This report outlines the results of my investigation into pre-employment testing as a tool in the selection of new employees for Carnes Antiques.
Can pre-employment testing help managers find the right people for the right job? Employers have become more concerned about the quality of employers and are putting more emphasis on the selection process. For some employers, testing can provide important information and cut the cost of hiring and training personnel. (Randall).
Nearly 30 percent of job applicants lie about their education and 25 percent lie about the duration of their previous employment, according to a 1999 publication by the Society for Human Resource Management. (Stuart).
Turnover is expensive, in both hard and soft dollars. According to an annual survey done by the Employment Management Association, hiring one hourly or production worker costs more than $880. Hiring a nonexempt office or clerical worker can cost $1668. (Paajamen) Linda Winlock, President of Personnel Profiling, Inc., says, "Even at the low end, if an employer hires an $8-per-hour worker, the cost of a bad hire will be $4,000 if that employee only stays 90 days before termination occurs."" (Hendricks).
"Administered correctly, pre-employment tests can speed up the natural selection process by helping employers identify an individual with the skills and abilities that match a position's requirements,"" says Fred Rafilson, an official at E. F. Wonderlic Personnel Test Inc., located in Northfield, IL. (Randall).
TYPES OF TESTS.
Popular pre-employment tests include:.
Skills testing (usually written,) which can include job-related testing and/or job analysis.
Behavioral identification and personality assessments, which measure "traits- such as honesty or introversion and extroversion.
Aptitude testing to determine job ability and evaluate physical dexterity, mechanical or clerical comprehension.
Achievement (paper-and-pencil tests) to measure degree of knowledge in specific fields (some also detect learning difficulties).
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 ...
