That is clearly not true. In fact, proper use of good assessments can provide the most effective documentation of objective and nondiscriminatory hiring practices. In general, 4th, 5th, and 6th Generation instruments are well validated for business applications. Most legal issues occur when those instruments are used inconsistently or improperly.

It is important to consult with individuals who are knowledgeable in such applications. Too often companies have failed to gain the benefits of new assessment technology because of conservative but uninformed advice. In today's competitive world, businesses can no longer afford not to explore every possible competitive advantage. (Legal Issues with Assessments)

The inherent concept in the newest assessment technology is that all people are good at something, but no one is good at everything. That includes testing. In general, most people are anxious about taking any kind of assessment. This reaction has been conditioned by years in school, where passing or failing a test determined an individual's class standing.

Other tests such as driving tests or medical tests also contributed to this attitude. This is why it is important to explain the purpose of any test or assessment to all candidates before it is given. Many of the latest instruments provide preliminary messages that do exactly that and put the candidate at ease, whether the instrument is delivered on the Internet or on paper.

It is important to recognize that people with poor skills will seldom be enthusiastic when asked to take a test to measure those skills. People with performance problems will not be enthusiastic about completing an assessment to see how their abilities match a particular job. That is exactly why assessments are a vital part of today's business world. Effective assessment instruments can identify the critical areas that people do not want to reveal, but that the business must know in order to make the best decision.

The use of good assessments tends to collapse the time needed for selection decisions, not make it longer. Using a 30 minute instrument such as these enables an employer to effectively screen out unsuitable candidates before spending substantial amounts of interviewing time with them.

By focusing the selection efforts on those candidates that are most likely to succeed, employers can not only make faster decisions but more accurate decisions. By accelerating the hiring decision, employers also become more competitive at capturing talent in their job market.

Professional recruiters can offer significant advantages in seeking candidates for many positions, but it is important to remember these caveats:
- Recruiters get paid for filling positions.
- Recruiters do not get paid for screening out candidates.
- The worst recruiter using good assessments will make fewer mistakes than the best recruiter who does not use assessments.

By incorporating good assessments into the recruiting process, you gain the benefits of recruiting professionals and at the same time, gain insurance against them making a mistake that costs you money.

Customized interview systems, behavioral event-based interviewing, targeted interviewing, and competency-based interviewing are all sound methods for identifying potentially successful job candidates. Several systems use bio-data surveys to profile successful employees and then attempt to match interviewees to that profile.

These programs can be an effective part of an employer's hiring process, however, they lack the objective measurement of current assessments. As more people become involved with the interviewing, the system becomes more vulnerable to the subjective differences of each individual interviewer.

The process also requires a substantial amount of interviewing time to accomplish the screening that newer instruments can do in a matter of minutes. These instruments even provide behavioral interview questions based on the individual characteristics of the candidates. By screening candidates before in-depth interviews, the process is made much more efficient.

Industrial psychologists play an important role by supplying a professional psychological opinion as a supplement to many decision-making processes. This can be quite expensive however. It often makes sense to use an inexpensive assessment tool, such as FirstView^TM, to screen out unsuitable candidates before incurring the expense of the psychologist.

Several things must also be clear about the role of the psychologist:
- The use of an industrial psychologist to supply information used for a hiring
or placement decision in no way limits the exposure of the client company to federal and state regulations (e.g. If that information can be shown to be discriminatory, the decision can be shown to be discriminatory).
- The psychologist's summary information is only as good as the assessments used to obtain the initial data. (i.e. A psychologist using First or Second Generation tools cannot provide Fifth or Sixth Generation quality information).