5 Tips to Evaluating Talent Assessment Tools

Building Your Talent Management Assessment Strategy

Demand for the right talent is high on everyone’s list, and we know it’s in short supply. Organisations leverage talent assessment solutions to help bridge this talent gap. Yet determining what assessment tools to use, when and how to use them — even just selecting the best tools that are right for your particular organisation — remains elusive.

We know that assessment is integral to talent management solutions, which can help increase employee engagement. But how do we navigate the many tools, services and solutions populating an increasingly crowded assessment landscape?

Knowing what questions to ask about assessment strategy solutions is just as important as knowing which assessments to use, and when and how to use them. Choosing the wrong tools can be a costly mistake.

Technology has enabled the evolution and creation of new tools and strategies, with seemingly endless providers flooding the assessment market. While this has improved our data and insight regarding talent assessment, it has also made it very difficult for organisations to evaluate the rapidly expanding assessment solutions environment.

In our webinar: Developing an Assessment Strategy in the Human Age, Right Management’s assessment strategy experts discuss in detail how an organisation can effectively sift through the noise of the assessment solutions landscape.

There are a number of general questions (best practices) an organisation should ask when first evaluating assessment solutions. These questions are designed to help evaluate any given solution and quickly determine its relevance to your organisation. In addition, these questions provide an excellent platform to more deeply examine assessment solutions you’re considering through critical analysis.

Talent Assessment Solutions Evaluation Questions:
Our philosophy regarding assessments provides a solid foundation for best practice evaluation. Here is a general overview of the questions you should be asking when evaluating assessment solutions:

Business Relevance (to your organisation)
You should be evaluating based on the tool's relevance to your organisation. Is the tool valid in a work context? Does the tool accurately assess talent metrics that align with your identified business strategy? Can it provide insight that will help you to develop performance by improving employee engagement? 

“Whole Person” Assessment Model
An effective talent assessment approach should never look at a person in a vacuum. You need multiple lenses (tools) for a more holistic approach. Selecting the right combination of tools should help to provide a robust and comprehensive picture of that person, their inherent motives and personality, and how they show up to others. This approach provides you with detailed insight into who you’re selecting, as well as helping to identify what roles they can fill now while predicting their likelihood to be successful in the future.

Data-Driven Insights
Your overall goal is to link the data from assessment results to the key metrics you’ve identified that will help you to achieve your business strategy. This multiplies the value of any one assessment tool, by giving you greater insight based on reliable data points. Do the tools you’re evaluating help you to identify which behaviors are the biggest indicators of success in a given role? Does the tool helps with selection, promotion, training and development? Will this help with your strategy for improving employee engagement?

Integrated Approaches (with other Talent Management practices)
Building an assessment strategy demands a multi-faceted approach. When the data gathered by one tool can be used across a wider scope of applications, its value greatly increases. The tools you select should integrate and assist in other areas of your your talent management strategies, such as leadership assessment, talent selection and promotion, leader development, onboarding, succession planning, and executive coaching. For example, an integrated approach can provide data that helps to identify and select potential leaders for your talent pipeline, while simultaneously identify areas for training and development.

Accurate Measurement
Overall, the tools you’re choosing should be psychometrically sound — are they reliable and valid in measuring what they say they’re measuring? Unfortunately, there are tools out there that claim to measure data points, but show limited or no evidence that they deliver their promised results. Make sure that you’re asking the provider to “prove it” with data.

In addition to the above best practice questions, the Developing an Assessment Strategy webinar also reviews common questions and concerns about assessment evaluation strategies including:

• Evaluating what’s new in talent assessment tools and how do we make sense of it?
• Is our organisation using assessments consistently, and how do we improve?
• Can we use talent assessment tools for more than one purpose — selection AND development?
• Does this assessment tool support our talent management strategy and how?
• How can I link my talent strategy to my business strategy?
• Using talent assessments to support business strategy and big picture objectives.
• Educating internal stakeholders on how and when to use assessments.
• Are we using good data the wrong way?

Learn more about Developing an Assessment Strategy in the Human Age!

Are you interested in developing your organisation's assessment and talent management solutions? Contact us.