Companies today are faced with tough challenges when it comes to creating hiring practices that will not only ensure compliance with federal regulations, but also produce the best candidates.

Résumés and interviews are not reliable indicators of how someone will perform and conduct themselves on the job. As we all know, résumés can be written to camouflage a multitude of sins, and interviewers are understandably cautious when it comes to asking the tough questions. Without standardized, validated measurements and criteria for assessing potential employees, employers leave themselves vulnerable to lawsuits, as well as workplace performance and behavioral issues.

To address this concern, many companies today are utilizing a variety of non-discriminatory pre-hire assessments to determine a candidate's likelihood for success on the job. To be clear, the courts and the EEOC have defined "tests" to include all procedures that make up a personnel decision, including background checks, interviews, and supervisory performance appraisals. Of these, however, testing can be most easily and statistically demonstrated to be valid.¹

Some caveats to know: First, only assessments that are relevant and valid should be administered. That means selecting assessments that test an applicant's skills, competencies or other attributes directly related to the job for which they are applying. The use of valid instruments (those that have been measured for their efficacy) ensures fairness and statistically demonstrates that a test does predict a candidate's effectiveness on the job.² Employers must be extremely careful to avoid any selection tool that has a discriminatory impact.

Personality testing is a common practice with many employers. According to the Blue Egret Content Group, "The most successful employees combine the skills needed to do their jobs with the particular temperament needed to be successful and fulfilled in their work. Psychological profiling helps you select candidates who have the skills and the temperament to succeed in your business. By identifying the personality traits your best performers in a given position share, you can determine which prospective candidates also have those traits, and are thus most likely to succeed in the same position within your company." ³

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) and DiSC® are two of the most popular instruments on the market today. Many others are available and widely used and, depending on the unique needs and culture of your organization, custom assessments can be created and validated for your own use. Some assessments focus on a candidate's leadership and management style, others on communication and problem-solving abilities, and others on specific psychological profiling that measures the "five-factor framework". Five-factor tests measure crucial traits that are present to one degree or another in all personalities: agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. 4 The use of these types of assessments is certainly permissible, as long as they are not the sole basis for employee selection.

For companies with defined organizational cultures, the use of personality assessments is critical. Once a company has gone through the arduous task of identifying, cultivating and nurturing its culture, ethical systems must be put in place to safeguard this precious commodity. Far too often, the root of organizational dysfunction is simply a quagmire of "personality conflicts" that could have easily been identified and mitigated during the hiring process. Unfortunately, once these issues have become imbedded within a company's culture, it can be a lengthy, wearisome, and costly process to overcome.

Frequently, companies do not identify their hiring and organizational issues until it's too late - when a great employee turns in his or her resignation. Take this opportunity to conduct an exit interview and administer a post-employment assessment. The information you can glean from a departing employee will enable you to make profound positive changes to your internal practices.

One of the most prudent strategies any company can take, whether it employs one individual or 10,000, is to have competent legal counsel. Never assume you know the law; the law is a gray area that can be interpreted on a multitude of levels by both judges and juries. Experienced employment law counsel can help you put in place sound recruiting, hiring and assessment protocols, and also help you avoid costly mistakes.

Finally, let the EEOC be your friend - they're not the enemy. The EEOC web site5 offers a plethora of useful information, as well as free and fee-based training programs. It would behoove any prudent employer to read about current cases in litigation - you might learn myriad ways to prevent similar action against your own company.

1. and 2. http://www.workforce.com/archive/article/23/48/94.php

3. and 4. http://www.wetfeet.com/employer/articles/article.asp

5. http://www.eeoc.gov