Hays Assessment and Development

We offer organisations a range of specialist recruitment related HR services, which are designed to help improve business results through people. As part of Hays plc, a global leader in specialist recruitment, Hays Assessment & Development provides recruitment insight gained from working with thousands of corporate, public and SME organisations across the globe. We have an in-depth knowledge of over 25 career sectors up to Executive Director level, with a detailed knowledge of the performance requirements for all these roles. This coupled with our professional expertise and understanding, helps inform our advice and the services offered to clients.

As a result of this knowledge, we know how important accurate assessment of employees is in enabling organisations to identify and plan their staffing requirements.

Assessment of Performance and Fit

We have a breadth and depth of experience in designing and running assessment centres, across disciplines and across all levels. Our solutions may be bespoke or we can provide cost-effective off-the-shelf approaches. Our emphasis is to provide significant added value to the inherently risky business of recruiting individuals whether you are recruiting candidates as new appointments, for their potential, for fast-tracking, for promotion, or for new duties - within your budget and meeting your specific business requirements. We work in partnership with you to design discrete, highly relevant and cost effective selection programmes and tailored, individual evaluations for your recruitment needs. We offer:

• Role-specification and profiling
• Psychometric tools
• Competency driven assessment and development centres
• Bespoke and pre-designed approaches
• Individual executive profiling and assessment

Role Profiling

Working in partnership with our clients Hays Assessment & Development (HAD) can assist an appointment panel in developing a clear vision of the type of person to recruit who would take their organisation forward. We can also provide support by completing the subsequent assessment of candidates’ short listed for the role.

The process

HAD generally involves an in-depth person and job analysis with the job incumbents and other key stakeholders in the organisation, through the use of desk-top review (consulting the job description, person specification and strategic plan), structured interviewing and personality profiling tools.

The result of this analysis is the development of a consultation paper summarising recommendations on the competencies and work style required by the new post holder moving forward.

This is submitted to the appointment key decision makers to review based on their vision of the organisation moving forward. The resultant documentation is revised and then forms the basis of the search, short-listing and assessment criteria for applicants to the role.

Results from the assessment were then forwarded to the recruitment panel prior to final interview to provide them with additional information about the candidates’ suitability and suggestions for areas to probe at interview.

Psychometric Testing for Recruitment

Ability Testing

• When used appropriately, there is evidence that ability tests predict on-the-job performance and can discriminate between candidates
• Tests are an entirely objective form of assessment, which cannot be compromised by personal bias
• Tests can be used as an effective ‘sift tool’, short list aid or selection aid
• Ability tests are increasingly used in selection and are often expected to form part of the assessment process in employers of choice

We select the specific tests in consultation with the key recruiter based on analysis of the job description.

If the predictive validity of these tests is unclear within an organisation we can also run in-house benchmarking to establish the usefulness of the test in predicting excellent/average/poor performance.

If the online option is selected for sift of a large population, and if performance on the tests is deemed critical, then it is incumbent on us to later retest these skills on the resultant smaller group in examination conditions because of issues around test taker ID.

Personality Profiling for Recruitment

Personality profiling provides an indication of an individual’s preferred behavioural style and underlying traits. This information is extremely useful in predicting the potential of candidates to perform at a higher level and can be interpreted against the competencies and values associated with the role. Furthermore, the information gained from a personality questionnaire can provide an invaluable interview aid for probing possible areas of strength and weakness.

In terms of predicting candidates’ suitability for a newly created role with a wider range of responsibilities, we would recommend the use of a high quality general psychometric personality questionnaire such as Dimensions, WAVE or OPQ.

More specifically these tools are robust measures of personality and are extremely well researched and widely used and can be used to examine a wide range of traits as well as to focus on specific areas such as leadership. Profiles reveal information around the full range of personality including individual’s interest in others, social confidence, detail consciousness, adherence to rules and guidelines, emotional stability and assertiveness.

Our recommended approach to personality profiling candidates would be to administer the test on-line prior to the assessment centre proper. This would be efficient and allow for pre-centre analysis and report production facilitating on-the-day validation interviews with candidates around their profiles. This aspect of the process is particularly effective in highlighting areas of strengths and weakness and avoids spurious conclusions being drawn.

Validation interviews are conducted on a one-to-one basis with trained and experienced profiling professionals. They serve to explore the typical behaviours and attitudes of candidates in areas of specific interest and would take approximately one hour for senior level appointments.

Assessment Centres

An assessment centre is a sophisticated rating process which is designed to minimise as many sources of forms of potential ratter bias as possible and to ensure that each participant is given an equal opportunity to demonstrate ability across a range of standardised situations. A formal assessment centre should consist of a standard evaluation of behaviour based on multiple inputs.

Multiple in that:

• Assessments are made on several key competency areas. An assessment programme should be based on a clearly defined set of competencies.
• A variety of assessment techniques are used. A breadth of techniques is used to ensure comprehensive coverage of attributes and skills, and to increase reliability of measurement. The techniques can include tests, interviews, questionnaires as well as behavioural simulation exercises.
• Several assessors or observers are involved. The involvement of a number of assessors increases objectivity and impartiality. The assessors usually represent personnel specialists and line managers.
• Several candidates or participants are observed together. This allows interaction between participants, ensuring that the programme is more interactive as well as being more economical.
• The information is integrated. Any judgements or recommendations resulting from the assessment centre should be based on behavioural information, which is drawn together at an integration session.

In summary, multiple participants, multiple exercises, multiple assessors, multiple sources of information, specifically defined objective performance criteria and a thorough review and integration of evidence by all assessors, represent the essence of the assessment centre method.

Bespoke exercise design

Bespoke exercises are designed to reflect as closely as possible a key element of the target role. This provides face validity of the exercises to candidates and also provides the decision making panel with recommendations around candidates’ competence that link specifically to that scenario.

Design of such an exercise does require some input from individuals with detailed knowledge of the target role and is completed using the following stages:

Executive Profiling

HAD conduct assessment at executive level for a wide range of clients and this varies depending on the role, timescale and budget. Our recommended approach is the individual profiling of candidates and the preparation of full reports for the panel in advance of an interview day.

Executive profiling is designed to provide a tailored and in-depth analysis of candidate’s suitability for the target role a number of advantages to both client and candidate can, considering both level of competence and cultural fit.

• Multi-situational analysis – provides a measure of how candidates apply their ability across a variety of settings rather than just in an interview setting.
• Aggregated results identify clear trends of candidates strengths and development areas which provide indicators of areas to probe further at interview.
• Executive profiling reports provide a good basis for identifying and planning the successful candidates future development activities once in post.
• Research has indicated that candidates rate selection procedures in which they are engaged individually more positively if they are engaged individually and given feedback around the process. Hays approach to this type of assessment encourages candidates to perceive the selecting organisation positively whether successful or not.

A typical delivery process involves the stages detailed below:

Contact us

Toni Moorcroft
T: 01625 528682
F: 020 7510303
E: assessment@hays.com