In October of last year, the Society for Human Resource Management, a national trade organization, released a study showing that human resources professionals regularly receive false information from job applicants.
The study showed that, “of the human resource professionals (who) use reference checks to verify length of employment, 53 percent discovered falsified information, either regularly or sometimes.” Meanwhile, 51 percent found disparities in salary histories of applicants, regularly or at least sometimes, the study found.
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With job applicants’ apparent willingness to lie about their work histories and job qualifications, many industries are turning to pre-employment honesty testing for help. The standardized tests are designed to reveal applicants’ attitudes about punctuality, work ethic, stealing from the company, drug and alcohol use, and other factors, depending on the test.
”I think companies are figuring out that they need as many tools as they can use to make the right hiring decisions,” said Daniel D. Stevens, who runs a Howard Beach, N.Y., employee screening service. “They’re looking for the best way they can hire and keep the right employees.”
Stevens and others said the tests were formerly used for applicants applying for jobs that required them to handle money or credit card numbers. Now, however, industries from grocery stores to industrial manufacturing companies are using them. The reason, they said, is that companies are suffering heavily from turnover and from employees who steal from the company – in terms of the number of hours they work, making personal long-distance phone calls, or taking office supplies home.
The problem has become especially pronounced in the past four to five years, as workers identify less and less with their employers, said Kenneth H. Kasner, a Phoenix Ph.D. psychologist who runs a company called Positive Options, which consults companies on all aspects of the hiring process, including pre-employment testing.
Kasner, who said use of honesty testing is going up substantially, also sells honesty tests that he buys from development companies.
”The fact is, the losses are increasing exponentially, people are stealing more (and) attitudes (about work) are changing,” Kasner said.
But even those who sell such tests do not advocate using them as the only method to determine someone’s fitness for a particular job. Instead, they recommend using them as just another part of the screening process.
”It’s no miracle cure for anything,” Stevens said. “It’s just a tool.”
Eric Brasher, a researcher for National Computer Systems (NCS), which develops pre-employment tests, said honesty tests are attitude based, meaning they test people’s assumptions and beliefs about work place ethics. He said people who engage in counter-productive behaviors tend to believe that most other people share similar ideas. Because they assume that other people see the world the same way they do, they answer questions honestly.
For example, a question might ask the test taker to estimate how many low-paid workers will steal from their employer.
”People who are more likely to steal are more likely to exaggerate the percentage – the idea that ‘everybody’s doing it,'” Brasher said. “It gets back to a psychological dynamic process of projection where you think that other people are doing the same types of things that you are.”
Brasher said the effectiveness of honesty tests will depend on how the company uses them. They could be used, for example, to reduce turnover, theft, or increase performance of the workforce. But Kasner said it is possible for companies to notice results after six months to a year of using them to hire people.
“Over time they see a substantial change if they use them consistently in the type of workforce that they have,” he said.
That’s not to say everyone endorses them. Caroline Yates Zambrowicz, a spokeswoman for the Society of Human Resource Management, said that while the tests have become quite popular, the society has taken the position that reference checks are just as good a method for checking on a job applicant’s record.
Though experts say the tests are not infallible, they do have methods to help ensure their validity. Most contain questions that are there solely to catch people who are answering the questions the way they think they should be answered, rather than answering them honestly.
The tests, Stevens said, contain certain questions that are “99.9 percent of the time answered a certain way.” If enough of these questions are answered differently, he said, the test will be invalidated.
Not all honesty tests are alike, however. Companies that are considering using them should take several factors into account when choosing a test, Kasner said. The first thing to do, he said, is get a hold of a technical manual for the test. If the company’s research data is difficult to understand, talk to a psychologist or to someone skilled in statistical analysis to help you. Some companies, he noted, will not even permit you to have a manual. Those are the companies to avoid, he said.
”If they won’t give you a technical manual, they don’t have the research,” he said.
Next, consider how easy or difficult the test is to use, such as whether you have to mail off the results to be evaluated, or if it can be done on your own PC. It is also important to consider how the results are to be used, and how easy they are to interpret, Kasner said. Finally, be sure the test actually measures the types of behaviors you’re looking to check, he said.
