Introduction
Hiring the right person to tackle a particular job is very crucial to any organization. Hiring the wrong person can easily ruin the company’s credibility and can even cost the company a lot of money. For a long time, most organizations have relied on the traditional method of interviewing a candidate.
This is because conducting a personal interview is not only considered cheap for the company but that it does not also take much of the company’s time. However, research has proven that the traditional method of conducting personal interviews can no longer be relied upon to hire superlative candidates.
The use of assessment centres have widely been advocated for with most researchers arguing that it is the only reliable selection method that a company can adopt to hire the best of the best. Franks et.al. (1998) state that almost 60% of British organizations have resulted to assessment centre exercises for their selection process.
But how effective is the use of assessment centre exercises to hire a qualified candidate and is it the most suitable method to test a candidate?
The argument has elicited mixed reactions as to the validity of assessment centres with some arguing that the centres are not really effective while others maintain that the use of assessment centres is the best invention that befell the business world. This paper is therefore aimed at reviewing some peer-reviewed journal articles that seem to have a different take on the issue.
Literature Review
Abraham, Morrison and Burnett (2006) argue that: ‘assessment centres and behavioural simulations are among the most effective predictors of job performance and career progress available to employers’ (p.383).
This is attributed to the fact that the use of assessment centre exercises enhance the skills and the capabilities of the employees and it is one of the most appropriate strategy to measure their potential.
This has been made possible as the candidate is required to present some form of evidence to support their suitability claims (Jennifer and Duncan 2005). In their extensively researched article, Abraham, Morrison and Burnett (2006) further argue that even though the efficiency of assessment centre exercises have widely researched upon, it is not yet clear how useful they are in the employment development.
This is because most studies focus on the efficacy of assessment centres and its role in employee development has not been dwelled upon extensively. This leaves a wide gap on how effective the method is.
Malde (2006) on his part questions the validity of assessment centres and its role. He presents a valid argument that even though assessment centres has widely been praised, it does not really live up to his claims. In his article, he claims that the assessment centre is negligent enough as to not care about the interests of the candidate.
He seem to give a differing opinion on the effectiveness of assessment centre as a whole. He argues that even though the method of selection is one of the best to pick out the best candidate, the interests of the candidate should also be encompassed in the process in order to conclude on the issue of effectiveness.
In his view, the interests of the candidate undertaking the exercises should be put into consideration as that of the organisation. He argues that the performance of the candidate is bound to decline in future. Why is this so? He supports his argument by arguing that just like in the traditional assessment devices that have earlier been adopted, the candidate is out to please the selection assessors so as to get that job.
With the economy crunch hitting the world, one is bound to dance to any tune played so as to get their way. The interests of the candidates are completely ignored hence leading to performance decline in future when the candidate become accustomed to what he is doing.
However, Thornton and Gibbons (2009) seem to differ with the argument presented by Malde. In their well researched article, they state that: ‘the overall assessment rating in assessment centre exercise predicts performance in the future in some specified job or set of jobs’ (p. 171).
This is because the exercises entailed in the assessment centre dwell on factors such as content representativeness. The assessor is particularly keen on the appropriateness of the content.
This is made possible as the candidate is made to undergo several exercises such as filling in questionnaires and partaking intelligence tests while the assessors rely on several other techniques to test the suitability of the candidate.
The career success of the candidate from the assessment centre exercises has also been debated upon. Jansen and Vinkenburg (2006) predicted the effectiveness of assessment centre exercises on the success of the candidate in future.
In their study, they examined the trend of success for a period of 13 years in order to assess the validity and effectiveness of the assessment centre in future career progression of the candidate.
The authors relied on the period of entry and tenure as control measures and previous studies that had been conducted in order to ascertain the validity of assessment centre exercises to select a candidate and the success of that particular candidate in future.
Though they conclude that the method was indeed effective after years of investigation, they are quick to point out that the validity pattern was indeed dynamic.
They argued that the assessment centre system was more effective for candidates in their early careers and their validity increased over the years as opposed to those candidates who were late in their career lives. They also argued that the different types of techniques used in assessment centres can be a contributing factor to the future success of the candidate.
It is therefore evident that different types of techniques applied in the assessment centres play a very big role to determine its validity. The most common techniques applied include interviews, in-basket exercises, filling a questionnaire, business games, leadership group discussion, projective tests, drawing autobiographical sketches and paper and pencil tests.
Luo and Meng (2005) holds the opinion that the validity of assessment centre depends on different grading dimensions adopted in the selection process. In their study, they examined the differing effects on the validity of assessment centre using the leaderless group discussions, role playing and in-basket exercises.
The leaderless group discussion is a technique that requires the candidates to work in a group. The candidates are handed written or spoken instructions to be assessed upon. The role of the assessor at this stage is to assess the measurable behaviour of the candidates such as how they maintain the eye contact, their body language or their involvement in the group.
The leaderless group discussion is tricky as it calls for candidates who have excellent leadership and communication skills. The role playing or simulation technique on the other hand is where the candidates are required to play a particular role in an orchestrated scene to test their response to particular situations. This is to enhance their role-playing skills in the organisation.
The in-basket technique is one of a kind as it requires the candidate to undertake a role in odd times and within the shortest time possible. This measures the reliability of the candidate in the organisation if he is hired. The three methods were measured more than once in different dimensions (Luo and Meng 2005).
The conclusion of the study was that the behaviour ability techniques were more effective than the psychological trait techniques. This study was backed in a similar finding that measured the impact of techniques on assessment centres.
In their findings, Mark and David (2006) argued that though the use of various techniques played a big role in evaluating the ideal candidate for the job, the effectiveness of assessment centre varied in the type of technique applied. In practise, specific task-based techniques have highly been rated as to increase the ratings in assessment centres (Jackson, Stillman and Atkins 2005).
The use of self-assessment in assessment centres has also been advocated for in numerous studies as an effective method of evaluation. Franks et.al. (1998) argue that: ‘Most of the research in this field has looked at the effectiveness of raw self-assessments on their own and not the relative importance of self assessment in comparison to other indices of assessment (p.124).
In their article, they state that self-assessment accuracy can be determined either through over-estimation, under-estimation and perfect accuracy of the candidate. This not only aid the personal development of the candidate but also aids in the effectiveness of the assessment centre outcome. It also enhances self-awareness and learning of the candidate.
Discussion
The validity of assessment centre exercises is very essential to any organisation that wishes to encompass it in its selection process. However, it is evident that most findings fail to address the weaknesses of this method and only concentrate on the strengths.
Though the findings by Malde (2006) seem to veer off from the findings of other researchers, his only concern is how the candidate’s interests are featured in the method. His argument though seem to support the method as the most appropriate strategy a company can adopt to hire a qualified candidate.
Lievens, Dam and Anderson (2002) bashes the use of personnel selection due to technology advancements, globalisation and other social trends. They wholly rely on the use of assessment centre exercises as the successful strategy to hire the best candidates for the job.
However, the system has some drawbacks such as it is a costly process. It also emphasize on a one-way mirror technique where the candidate is to perform a task and the assessors acts like big brother. This tends to scare away candidates hence decreasing their full potentials.
Conclusion
In conclusion, assessment centre exercises can be said to be the most effective in selecting an ideal candidate despite some of the drawbacks it faces. Consequently, it provides the perfect platform for the organisation to select the best candidates based on various techniques, and not the usual question-answer type of selection.
The literature already put in place seems to concur with the idea of wholly implementing the assessment centre exercises fully in all organisations to ensure its success by hiring the best candidates they can get.
Reference List
Abraham, J, Morrison, J and Burnett, D 2006, ‘Feedback Seeking Among Developmental Assessment Center Participants’, Journal of Business and Psychology, vol. 20 no. 3, pp. 383-394.
Franks, D, Ferguson, E, Rolls, S and Henderson, F 1998, ‘Self-assessments in HRM: an example from an assessment centre’, Personal Review, vol. 28 no. 1, pp. 124-133.
Jackson, D, Stillman, J and Atkins, S 2005, ‘Rating Tasks Versus Dimensions in Assessment Centers: A Psychometric Comparison’, Human Performance, vol. 18 no. 3, pp. 213-241.
Jansen, P and Vinkenburg, C 2006, ‘Predicting management career success from assessment center data: A longitudinal study’, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, vol. 68 no. 2, pp. 253-266.
Jennifer, S and Duncan, J 2005, ‘A Detection theory approach to the evaluation of assessors in assessment centres’, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol. 78 no. 4, pp.581-594.
Lievens, F, Dam, K and Anderson, N 2002, ‘Recent trends and challenges in personnel selection’, Personal Review, vol. 31 no. 5, pp. 580-601.
Luo, F and Meng, Q 2005, ‘A Research on How Different Types of Graded Dimensions Affect the Construct Validity of the Assessment Centre’, Psychological ScienceChina, vol. 28 no. 6, pp. 1437-1439.
Malde, B 2006, ‘Do assessment centres really care about the candidate’, British Journal of Guidance and Counseling, vol. 34 no. 4, pp. 539-549.
Mark, B and David, W 2006, ‘A Meta-Analytic Evaluation of the Impact of Dimension and Exercise Factors on Assessment Centre Ratings’, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 91 no. 5, pp. 1114-1124.
Thornton, G and Gibbons, A 2009, ‘Validity of assessment centres for personnel selection’, Human Resource Management Review, vol. 19, pp. 169-187.