Hire productive, dependable and honest people. Unfortunately, all too often they do not do quite as well when they need to decide which job applicant may turn out to be a topnotch employee. The main purpose of screening job applicants is to predict how an applicant will behave on the job before the manager hires the person. After all, it proves to be a lot better to make this prediction before hiring a applicant, rather than after the applicant already is on the payroll. In fact, this in-depth research by leading industrial psychologist John Hunter, Ph.D., and Frank Schmidt, Ph.D., showed most interviews and reference checks were about as useful as flipping a coin.
Reference checks are even weaker and becoming more difficult to obtain.
Many companies feel that the safest thing for them to do is say nothing other than verify employment dates and position. Pre-employment tests help evaluate job applicants in these three trait areas. As such, organizations using character tests may make predictions to hire employees who are unlikely to steal or abuse drugs. They can find out if the applicant has a good attitude toward putting in a day's work for a day's pay. Also, an applicant's character test responses can give the interviewer clear ideas about questions to ask each applicant about their opinions and attitudes.