ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 - (Page 38)

EXPERT’S ANGLE “In spite of this evidence and the availability of very exciting resources, we still see a low adoption rate of even the most rudimentary best practices, he says. “For exam” ple, almost all companies conduct interviews, yet only 24 percent claim to use behavioral rating scales with their interviews. The consequences are interviews with far less objective information to support candidate evaluation and decision-making. ” Quest Diagnostics is among the few companies using objective data with assessment tools as part of its hiring strategy. “Our focus is on our customers experiencing a quality interaction with our company, ” explains Yarosis. “Our call center representatives are required to have the medical and technical knowledge appropriate for speaking with physicians and other medical professionals on topics related to our broad array of diagnostic laboratory services. Preemployment objective assessments can be helpful not only in screening candidates for technical aptitude, but also in screening candidates for something that is equally, if not more, important — customer service attitude. ” CHOOSING THE RIGHT ASSESSMENT TOOL As useful as they are, there’s no denying that selecting the right assessment tool requires some careful thought. At Fidelity Investments, for example, preemployment assessments are part of the hiring process to help determine if candidates have the aptitude to pass Series 6 & 7 NASD exams, which are job requirements. Brian Johnson, the firm’s executive vice president of Global Staffing, says his organization icmi’s insight needs to be able to identify hard-totarget skills. “We selected a tool that tests for cognitive ability, Johnson says. ” “While we have used behaviorbased interviewing for years, it’s very difficult to get at the candidate’s capability to study and pass exams. The assessment Fidelity selected has a fair amount of mathrelated problem solving, which is really at the heart of the customer service job. ” While there is a great deal of information available on the Web (including some excellent white papers and reports on the Society for Human Resource Management’s Web site: WWW.SHRM.ORG), the most important sources of information are the users’ guides and validation analysis technical reports from the assessment providers you will be using. It is important to study the published validity documentation that relates to the specific skills and attributes required of your candidates. It is not enough for an assessment to have been used in a validation study. It is critical that the validation analysis is relevant to your hiring criteria. The best way to ensure an assessment will add value to your hiring process is to conduct an in-house validation analysis. This approach documents both the fairness of the hiring process and the economic impact from more effective hiring. To select the right tool, your first task is to be clear about the job demands. A comprehensive job analysis is the foundation of choosing any assessment. As background for this, Murphy points to the re quirement for job analysis spelled out in the EEOC’s Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. “These guidelines specify that we establish relevance between the content of job and content of assessment. Job analysis provides the ‘shopping criteria’ to determine which assessments will measure the appropriate skills, characteristics and human attributes, he says. ” DEPLOYING THE TOOL Selecting the right tool also requires factoring in how it will be deployed in terms of recruiting logistics. According to Yarosis, “The ‘realistic job preview’ component of the assessment simulates the actual working environment for customer service positions. Successful completion of the assessment process can mean better preparation for the real job. ” Fidelity, on the other hand, needed a tool that would work in a high-volume recruiting process and that could show immediate evaluation results. “An online tool wouldn’t work for Fidelity’s call center recruiting, says Johnson. ” “We often recruit in an ‘openhouse’ format — that may be on a campus or in a hotel setting. We selected a paper-based tool that is immediately scorable. This works in a high-volume recruiting environment when you may be screening hundreds of candidates. Fidelity Investments got quick buy-in from line managers when it implemented a tool that screened effectively and was consistent. “They wanted a tool that would enable us to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, candidates who can pass the licensing exams, ” reports Johnson. “Additionally, using the tool is consistent, equitable and fair to all candidates. It’s also efficient for our recruiters and hiring managers — we have one tool that is used by all recruiters and hiring managers nationally. ” www.icmi.com | APRIL 2008 38 http://www.shrm.org http://www.icmi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 Operations: Small Call Centers, Big Potential Ad Index Contents Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Assessment Tools Recommended Reading Technology: Speech Recognition Special Feature: Best of Show Strategy: Service-to-Sales Success Expert's Angle - High Volume, High Stakes: A Better Strategy for Hiring Experts Angle - Secrets of Recruiting Success/Job Brands: Changing Applicant Reactions to Your Openings Experts Angle - Speech Analytics: Uncovering the Voice of the Customer

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

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