Understanding Assessments: How to Choose the Right Tool for the Job

In my work at GrowthPlay I spend a lot of time with clients and prospects who are interested in utilizing assessments to inform their talent management strategies and decisions. I’ve learned that the world of assessments can be confusing. There are individual assessments, organizational assessments, cultural assessments, IQ assessments, personality assessments and assessments of potential. There are assessment centers, assessment instruments and interviews assessments. There are self-assessments and assessment of others. Uses of assessments range from selection to development to performance diagnosis – to name just a few. 

It’s no wonder that I find myself talking with folks who are comparing and considering two or three assessments that have – from my perspective – completely different uses. While it may seem obvious, my first piece of advice is to get really clear on what you want to use an assessment for. If you are an organizational effectiveness consultant (like me) you are probably going to be using one of three types of assessments: talent assessments, culture assessments, and/or performance assessments.

Performance assessments are used to evaluate how well individuals and teams are doing their jobs compared to how they should be doing – usually for the purpose of designing improvement solutions. If you are looking to understand and utilize assessments for this purpose, I highly recommend exploring the resources available from the International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI). 

Cultural assessments are used to understand the characteristics, drivers of behavior and deeply rooted norms and values of a company or organization. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Organizational culture sets the context for everything an enterprise does. Most internal and external consultants who are hired or tasked with effecting a culture change find it useful to start with one of the many culture assessments available on the market.

Talent assessments are used most often to inform talent management decisions such as who to hire, who to promote, and who needs what training. Once again there is no once-size-fits all talent assessment. In order to choose an assessment, I find it helpful to distinguish between three broad types of talent assessments which each have a different purpose. Here’s my take on three types of talent assessments and the best use of each.

Predictive Assessments

Predictive assessments (such as GrowthPlay’s own Chally Assessment™) gauge an individual’s potential to perform the tasks required of a specific role. When used appropriately, these assessments can reliably and accurately predict whether a person’s inherent strengths align with the competencies or attributes that have been shown to correlate with success in that role. Like the way a DNA strand identifies the genetic makeup of an individual, predictive assessments give us a way to measure attributes that are not always apparent on the surface and that can’t be gauged through interviews and observation.

While predictive assessments are most commonly used for hiring, they can be also be powerful tools for evaluating the capacity of your entire talent pool and developing a talent strategy. For example, we frequently create Talent Audits for clients – illustrating on one page who on the team has the natural strengths required for a variety of different sales roles. Seeing their organization’s “Sales DNA” at a glance provides sales leaders and their HR partners with data to help determine if they need to “build or buy” the talent they’ll need to execute their sales strategy.

Personality Assessments

For centuries, observers of human behavior have noticed that there seem to be patterns of differences in how people interact with the world around them. Interpreted broadly, “personality” is simply a term used to describe these patterns. There are scores of style tests and quizzes on the market, ranging from communication style to social style to team style. Unfortunately, most personality tests haven’t been shown to be statistically predictive or valid for hiring or promotion decisions. This may be because most of these tests are easy to game.

Despite their lack of predictive validity, we think personality indicators can be useful for other applications. Instruments that gauge and/or describe style can be useful for both self-awareness and understanding others. 

Observed Skills Assessments

I've discussed ways to gauge potential and personality. A third category of assessments gauge skills. Skills assessments evaluate how well an individual is performing the essential activities of the job. Most assessments of this kind are multi-rater— often referred to as 360s. This means that both the employee and manager (and possibly customers and peers) rate the seller to get multiple perspectives on the behaviors and skills the employee is demonstrating day-to-day.

Skills assessments are powerful tools for identifying training needs for individuals and teams. They can also be repeated after a training program or coaching intervention to determine whether the program improved performance.

Closing Thoughts

I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of the topic of assessments. I hope this brief article is helpful as you unravel the question of which assessment is best for what your organization is trying to do. If you are willing to contribute your own advice and experience, I invite you to comment below.