Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • What I’ve found out about employment testing vendors

    What I’ve found out about employment testing vendors

    I’ve been vetting different off-the-shelf employment selection instruments for a client.  Here is my advice through questions you should ask yourself in the vetting process as well as some good sources I’ve found for off-the-shelf instruments.

     

    Questions to ask yourself if you are considering adding a selection assessment: 

    1. Have I done a job analysis?  If not, you need to do one to know which dimensions your assessment needs to help you select for.

    2.  After a job analysis, are my main issues in selection skill or will issues?   Do I need an aptitude or skills based test (example:  measuring mechanical aptitude) or do I need a personality/soft skill test (example:  measuring conscientiousness) or both?

    3. Where would this best fit in my selection process?  Have a huge applicant pool and your trying to weed down to those qualified?  Do you want a better way to target potential problem areas in order to guide your interviewing process?

    4.  What is the best way for delivering the assessment?  Online, in-person, paper & pencil, proctored or unproctored, etc.   Does the tests I’ve potentially identified meet these needs?  Are there certain requirements for delivery that are must haves from the testing vendor?

    5.  After pulling different assessments that may fit my needs, are they validated for the job roles I which to use the test for?

    6.  How much can I spend?  Is a per adminstration fee or a flat fee better based on my volume and needs?

     

    Some assessment providers to check out: 

    Assessment Associates International

    Ramsay Corporation

    E-Selex

    Resource Associates

    APTMetrics, Inc. 

    PSI

     

    Although we have not selected any of these vendors yet,  all come highly recommended and/or have been very responsive to my inquires.

     

    How as adding a selection assessment helped your hiring?

  • Passions via your Holland Code

    You’ve analyzed your talents and realize you, lets say, have knowledge and skills in the field of biology coupled with the ability to solve complex problems which may lead you to believe a career in medicine is appropriate for you.  But you don’t particularly enjoy any of these things and the thought of working with sick people isn’t appealing.   Just because you are good at something, doesn’t necessarily mean you enjoy doing it, but oftentimes it does.

    We typically enjoy what we can do well quite simply because we are good at it.  This is where it is important to consider your passions and whether or not they align with the talents you possess.

    Consider what Seth Godin said in Tribes. In discussing “something to believe in” he says, “Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in (and making things happen) is much more satisfying than just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die).

    He goes on to say “It turns out that the people who like their jobs the most are also the ones who are doing the best work, making the greatest impact and changing the most.”

    The next step in knowing yourself in the career development process, then, is to identify your passions.  Many career assessments identify what I call passions as “interests”.

    One way to identify your passions based on this interest model is to know your Holland Code.  Here are the six dimensions that your two or three digit code could be comprised of:

    Realistic — Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

    Investigative — Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

    Artistic — Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

    Social — Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

    Enterprising — Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

    Conventional — Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

    Source: http://www.onetonline.org 

     

    What is your code?

    You can click on each of the six areas to see job matches, or you can use any of the following assessments (some free, some not) to determine your Holland Code and search for occupations through ONET to determine career matches.

    Self Directed Search

    My Next Move

    Strong Interest Inventory with 1 hour coaching session

  • March Leadership Carnival

    THE MARCH LEADERSHIP CARNIVAL FEATURES ONE OF OUR RECENT POSTS

  • Climbing the Ladder

    Climbing the Ladder

    2 TIPS FOR CLIMBING AND 2 TIPS FOR LEANING YOUR LADDER AGAINST THE RIGHT WALL

    In talking to some top performing college students today,  I realized that they have what it takes to climb the rungs:

    1.  You don’t have to give them m&ms to motivate them.  They are self-motivated and conscientious.  This is a characteristic that employers want.  In fact, coupled with IQ, this is the greatest predictor of job performance across all jobs.  Here’s some more info on the analogy of the m&ms. 

     

    2.  They can wait for another marshmallow.  They have the ability to delay gratification for something bigger.   They can delay income from a job to go to school, or they can delay partying to study or to be able to work to put themselves through school.  Here’s some more info on the analogy of the marshmallow.

     

    But as one student asked me when I opened the discussion with “What characteristics do successful people have that others don’t?”  He responded, “Well what is your definition of success?”

    Smart Kid.

    Stephen Covey’s quote in  First Things First relates to this: 

    “Some of us feel empty. We’ve defined happiness solely in terms of professional or financial achievement, and we find that our ‘success’ did not bring us the satisfaction we thought it would. We’ve painstakingly climbed the ‘ladder of success’ rung by rung only to discover as we reached the top rung that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”  

    If it’s financial success or status that you want,  the above to points will serve you well.  But if your definition of success is broader than this,  where you ladder is leaning is truly important.

    Here’s two tips for making sure your ladder is on the right wall.

    1.   Know Yourself

    2.   Be willing to take risks and learn from failure.

     

    You can only truly get to where you want to be if you define where that is, and it is different for each individual.  You can only get to your definition of success if you’re willing to take the risks to get there and to be able to learn from failure along the way.

  • Talents: A real life example

    Over the last week, I’ve given a lot of thought into which client I should highlight as an example of discovering talents.  There have been many, all unique, with so many talents to share.  I anticipate using this person as an example throughout the process of describing how you discover yourself and match it to the market, so it has been difficult to pick the “best” one.

    With much thought, I’ve decided to make this example personal.  No, I’m not going to describe myself and my journey, but I’m not going to use a paying client either.  Instead, I’m going to use someone who is more like me in genetics than anyone else on this planet, and someone who I helped before I even realized that career development was even what I wanted to do. Helping Graham, my brother, helped me discern that I wanted to be the go-to person for career help.

    Why personal?  Because career exploration and decisions are very personal.  By describing someone who I have seen grow and mature through this process, I feel as though I can more adequately describe its impact.

    So, with all that said, Graham will be my “guinea pig” as I walk you all through a real example the career process.

    Graham did the KSAO process for talent identification indicating his top 2-3 strengths in each area:

    Knowledge:

    Sales and Marketing — Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.

    I would also add for him: Administration and Management — Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.

    Skills:

    Critical Thinking — Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problem solving.

    Judgment and Decision Making — Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.

    Ability:

    Inductive Reasoning — The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

    Memorization — The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.

    Remember, you can click on the title of each of these to see career matches.  What do you think Graham does for a living today? There isn’t a lot of consistency in his career matches based just on this.  Stay tuned for next week as we discuss passions and then describe Graham’s passions in relation to our process.  If you can’t figure out what he does yet, the pieces will come together over the next few weeks.