The March 2009 Aberdeen Group research report, “Assessments in Talent Management: Strategies to Improve Pre- and Post-hire Performance,” found the use of assessments enabled best-in-class companies (top 20% of companies studied) to achieve greater than 30% average year-over-year growth in three key performance indicators: quality of hire, employee performance and employee productivity.
In a recently published research brief on the report, Aberdeen revealed that, among the more than 500 organisations surveyed, companies using First Advantage pre-hire assessments were more than twice as likely as those using other organisations’ services to have achieved Aberdeen’s Best-in-Class designation.
Aberdeen used year-over-year improvement across three key performance indicators to determine Best-in-Class performance, including:
Quality of hire
First Advantage: 27%
Others: 14%
Employee performance
First Advantage: 22%
Others: 13%
Employee productivity
First Advantage: 21%
Others: 16%
The report also found that Best-in-Class companies are focused on:
Consistency: 87% of First Advantage clients have a process to consistently assess candidates for targeted positions and incorporate scores into hiring decisions, compared to 56% of all others.
Knowledge Management: First Advantage clients are 83% more likely to integrate assessment data with other talent management applications. They are also 38% more likely to establish a baseline by defining core competencies required for each job, which is a critical recruiting component to ensure hiring managers identify the gap that exists between a candidate’s profile and the skill set required to perform the job competently.
Performance Management: 80% of First Advantage clients have clearly defined the metrics to measure the impact of assessments, compared to 47% of all others. Additionally, 70% of these companies have a process in place to regularly review the impact of assessments on key business metrics, compared to 38% of their peers.
“While the focus on sourcing and job advertising has decreased, screening and selection efforts have been stepped up to align with an organisation’s most important goal of acquiring quality hires,” says Jayson Saba, senior research associate, Aberdeen. “First Advantage clients recognise this imperative and have capitalised on assessments to achieve substantially better performance gains across each of our Best-in-Class indicators.”
“As companies continue to face an uncertain economic environment, the microscope is focused on human resource managers’ abilities to reduce the cost, time and risk associated with hiring,” says Todd Mavis, executive vice president – operations, First Advantage. “Organisations are in a position to capitalise on the current expansion in the talent market and strengthen their workforces by utilising assessments that are proven to improve the quality of hiring decisions and, according to Aberdeen, achieve year-over-year improvements in all best-in-class metrics.”
“Our research has found that structured and consistent use of assessments for pre-hire purposes also lends to strong performance gains in post-hire performance-and this is pronounced with the First Advantage clients represented in our survey data,” says Kevin Martin, vice president and group director, Aberdeen.
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