Admit it: when asked to take an assessment, your first
impulse is to run for the hills. No
matter how well-prepared and confident you are, there’s something unsettling
about being assessed. Especially when
the assessment concerns your future career.
In reality, assessments are things to love, not dread. Let’s take a look at the facts behind five common
assessment fears and see if we can learn to love that assessment.
FEAR 1: Assessments aren’t fair
FACT 1: They're the fairest part of recruitment
When researchers compared the effectiveness of different
recruitment methods, they found that comprehensive assessment results were over 5 times better than job experience
at predicting future high performers, and at least twice as effective as other
common recruitment approaches.
Good assessments get these outstanding results because they
have been validated. In everyday
English, that means they have serious, long-term research behind them to prove
that they measure accurately and consistently, that they measure everyone in
the same way, and that their results really do predict performance at
work.
If you are a future star – which
of course you are – you should jump at the chance of taking an assessment as
the most reliable way to show your true worth.
FEAR 2: I forget everything I know when I take tests
FACT 2: Assessments are panic-proof
Good assessments are not about what you know, so much as how
you work. Not only is that a far
stronger predictor of how well you’ll do in the job, it also does not vary much
with nerves. Anxious people may forget
where they put the car keys, but they rarely undergo a personality
transformation, or radically change their core capabilities and
preferences. So long as you properly prepare yourself
for the assessment, you’ll do just fine.
Also, remember that no single answer or test will ever
totally determine your fate. Good
psychometric assessments use multiple approaches to assess each ability or
preference. Good recruiters look at the
complete person, using multiple assessments and other reliable selection
methods. They look for strengths, for
what you can bring to the job, for how you can contribute.
Your best chance of success comes from
answering assessments openly and honestly.
That way you will show your best and truest self, and dramatically
increase your chances of being matched to a job where you will succeed and be
fulfilled.
FEAR 3: Messing up could cost me my
dream job
FACT 3: Assessments help you get the right job
The power of assessments to reveal the truth about you works
both ways. If you do well on the
assessment, you can be confident that you will do well in the job. But what happens if the assessment reveals
you are not a great fit? Will it wreck
your chances of getting hired?
Yes, and that’s a good thing.
Imagine you did not take the assessment, but
managed to charm your way through the other selection stages anyway. It might feel great to land a job, but the
work would almost certainly not play to your strengths. You would find yourself uncomfortably challenged,
feel increasingly frustrated and despondent and most likely underperform. Within a year, you would probably have left
or been asked to leave. Far better to
hold out for the right job, the one that demands what you naturally do well, and
where the work environment suits your preferences and needs.
Your assessment results can guide you to that right
job. You will learn what you do well,
what kind of work most interests you, what to look for in a workplace and what
to watch out for. This self-knowledge
gives you a blueprint for future success.
Use it to apply for jobs where you have what it takes to be a star. Don’t waste your time and blunt your
happiness trying to be something you are not.
FEAR 4: Assessments will pigeonhole me
FACT 4: Assessments show the best of you
Because they focus on what genuinely drives performance,
assessments are all about what you can do, not what you can’t.
The best assessments focus on a range of
performance predictors: what you do well, what you like doing, how you solve
problems, the kind of work environment that best motivates you. Together, these form a rich and very reliable
picture of how you get your best results at work – a blueprint you can apply to
a wide range of jobs.
Of course there are some things good assessments won’t show. They can’t tell what color your hair is, or
whether you prefer hot dogs to burgers, or your views on snowboarding or Game
of Thrones or the ideal summer vacation.
That’s because these things have absolutely nothing to do with how well
you will do a job.
If recruiters knew
them, these irrelevancies could (and, sadly, often do) end up influencing
hiring decisions. Not only would that
create the conditions for illegal discrimination, it could mean you miss out on
a great job or get put in a job that does not play to your strengths.
Be reassured that assessments stick to what
really matters, and that way they show the best, the most real you.
FEAR 5: I will feel a failure when I get the
results
FACT 5: You will discover your unique path to
success
Trade secret: there is no such thing as a perfect assessment
result.
Good assessments look instead at
fit: how well your capabilities and
preferences match the reality of a specific job. Assessments mostly do not give you a score as
such and, where they do, higher is not necessarily better. If the job does not draw on a particular
capability, it is irrelevant whether you are a star or a starter in that
area. Only the things proven to predict
performance in that individual job matter.
It’s important to remember that the perfect candidate never
exists. Nobody demonstrates every
capability and no set of needs or preferences is better than another.
In addition, success in most jobs depends on
only a handful of characteristics, and often moderate ability is enough to
ensure success. If your reasoning
abilities are assessed around the average range, for instance, you may struggle
as a rocket scientist but there is no reason why you could not be an excellent manager
or sales executive.
What matters is not
your scores but matching your profile to
a job where those strengths lead to success.
Love that assessment!
The truth is, we all have our own talents and needs, and
every job makes its own demands. Assessments
can reveal our best-fit path, and help us avoid the wasted time, effort and
heart-break that comes with going after and getting the wrong job or career.
When it comes to assessments, what’s not to love?
