill levels that the degree requirements have screened out, leading to a dearth of candidates for the specific job. By opening the pool, employers have also increased the diversity of the pool of potential employees.
With respect to degrees, the U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that around two out of three working-age people lack a bachelor’s degree, and more than one out of two do not have an associate’s degree. With tertiary degrees costing more and Generation Z believing that the advanced degree is not worth the paper printed on because of debt, employers are seeking ways to create a viable workforce in the future, and the Swiss or German style apprenticeships are growing in popularity. These apprenticeships can be for any job, not just blue collar, but require long-term commitment by both parties.
Employers are bringing back assessments as the means to identify viable candidates for whatever approach and program they want to use to bring in new employees. The aptitude/skills-based approach with the use of assessments generally raises the level of candidates that would be considered by employers. These assessments have to be used wisely though and must comply with the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), which was adopted by the EEOC in 1978.
The purpose of UGESP is to evaluate whether a test or assessment has an adverse impact on the employment opportunities of members of a race, color, religion, sex, or national origin group and thus disproportionately screens them out. This is unlawfully discriminatory unless the process or its component procedures have been validated in accord with the Guidelines or the user otherwise justifies them in accord with Federal law.
The more common types of tests that are out there include:
- Cognitive tests that assess reasoning, memory, perceptual speed and accuracy, and skills in arithmetic and reading comprehension, as well as knowledge of a particular function or job and many times has adverse impact with statistical significance against lower income candidates;
- Physical ability tests measure the physical ability to perform a particular task or the strength of specific muscle groups, as well as strength and stamina in general and many times has adverse impact with statistical significance against women;
- Sample job tasks (e.g., performance tests, simulations, work samples, and realistic job previews) assess performance and aptitude on particular tasks which could adversely impact the disabled and interestingly enough males; and
- Personality tests and integrity tests assess the degree to which a person has certain traits or dispositions (e.g., dependability, cooperativeness, safety) or aim to predict the likelihood that a person will engage in certain conduct (e.g., theft, absenteeism).
Many times, the test provider will say that the test was fully validated, whatever that means. However, if looking at tests, no test is 100% correlated, but generally a validated test would be around .2-.4 correlation and should have been validated in the past five years of the population that would be recruited, whether by race or gender and by location.
There are four types of validations:
- Construct validity: Does the test measure the concept that it’s intended to measure?
- Content validity: Is the test fully representative of what it aims to measure?
- Face validity: Does the content of the test appear to be suitable to its aims?
- Criterion validity: Do the results accurately measure the concrete outcome they are designed to measure?
Further, if using off the shelf test, the test should have portability testing, meaning the jobs being tested are confirmed in the library of jobs for the test and these jobs are relatable to the jobs being tested.
Finally, the worst thing that could happen in a recruitment situation is that a hiring manager makes up a test that HR did not know about. Without validation, a lawsuit based on test results would likely result in liability of some kind. HR should inventory all tests being used, whether for external or internal candidates, ensure validation, and stop the use of invalidated tests unless money is spent to validate it. Further, all demographic information needs to be collected and maintained to measure any adverse impact with statistical significance is not occurring. Even if the test has been validated, the question will be whether there is another test that has less impact against candidates.
By Anthony Kaylin, courtesy of SBAM-approved partner, ASE.
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