Promises, Promises: How to Identify a Bad Hiring Test (Part I of II)

You probably already know there are hundreds of self-report tests promising great hires. What you might not know is most of them are poorly designed junk. Why is this important to know? First, the test user — not the test vendor — is primarily responsible for test use. Second, junk tests hire too many wrong people and turn away too many right ones. Finally, if the first two do not bother your conscience, consider the cost of poor hiring practices is estimated between 20% and 50% of yearly payroll. So how do you identify the junk tests? Let’s start with a few basics.

What’s a Test?