by Jonathan Gilliam, Interim Sales Executive

Why Pre-Interview Sales Skills Assessments Are a Bad Idea.

In our slowing economy, companies are ever-focused on reducing ancillary costs and expenses. The recruiting function, inherently time-consuming and often expensive, is an easy mark for consultants offering to automate tasks and reduce risk.

Queue the latest trend, the online “front-door quiz,” or sales skills assessment, offered by Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) consulting firms in an attempt to pare down the top end of the hiring funnel via online testing and assessments to gauge the suitability of potential candidates.

Certainly skills and capabilities assessments, when used correctly, can save time by telling you in advance what you need to know about someone, before you hire them. We use them in our business to hire our Partners and for our clients, once we have determined they are a good fit.

However in a new twist, the idea is to require all potential candidates who might be interested in working for you to take an hour long bubble test from an outside firm via the Internet at the front end of the hiring cycle, before any additional communication takes place.

The approach has spread fast but results are mixed. Some maintain the tests are counter-productive and could actually hurt the companies using them by eroding their brand and turning up lowest common denominator candidates over the long term.

First there is the philosophical problem of requiring that all candidates fill out a psychological assessment offered by a third-party, with no assurance of privacy, without the hiring company ever even knowing who is at their door.

More importantly, there is a diminishing return, and eventually your quality and quantity of candidates decays. Ultimately the only beneficiaries are the consulting and assessment companies whose success depends on the position staying open.

Smart companies also realize that their valuable brands extend to the talent department, and they know that forcing all potential candidates to take an hour long “qualifying assessment” is comparable to telling a customer “here, before you buy my product, please waste your precious time and tell me if I want to sell it to you.” How many of your best customers will put up with that?

So what’s the big deal? Well, it might save you time on the front end, but of course, you will eventually pay in the quality of your people and the strength of your corporate culture:

1. “A” Players will look past your opportunity to the ones that are more human-focused. Quizzes are insulting to the candidate, and a self-respecting professional will likely balk at the notion that their potential contribution can be bubble-sheeted.

2. They are easily gamed. Many times, these assessments have what is called ‘high face validity’. This means that it is easy for the test taker to know why a question is being asked and if they are so inclined, fake the answer to create a certain impressions they may want to give about themselves.

3. They don’t predict performance. Most “pre-interview” tests are DISC-based. DISC tests have been around 80 years, but vendors continue to repackage and revise and charge unwitting companies a premium. The DISC assessment is a ‘descriptive’ and not a ‘predictive’ tool, therefore, any claims made by consultants selling the DISC tool that it can ‘predict’ how someone will perform on a specific job are suspect at best. Ask for a Technical Manual to understand the test basis.

4. It presents a poor image of your company to the talent market. Pre-interview quizzes tell the world that your company addresses its most important success factors in a predictable, cookie-cutter way, ahead of the human element, creative element and in lieu of your “competitive edge”

5. Candidates “burn-out” after completing a only a few tests. The likelihood of continuing to complete similar quizzes has diminishing returns. After a few of these taken at other companies, many candidates will simply pass. Eventually, the only candidates you interview are the desperate ones.

6. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work. The tests don’t apply to the variables of experience and perspectives that come with lifetimes and careers. They may also not differentiate roles, asking the same questions of say, a sales manager, as a front line salesperson, two very different skills sets and personalities.

7. They’re rude. In most instances, after the candidate gives up an hour of being with their family or other valuable time, they get rejection auto-email from the hiring company, and most often the results of their assessment are not even shared. This is not only discourteous, it borders on unethical.

8. Privacy and liability concerns. What happens to the data from this quasi-psychological test? Does their rampant use expose the employer to lawsuits?

9. Not all tests are the same. Many sales assessments are written by former sales consultants and others who believe they have the “magic formula” to sales but have little credibility or scientific background. Most are DISC-based, old technology but inexpensive for companies to “refine” and call their own. A valuable assessment should be developed based on science with a strong body of knowledge behind it.

10. They do not account for other important skills. A candidate who scores in the middle of the pack as a sales manager on the test may get a rejection message, but he or she could be a phenomenal strategist or perhaps have industry contacts that would be invaluable for your organization. But you’ll never know…

11. The more assessments the better – for the consultant. Unlike a recruiter or your hiring managers, the consultants’ success is tied is to keeping a position open. Your business can wither away while you wait for the right test-taker to pass the consultants’ screening, and they continue to collect fees.

Yes, the recruiting process is expensive and yes, it takes time and effort to hire the right people. Using questionable online quizzes to sort out wheat from chaff is a bad idea for companies seeking to build a diversified, creative and people-oriented environment.

The advantage of all this for your company? Smart managers can take advantage of this trend by snapping up all the great talent falling through the cracks of their lame, quizzing competitors.

Jonathan Gilliam is a interim sales executive for OneAccord and is based in the Austin area. He has a deep background in business development, market analysis, opportunity development, relationship management and C-level sales. Mr. Gilliam welcomes questions at 512.775.7566 or Jonathan.Gilliam(at)OneAccordCorp.com. Jonathan also blogs at Business Developments.