Polygraph tests to measure honesty.
Drug/alcohol usage tests.
Intelligence tests to measure learning ability.
Handwriting-analysis tests .
Traditionally, tests were used to screen out. But, "with unemployment at an all-time low, people have started to use the tests a little differently,"" says Rob Altmann, research psychologist for NCS, a test publisher for workforce development and clinical products in Minnetonka, MN. Now they're being used to screen in. (Tyler).
Personality assessments, skills, aptitude, and achievement tests are considered to be qualifying or "screen-in tests."".
Disqualifying or "screen-out- tests include drug/alcohol, polygraph, honesty/integrity, genetic, intelligence, handwriting analysis, and medical exams. (Nicholson).
DETERMINING THE RIGHT TEST.
A four-step process to determine the right test is recommended.
1. Ascertaining the information you want from a test.
2. Determining administrative aspects, such as whether to use a written or computerized test, testing location, time and costs, and who will administer the test.
3. Finding out which tests are available.
4. Legal ramifications of a particular test.
LEGAL ISSUES.
Pre-employment testing generally carries with it legal liabilities on two fronts. The first is lawsuits from rejected applicants who claim a test wasn't job-related or that it unfairly discriminated against a protected minority group, violating federal civil rights laws. The second is negligence-in-hiring lawsuits filed by victims of employee misbehavior or incompetence. (Nicholson).
The Departments of Justice and Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adhere to the Joint Guidelines on Employee Selection Process that govern employee testing. Here are the guidelines in sum: Employers may give potential employee any test they want, provided the test does not adversely affect any group or invade someone's privacy. When a test unfairly affects a particular group (based on .
The limitations placed on human resources professionals and employers relating to preemployment inquiries make an interesting contrast to the negligent hiring dogma. ... The defendant cab company admitted that it made no preemployment check of the driver's background. ...
The frequency of genetic testing in criminal investigations (more than 1,000 in the U.S. since 1987) has been increasing dramatically despite the inconclusive testing by the scientific community in many aspects of forensic identification. A correlation between DNA patterns taken from a crime scene and taken from the suspect has often been enough to charge a person with the offense in spite of proof that some procedures for testing DNA are fallible by legal and scientific standards. ... DNA testing has ventured out of the courtroom in an effort to show a genetic link between race and ...