While those of us who work with assessments are well-aware of their limitations, research data have consistent indicated that well-validated personality and cognitive assessments are almost always the best predictors we have of future occupational success. This has been established repeatedly in the professional literature for the past 15 years.

While assessments are obviously not foolproof, the critical underlying issue is that we need to make hiring decisions based upon something. And in most cases, that best something is an assessment. In making this statement, we need to consider what the alternatives are.  This issue was recently highlighted for me in a recent series of articles about GPAs which employers often consider when hiring recent graduates.

For example, there are now high schools that name up to 30 valedictorians. Traditionally reserved for the student with the highest GPA, it is now seen an honor to be shared by all “top” students.  Apparently, many schools give extra credit for Advanced Placement classes so a 4.0 might be posted as a 4.5. Also, since some schools will cap GPAs at an arbitrary level, say 4.3, the result can be several students who all appear to have achieved a perfect record.  All that being said, while there may be sound reasons for naming multiple valedictorians, it obviously no longer represents the academic distinction it once did.

In a related development, some law schools are now increasing their students’ GPAs retroactively.  For example, a B- may become a B overnight, even though the student may have graduated some time ago.  The rationale is that some law schools grade on a curve (e.g., only permitting a fixed percentage of 4.0s to be assigned) whereas others do not or do so less stringently. The more stringent schools, being concerned that potential employers may not be aware of this, have taken the step of increasing all their students' GPA by .33--even if they graduated five years ago.  The point is not to argue the propriety of a school’s adopting this policy. Rather, it highlights the fact that when compared to other data that we have available, a well-validated assessment program often provides the fairest source of data about a potential employee’s suitability for a particular position within an organization.

Reid Klion