Forbes.com
Extreme Hiring
Nicole'>http://search.forbes.com/search/colArchiveSearch?author=nicole+and+perlroth&aname=Nicole+Perlroth">Nicole Perlroth, 05.06.10, 01:20 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated May 24, 2010
The ideal candidate is a high-energy self-starter willing to undergo intense psychological scrutiny.
http://xml.apache.org/xslt">It's Andrew Noon's first day on the job, and already he has had to discipline a worker, thwart a departmental turf war, cajole two recalcitrant employees, convince an irate customer not to cancel a contract and present his strategic plan for the next three years to the company's chief executive, complete with flip charts. But the boss, the employees and the customers are actors. The company is fictitious. The office space is an assessment center outside Pittsburgh. At least three trained observers are listening to Noon's every voice mail, reading his every e-mail and watching his every move. The whole exercise is a simulation designed to determine his readiness for the executive suite at Mutual of Omaha.
To prepare, Noon, 35, spent the weeks leading up to his assessment poring over reams of fictitious financials and memorizing fake org charts, employee bios, product descriptions, company histories and global sales breakdowns. He also took three personality tests, each consisting of 200 to 300 questions designed to uncover his levels of sociability, creativity and ambition and to identify any "derailers"--talent-management-speak for the dark side.
The practice of psychological simulation assessments dates to just after World War II, when the British Army's War Office Selection Board and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services used two-day-long simulations to select future spies. AT&T was the first to put the practice into corporate use in the late 1950s. Today two-thirds of 517 businesses surveyed by market research firm Aberdeen say they evaluate executives using a suite of behavioral, cognitive, critical and psychological tests. Of those, 46% put executives through the simulation wringer.
Mutual of Omaha hired Development Dimensions International, headquartered in Bridgeville, Pa., to evaluate Noon, currently the manager of learning and development at the company, as part of his career development plan.
Last year DDI evaluated 2,650 executive candidates, and its assessment unit's work has more than doubled in the past five years. DDI competes with Personnel Decisions International in Minneapolis, as well as dozens of smaller firms and an army of thousands of individual psychologist-consultants.
http://xml.apache.org/xslt">Assessments typically include variations of four basic components: an interview, cognitive testing, personality testing and the simulation.
The cognitive portion of the assessment will often contain the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (a standardized intelligence test) and/or the Watson-Glaser (an hourlong critical-thinking appraisal). But there are thousands of psychometric tests available to test a candidate's personality, including the California Psychological Inventory, the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (a.k.a. the 16pf) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Then there's the Hogan Development Survey, which analyzes a leader's propensity for failure. If the candidate doesn't outwit the test, it will expose his or her propensity for arrogance, volatility, argumentativeness and perfectionist tendencies under stress.
Once DDI has integrated all its data, the company stops short of making hiring recommendations. "The higher an individual rises in an organization, the more visible their personalities become," says Paese. "The idea is not to go on a witch hunt for people with psychological problems, it's to look for people's psychological energies, where they go when under pressure. … What we will say is 'This person is likely to excel in situations where drawing up a simple plan in a complex field is necessary,'" says Paese. "Or 'This person might struggle to build a wide social network.'"
Andrew Noon admits DDI's assessment was exhausting: "It's stressful. You know you're going to be stretched, but it's also very realistic," he says. Afterward the company sat down with Noon for two hours to discuss its insights into his strengths and weaknesses, and factor them into his professional development plan at Mutual of Omaha. The results are used to create a career path that he'll work toward in years to come.
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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