Assessments of human potential and skills assessment (or "personality") tests

(articles) have been the subject of many articles - and will certainly inspire
many more to come. The great shock occurred several years ago, when
employers started requiring more than the usual basic information on the
professional training and work experience of their job candidates. It should
nevertheless be outlined that these elements remain essential to the selection
process. However, the information they deliver – mainly through the job
candidate's resume and by conducting recruitment / selection interviews
(guidelines) that ought to be mainly focused on the candidate’s main
professional experiences – i.e. they would allow assessing the know-
how required for the position.

However, each position also entails a series of requirements relating to the

candidate’s behavioral skills. In order to better capture this more behavioral
aspect of the candidate's personality, companies generally resort to assessment
tools and consulting firms. They are getting more and more aware of the fact
that their competitiveness is directly linked to the motivation of and emulation
among employees, rather than to a strive for pure performance.

Generally speaking, the notion of human potential assessment refers to the

recruitment / selection process (guidelines), i.e. to selection purposes. In this
article, we will try to demonstrate that an assessment should first and foremost
be aimed at developing the individual skills of employees, thus paving the way
to developing the organization as a whole.

What does an assessment of professional skills consist in?

Each person can dedicate a given amount of energy to their professional

life. They will display both strengths - which they will seek to highlight in their
professional activity, as well as less developed skills - which they cannot simply
ignore. Indeed, such weak points should be listed up, in order either to
strengthen them, or simply to respect them by not using them too intensively.
Indeed, we all recover while doing things we like and get worn out and stressed
by activities that confront us to our limits.
An assessment process thus consists in trying to get acquainted with job
candidates without judging them, without categorizing them and without
getting into their private lives (except possibly when a candidate feels a need to
talk about it). This is not an easy task and requires the assessor to display
specific skills. The assessment process can also help some candidates gain a
deeper knowledge of themselves.

How should such an assessment be conducted?

An assessment that takes place in the context of a recruitment process

will entail several phases:

1. an in-depth analysis of the application file (Curriculum Vitae with the

mention of the candidate’s training, diploma, main professional
experiences, hobbies, social and political activities…)
2. a testing process based on one or several assessment "tools"
3. an assessment interview that represents the heart of every assessment
process. An interview should always be conducted in the course of a
recruitment process, as it will allow to understand, explain and validate
(or invalidate) the results provided by the diverse assessment tools.
During this interview, it is the candidates themselves who will bring these
results to life and allow for a relevant interpretation.
4. The assessor will then make a synthesis based on:

• the information given by the candidate (the assessment tool will have
served as a support for dialogue)
• the observations made by the assessor(s) (the hierarchical superiors are
generally involved)
• the job’s requirements

As a consequence, assessments that solely rely on testing tools, as efficient as

the latter may be, cannot claim to fully reflect the individual’s professional
potential. Such assessments can thus lead to hasty – and sometimes wrong –
appreciations. In such cases, the assessor is transgressing an important rule of
professional ethics. Actually, two situations should be avoided during an
assessment:
 • the assessor adopts a purely technically-oriented attitude;
• the candidate adopts a passive attitude, awaiting the assessment's results
as a verdict or an oracle.

Every individual who goes through an assessment process should indeed be

considered as partner in their own right. Indeed, it is the candidates who know
themselves best, even if this knowledge is not very well-structured, and even if
the person is not aware of it. Only through dialogue will assessors be able to
bring them to express this knowledge of themselves. And indeed, this approach
is just as profitable for candidates as it is for the people in charge of assessing
them!

What requirements should the assessors meet?

For a long time, assessors used to be external to the company. They would
also display a variable degree of professionalism. Today, many companies wish
to perform their assessments in an autonomous way. In such cases, internal
assessors are appointed by the company's Board in virtue of their experience in
the areas of recruitment and/or career management, in particular. As for the
selected assessment tool, the Board should also accept and/or test it
themselves.

The main advantage of relying on internal assessors, in addition to a greater

rapidity of implementation of assessment processes, lies in their knowledge of
the company, of its structure and of the vacant positions. Moreover, such
assessosr will be able to monitor the candidates and thus, to orient the
interview towards the considered job's requirements while taking a multiplicity
of parameters into account. They will be able to provide the candidate’s
hierarchical superiors – who are generally also the final decision-makers – with
the most objective assessment possible given the data avaible.

The main flaw of having one's own internal assessors lies in the fact that they
may be required to dare communicate possibly unpleasant news (i.e. after the
assessment). In any case, it is preferable that top managers be assessed by a
mixed team (made up of both internal and external assessors).
Finally, an assessment should not end up with a "passed" or "failed" (and even
less with a "competent" / "incompetent") verdict, but rather with an assessment
of whether well-defined requirements are met. The assessment tool thus is –
and must remain – just that: a tool that opens the way for discussion between
the assessor and the candidate. The assessment tool should thus never be
regarded as an end in itself.

What are the assessment tools available today?

There are lots of different assessment tools, the reliability of which can greatly
differ. It is thus important to remember that the company's employer
image depends on the quality of and care given to the assessment process. This
is why assessment tools will first have to be tested on a group of managers.
The company will then choose the tool that best suits its vision and
its organizational culture.

The tool should however meet certain criteria:

• a serious statistical validation (do the results actually measure – and with
a sufficient degree of accuracy – what they are supposed to measure and
can they predict future behaviors?) (these questions should be asked to
the consultant)
• an independence from any sectarian ideology, whether political or other.
• a guarantee of the confidentiality of all the answers given by the
candidate to the questions asked
• a strictly confidential processing of the results that should be exclusively
performed by competent and recognized professionals
• a calibration that takes local specificities into account (some behavioral
criteria significantly vary e.g. between France and French-speaking
Switzerland or between French-speaking and German-speaking
Switzerland, …). Very few tools are adapted to regional particularities.
The more companies will ask for such analyses, the more tools that meet
these requirements there will be.
• the tool should be thus built that it may lead to a dialogue
 • the tool should in no case be regarded as an end in itself, but only as a
resource.

The assessment process and its follow-up

Decision-makers often think that an assessment will be sanctioned by a verdict

of the "passed"/"failed" type. A relevant assessment process should however
get into more details.

By the way, it should always be remembered that a perfect match between a

position and an individual is not attainable. This is actually quite fortunate, as a
perfect compatibility would not be stimulating and would present no
opportunity for further development. A position should always bring something
to the candidates and include a certain amount of new challenges, so that it
may contribute to their personal and professional development.

The assessor will, first of all, have to focus on the identification of this gap by
helping the candidate understand and accept it. The employees' direct
supervisors should also get involved into this process, so as to back them in an
efficient manner. They are the "coaches" who will help they subordinates meet
their performance targets while supporting them in their personal and
professional development.

When this gap points to a stronger potential than that which is needed for the
position, a high risk of frustration and of loss of motivation ensues. This
scenario is more dangerous than the previous one, as the person may be at risk
of feeling useless and despised. This can, in turn, have a significant impact on
the person's performance and even make them unable to effectively carry out
activities they perfectly master. Therefore, such a situation is only sustainable if
it is identified for what it is, accepted as such - and temporary!

In any case, the assessment should lead to an action plan with training
proposals and development actions. This plan will be implemented and a
monitoring process will have to be conducted by the employee's direct superior
and with the help of an HR manager. A new assessment may be performed at
an ulterior date in order to precisely assess the progress made.
By definition, human potential fluctuates over time. It is up to us to correctly
apprehend it, in order to direct it toward stimulating goals. This, however, is
not always simple and may require a personal commitment that often turns out
to require considerable energy. This phenomenon is accentuated by the fact
that solutions are always unique and individualized, as they should exactly
match the person’s needs. There is no typical development model.

Competency assessments thus represent a complex task. Nothing is black or

white, every situation is special. Assessors indeed have to adjust to the
uniqueness of the candidate in the most objective way possible given the job's
and the company's requirements. Therefore, the assessor is in the best position
to initiate a personal development process. This is a heavy responsibility that
requires assessors to do a constant and significant amount of personal
development themselves.