Recently, a client of ours was recruiting for a graduate engineer. Of the 80 applicants, three were Australian born. All had university degrees in engineering from institutions spread across the globe. How does an employer choose a quality candidate from such a diverse group of applicants? Some organisations only offer positions to those with the best results. Others use a ‘raising the bar’ strategy to screen out applicants whose academic results fall ‘below the bar’.
When hiring employees, measures such as grade averages, level of education, or special skills are not adequate predictors of job success. Different schools in different countries have different standards. Research by Roth, P.L., BeVier, C.A., Sitzer, F.S., Schippmann, J.S. (1996). Meta-analyzing the relationship between grades and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81 (5), 548-556, indicated that academic results are not strong predictors of job performance when compared with ability tests, personality questionnaires and structured interviews.
We live in a global economy and need a common denominator to predict performance. Ability tests, personality questionnaires and simulation exercises that are specifically related to the competencies identified for the role provide a better predictive measure of performance. These assessments also enable applicants with different academic qualifications to be assessed on an equal basis.
The successful candidate chosen by our client actually failed first year university, but had the highest scores on the ability tests and the closest fit on our competency analysis.
