Monday 30 January 2012
Types of Assessment Tools: Structured Interviews and Oral Assessments
Advantages
Can assess candidates’ soft skills (in case of structured interview) and knowledge (in case of oral examination)
Relatively easy to develop
Disadvantages
Must develop a thorough scoring key
Requires trained assessors (often 2 or more conducting the interview)
Can be time consuming and expensive to administer and score
Candidate is aware of evaluation and may respond in a dishonest fashion to meet assessor expectations
Candidates may misrepresent their achievements
This post is based on content from 'Assessment Tools Certification' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.
Friday 27 January 2012
Why is Competency-based Management for Internationally Trained Individuals?
This post is based on content from 'Integrating Internationally Trained Individuals without Reinventing the Wheel' by Shaun Vollick.
Wednesday 25 January 2012
Types of Assessment Tools: Portfolio Assessment
Advantages:
Provides an assessment of knowledge and skills which are difficult to observe and evaluate for others
Disadvantages:
Costly to develop reliable scoring scheme (need very clear guidelines)
Candidates must spend considerable time assembling the portfolio
Time consuming and difficult to score
Variety of documents submitted therefore difficult to establish equivalencies
This post is based on content from 'Assessment Tools Certification' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.
Tuesday 17 January 2012
Types of Assessment Tools: Work Simulation
Examples of work simulation could include a 15-minute role-play for sales associates or the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for physiotherapist and physicians, a high-stakes exam that includes twenty work stations over the course of half a day. The following table outlines the advantages and disadvantages of work simulation assessments.
Advantages
Closely imitate the work environment
Tests candidates on tasks they typically perform on the job
High face validity and well accepted by candidates
Sound psychometric qualities
Disadvantages
Difficult and expensive to develop
Requires significant resources for administration
Candidates are aware of evaluation, so they can modify their behaviours to meet expectations of assessors
This post is based on content from 'Assessment Tools Certification' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.
Thursday 12 January 2012
Integrating Internationally Trained Individuals without Reinventing the Wheel
Due to the retirement of the Baby Boom generation and decrease in birth rates, labor markets in many Western countries are currently facing an impending knowledge and skill shortage as the lack of available domestic talent rapidly shrinks. One of the obvious sources for skilled workers to fill that gap has been through immigration policy and the recruitment of Internationally Trained Individuals (ITIs).
The hiring of Internationally Trained Individuals (ITIs) has not been as simple as many employers have expected. Many cite barriers to hiring these newcomers such as the inability to assess international training and education credentials, language proficiency and the ability for the individual to integrate into the culture of the company and the country.
As such governments and organizations have invested significant funds in the past decade resulting in millions of dollars being spent on thousands of projects to aid in the recruitment of ITIs. Many of these projects have sought to create new and innovative means of assessment and integration and many have been faced with an elimination of their funding due to the inability to produce results.
Filling the Gap without Starting from Scratch:
Especially during these difficult financial times and just as much so as we emerge from fiscal restraint, perspectives shift from looking for new and innovative solutions, to what we can do using what we have today. One such approach that has been used by organizations for decades in the recruitment and integration of its new employees is Competency-based Management or CBM.
Many organizations throughout the world have effectively built their human resource functions around CBM in order to operate more efficiently and productively. CBM is not only an effective method to organize talent but it is also associated with a critical collection of tools that can be used in bridging the skills gap for ITIs; an approach which may cost little or nothing for some organizations and is effective for all current and potential employees.
This post is based on content from 'Integrating Internationally Trained Individuals without Reinventing the Wheel' by Shaun Vollick.
Wednesday 11 January 2012
Types of Assessment Tools: Performance-based or On-the-job?
Advantages
Provides a direct assessment of individual’s skills, allowing to collect candidate performance information not otherwise available
High face validity and acceptance by candidates
Easy to develop
Disadvantages
Not suitable for assessing skills which are not directly observable
Need detailed scoring key
Need to recruit and train independent, third party assessors
Presence of an assessor typically changes the behaviour of a candidate
Can be time consuming
Can be expensive to administer (e.g., high volume of candidate, remote location)
This post is based on content from 'Assessment Tools Certification' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.
Wednesday 4 January 2012
Types of Assessment Tools: Written Examinations
Written examination is flexible and can be used either on its own or paired with other tools. Although written examination can also be used for re-certification, in practice, this occurs infrequently. In Certification Industry Scan, Knapp & Associates (2007) found that 97% of certifying bodies administered written examination as one form of assessment and, on average, the written examinations included:
98% multiple-choice questions
9% essay questions
8% true-false questions
5% answer completion
3% short answer
The following provides information on the advantages and disadvantages of multiple-choice examinations and other forms of written examinations.
Multiple Choice Exams:
Advantages
Sound psychometric qualities
Wide coverage of domain content
Can assess both knowledge as well as application of knowledge
Can be scored quickly
Can be administered more than once
Low cost for candidate and decreases as the number of candidates increases
Possibility of online delivery
Well accepted by candidates
Disadvantages
Need large pool of questions to ensure their rotation. Measuring practical skills is not always possible
Initial development costs are high, therefore requiring significant investment capital
Requires creation of various versions of the exam to prevent question over-exposure and to ensure security of the test.
Essays//Short Answer/Answer Completion
Advantages
Can assess both knowledge as well as application of knowledge, can obtain more information in some areas
Can have reasonable coverage of domain content
Cost for candidate is still reasonable
Possibility of online delivery
Disadvantages
Need to revise content after each administration
Attention needs to be paid to development of scoring key
Measuring practical skills is not always possible
Scoring can be time-consuming and challenging
This post is based on content from 'Assessment Tools Certification' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.