| Q. Why should I use pre-employment testing? A. Testing provides the most objective measurement of job applicant knowledge, skills, and abilities. This measurement provides an accurate and fair means to compare different applicants to each other and to the requirements of the job. In addition, according to research done by the U.S. Employment Service and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, an enormous amount of personnel expense can be saved by using a valid pre-employment test. Forty-four percent of the American Management Association used testing to select employees. Infinet's tests combine the best from tests of job-related skills, personality traits, and personal integrity. Each of these are explained in more detail below. Personality tests are self-report measures of traits, temperaments, or dispositions. They aim to measure constructs, such as orderliness, sociability, agreeability ,conscientiousness, flexibility of thought, and attitude towards new technology. Personality tests have been shown to predict absenteeism, tardiness, disciplinary problems, ability to work as part of a team, ability to maintain self-control, ability to attend to details, and job satisfaction. Integrity tests are designed to predict the predisposition of job applicants to engage in on-the-job-theft and other antisocial or counterproductive behaviors. They measure attitudes regarding tolerance of others who steal, projections about the extent of stealing by others, projections about on-the-job drug and alcohol use of others, and other questions of ethics and integrity. There has been a great deal of research into the validity of integrity tests showing that integrity scores can predict the behavior. In one study, integrity tests were shown to reduce inventory shrinkage (i.e. employee theft) by approximately 50% over an 18 month period. Tests of job-related skills are intended to measure whether the applicant is capable of performing skills necessary for successful job performance. These include areas such as applied mathematics, applied reading comprehension, manual dexterity, typing skills, and visual-spatial processing (i.e. the ability to manipulate three-dimensional objects within your mind.) Q. How does this translate to cost analysis? (or Why must I use Infinet's Hiring System)? A. Faced with an increasingly competitive business environment, many employers are turning to employment testing as a way to improve their workforce. In a recent survey, according to the Legal Report published by the Society for Human Resource Management, 40% of Fortune 100 companies indicated that their employment selection system included some form of pre-hire psychological testing. One of the main reasons for this is to reduce turnover costs associated with bad hires. According to most industry experts, turnover costs a typical company 1 to 1.3 times the annual salary plus the burden of employee's benefits for employee's benefits for entry-level positions. These costs are due to lost productivity, recruitment and interview, training, damaged morale, and shrinkage (or employee theft.) For example, a bank fires a customer service representative due to employee theft. Assume the ex-employee earned $36,000 per year and cost the company $10,000 per year in benefits (i.e., medical, dental, unemployment insurance, etc.). It will cost the bank $58,800 (1.3 x $36,000 + $10,000) to recover from and replace that bad hire. For management-Ievel positions, turnover costs rise to 1.5 times annual salary plus the cost of benefits. Research has shown that pre-hire screening can significantly reduce turnover, increase profits. and improve production. Research has also reported that top performing workers identified by pre-hire screening are 2 to 3 times more productive than their average coworker. This large gap between the high performers and the average ones directly impacts your company's bottom line. In addition, pre-hire screening saves costs associated with interviews and training. When the screening tool is used to sort out those applicants who are not a good match, the interviewer's time may be efficiently redirected to more important matters. By using the pre-hire screen, job candidates are more likely to understand the training materials more quickly and completely, thereby reducing the time spent on training. Q. Is Pre-hire testing legal? A. Yes. There are no laws that prohibit psychological testing for pre-employment selection. However, there are laws and regulations that have important implications for pre-employment testing. All Infinet's tests comply with all such laws and regulations. These include: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (CRA), Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and Americans Disabilities Act (ADA). In addition, all Infinet's tests are developed in accordance with The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing by the American Psychological Association and the Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures by Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Q. Are Infinet's tests approved by the EEOC? A. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) does not approve tests. Instead, they have established a set of guidelines that all employment test should meet. Those guidelines are as follows: the test must be valid, the test must be fair, and the test must be job-related . All of Infinet tests meet these three criteria. Q. How does Infinet establish the validity of a test? A. Validity is the most important issue in selecting and using a test. Validation is the cumulative and on-going process of giving meaning to test scores. Validity refers to what characteristic the test measures and how well the tests measures the characteristic. Validity tells you if the characteristic being measured is related to job performance and qualifications. In order to show job-relatedness, Infinet uses three methods to meet all legal criterion, content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity. Content validity is used when the test closely approximates a job, as in a typing test for a typist position. This form of validity is used to test the job skill portion of our tests. Criterion validity compares success on the test with some form of success on the job. It is the preferred method for validation under the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures and is used by Infinet on all tests. Typically, Infinet will correlate test scores of existing employees with supervisor or manager ratings of observable behaviors of the same employees to establish criterion validity. Construct validity requires proof that the test measures the characteristic or concept it claims to measure and that this characteristic is important to successful performance on the job. Current thinking in psychology and assessment is that construct validity encompasses all other forms of validity. Q. How does Infinet establish the reliability of a test ? A. Reliability refers to how consistently a test measures a characteristic. If an individual takes the test again, how likely is it that he or she will get the same, or a similar, score? A test that yields similar scores for a person who repeats the test is said to be reliable. The reliability of a test is indicated by the reliability coefficient, which can range from 0 to 1.00. Perfect reliability is 1.00 and is never seen in testing due to a number of uncontrollable factors such as fatigue, distractions, time of day, etc. A good reliability coefficient generally falls in the range of .75 to .99. Infinet uses two methods, test-retest reliability and internal consistency reliability, to establish the reliability of each test. Test-retest reliability is established by administering the test to the same individual over a particular period of time. This form of reliability reflects the stability of the characteristic being measured. For instance, an individual's mathematics ability is more stable over time than an individual's level of anxiety, which may fluctuate from situation to situation. Internal consistency reliability indicates that the items within a section of a test, or within the entire test, are very similar to one another in content. Lengthy tests can inflate this form of reliability. Infinet runs statistical analyses on each and every section of it's tests to determine if the internal consistency reliability is adequate. If not, the items are revised and a new study is performed until it is adequate. Q. How do I contact an Infinet representative if I have my questions? A. For specific help, you may reach one of our helpful representatives at (925)-944-3440 or e-mail john@infinetassessment.com . They are prepared to answer your questions and give recommendations upon request. If you have a question that has not been addressed here, here's your chance to ask it. Include your e-mail address if you'd like a private response. Please e-mail your questions to sales@infinetassessment.com .
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