1. Pre-Employment Testing

2. Can tests accurately predict how individuals are likely to perform in any given job?

3. How Pre-Employment Tests are Used
Employers typically use pre-employment tests to accomplish two primary objectives:
Eliciting an applicant’s undesirable traits
Identifying characteristics that most closely match the qualities required in the available job
Specifically, tests given to prospective employees may help to:
Predict acceptable or unacceptable on-the-job behavior
Minimize or eliminate bias in the interview and selection process

4. Testing Advantages and Disadvantages
Allows employers to match an individual’s abilities and potential with the requirements of a given job
Identifies certain desirable (honesty, reliability, competence, emotional stability, integrity, and motivation) and undesirable (substance dependency and propensity to steal) traits.
Protect against charges of negligent hiring.
Substitute for reference checks
Employers can make unbiased job-related decisions
Help distinguish between otherwise similarly qualified applicants.

5. Disadvantages Tendency to rely too heavily on tests
Tendency to believe that tests can point to people who will do well, as opposed to those who are likely to do well in a given job or work environment
Many people react negatively to the mere idea of a test
There are individuals who may in fact be qualified but do not do well on tests, resulting in a distorted or incomplete picture of their abilities if test scores are overemphasized.

6. Disadvantages
Test misuse (may occur when employers are interested in seeing what abilities an applicant possesses beyond those called for in a job)
Testing may be inappropriate when the qualities being sought can be acquired through minimal amount of on-the-job-training or education. In this instances, testing is an unnecessary expenditure of time, money, and energy.
Testing is too commonly viewed as the solution to virtually every employment problem -- IT IS NOT!

7. Criterion Validity
Content Validity
Construct Validity

8. Test Administration Test Takers
Many people believe that it is most equitable to require testing across the board; this will preclude claims that certain individuals have been singled out for testing. But remember, not all positions require tests.

9. Test Administrators
According to the American Psychological Association Standard “Responsibility for test use should be assumed by or delegated only to those individuals who have the training and expertise necessary to handle this responsibility in a professional and technically adequate manner.”

10. Test Standardization
Each time a test is administered it should be given in exactly the same way, in the same environment, and under the same conditions, including duration, instructions, materials, physical factors, and any other aspect that might affect testing outcome.

11. Test Security
American Psychological Association Standard calls for “reasonable efforts to be made to assure the validity of test scores by eliminating opportunities for test takers to attain scores by fraudulent means.”
To meet this standard, some employers opt to keep all exams locked away in a safe location and to limit the number of people who have access to copies of the tests and answer sheets.

12. Language Consistency
Linguistic factors may adversely affect the test performance of people who speak dialects or are unfamiliar with certain terms or situations. Unfamiliar words or word usage may prove to be a distraction or may create negative attitudes toward the test and testers, thereby having a negative impact on test results.

13. Pre-employment Testing Policies
Primary objectives of testing
Organization’s commitment to compliance with employment laws
Information pertaining to which applicants and employees will be tested
Who will conduct and interpret test results
Description of testing conditions

14. Testing Categories Drug Testing Psychological Testing
Personality Testing
Integrity Testing
Polygraph Tests
Written Honesty Tests
Physical Testing
Pre-employment physical examinations
Physical ability and psychomotor tests
Computer-based Testing