3 Key assessment trends for IOPs to be aware of in 2022

If 2022 is going to be anything like the past few years, IOPs are likely to find their profession and discipline challenged in a variety of new ways. For one, businesses are changing rapidly in response to the ongoing pandemic, the so-called “Great Resignation”, an increasingly complex digital landscape, and globalization of talent pool. In addition, the traditional challenge of finding the right talent for the most important roles remains and will likely be a persistent agenda item for all professionals in this field.

In this article, we discuss three key trends that we feel IOPs need to be aware of:

  • The growth of AI-mediated assessments. Artificial Intelligence is maturing rapidly as a technology that assessment professionals need to be conversant with. We take a look at how TTS product-partner, HireVue, is leading the market in this exciting space.

  • Industry-specific assessment solutions. While there are certainly universal or near-universal competencies that most jobs and employers require (digital readiness being a prime example), it is also critical to get as close to the job as possible in our profiling of success factors as well as selecting the correct assessment solution.

  • Mature and technologically sophisticated psychometrics. At TTS we have been leaders in the field of bringing award-winning, best-of-breed assessment products to the local market. With the inclusion of the ADEPT-15 behavioral measure to our existing product suite, we are future-proofing our clients’ talent assessments in ways that have been hitherto unavailable to local IOPs.

AI-mediated assessments: The HireVue approach

As we have argued in previous articles, AI-mediated assessments are not only here to stay, but will likely become more commonplace and expand into areas beyond the obvious applications, such as assessment center scoring and similar applications.

At TTS, we have been proud to bring on board a world-leading and multiple award-winning assessments developed by HireVue that incorporate AI-mediated scoring.

HireVue has conducted more than 260 million AI-assisted video assessments in more than 800 global client companies. Their team of AI and IOP experts (led by Dr. Nathan Mondragon) world-renowned thought leaders in the field of AI-assisted assessments.

This expertise has resulted in HireVue being awarded the coveted “Top HR Product of the Year” by HR Executive Magazine five times as well as being identified by Forbes Magazine as one of the 10 most promising companies in America.

Using HireVue’s AI-assisted video assessments, our clients have already benefitted from increased efficiency, reduced recruitment turnover, and a greatly enhanced candidate experience. Ultimately, using AI has resulted in more accurate and cost-effective talent decisions that simply cannot be replicated by traditional means of high-volume assessment.

By replicating and improving on the very best of human ratings, HireVue’s AI scoring can ignore typical human biases such as gender or race and deliver a far more objective appraisal of interviewee answers. As a result, HireVue end-users experience immediate benefits to their diversity hiring objectives as well as picking the top available talent.

For more on this exciting solution, read recent case studies of how we helped local clients leverage the power of HireVue’s AI video assessments by clicking here.

Industry-specific assessment solutions

A key principle of best-practice assessment implementation is that one cannot measure that which has not been defined. Put simply, unless the assessment professional gets as close to the job as possible, any subsequent assessments are likely to miss the mark.

And while there certainly are universal foundational factors that seem to be implicated in all jobs (e.g. cognitive capacity, conscientiousness) it is a fundamental error to ignore the nuances of specific industries, jobs and employers.

TTS has been at the forefront of delivering tailored assessments to industries such as mining, aviation, manufacturing, and financial services. In such environments, the unique requirements of our clients transcend the capacities of more generic solutions and given the high stakes of the assessments conducted, it is critical that we measure competencies that are aligned with roles such as mining supervisors and safety officers (mining), pilots and cabin crew (aviation), and senior leaders (financial services).

By partnering with best-of-breed assessment providers, as well as using our in-house capacity in building industry-specific assessments such as Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs), we have been able to measure highly specific competencies that are required for various specialist and leadership roles within these unique industries.

For instance, by using a critical experiences framework as well as our expertise in the mining sector, we have consistently been able to deliver successful assessment projects in the global arena. The unique safety concerns found in this sector necessitate the use of robust and defensible measures of safety risk and various behavioral and aptitude correlates of success.

For more on that, have a look at our recent case study that reported on how we used such assessments in a safety-critical mining environment for both benchmarking and succession planning.

Mature and technologically advanced psychometrics: ADEPT-15

TTS has been a leader in the market of adapting internationally-recognized assessments to the local market. By partnering with global leaders in talent assessments, we ensure that our clients benefit not only from the credibility of such companies but are also future-proof in their use of best-of-breed assessments.

An exciting addition to this suite of assessments has been the recent implementation of Aon’s ADEPT-15 personality measure.

Although personality measures such as the ADEPT-15 do not suffer from the same vulnerabilities as ability assessments, due to the fact that they do not right or wrong answers, the use of computer-adaptive and AI-mediated technologies means that participants can complete the measure far quicker and more efficiently than is the case in traditional measures of this kind.

Such technologies ensure a seamless and efficient candidate experience, without the need for overly long, fatigue-inducing assessments of workplace personality.

The innovative contributions that the ADEPT-15 has made to the assessment of workplace behavior have been recognized by winning the International Personnel Assessment Council’s 2015 Innovations in Assessment Award as well the Society of Industrial & Organizational Psychology’s prestigious M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace in 2016.

In giving local clients access to such assessments, we are confident that their talent decisions are based on valid, cheat-proof, and globally benchmarked test results. For more on this topic, have a look at a recent article where we argued that not all assessments are created equal.

Final thoughts

When looking ahead into 2022, there are many reasons for IOPs to be excited about the talent assessment landscape.

Here at TTS, we are privileged to work with not only some of the finest internationally recognized assessment providers but also with client organizations that span the globe. With this depth of experience, we have learned that IOPs need not compromise when selecting the best assessments for the specific task at hand.

By leveraging the power of AI-mediated scoring, clients can benefit from unbiased, rapid and efficient talent screening. And because we are specialists in industry-specific solutions, IOPs in these industries can use highly targeted, rather than generic, assessments.

Finally, our recent launch of the ADEPT-15 personality measure shows our commitment to bringing the very best-of-class assessments to the local market. In this way, all our clients can benefit from credible products that are based on the latest research in workplace assessment practices.

If you would like to know more about our assessment solutions in 2022, why not drop us a line at: info@tts-talent.com? We look forward to consulting with you soon!