Profile: HR firm makes grade with assessment tests

Nonetheless, HR professionals and recruiters are always trying to make the process more scientific. One increasingly accepted technique is the use of assessment centres that set candidates a battery of psychometric and skills tests to predict who will be good at what and how far they can be stretched.

One of the earliest advocates in Europe of objective assessment tools was UK-based SHL, founded 26 years ago by Peter Saville and Roger Holdsworth. The two have been evangelists for the technique, arguing that it should be used for hiring in every commercial and industrial sector.

Roy Davis, head of communications at SHL Group, says the firm pioneered the technique in Europe, reworking standard tests and questionnaires into UK English, normed against the UK population. Before that, most organisations used US tests scored against US norms.

Financial institutions have traditionally used the process chiefly for graduate recruitment. Most investment banks now have in-house assessment centres, although they often use outside suppliers like SHL to run their in-house centres - or at least obtain the tests and results analysis from them.

Although its business is by no means limited to the financial services sector, SHL has worked with such firms as Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW), Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and UBS to develop in-house assessment capabilities.

Banks are increasingly worried about cultural fit and assessment centres offer the opportunity to scrutinise the intangibles that cannot be gleaned from a CV. These include the ability to work in a group, the analysis of data, commercial awareness, determination, behaviour under pressure and strategic thinking.

Commonly used measuring tools are group exercises, analysis presentations, role-playing, questionnaires and "boss's in-tray" exercises, where candidates are presented with a series of hypothetical problems to solve.

Terence Perrin, head of graduate recruitment at DrKW, an SHL client, says: "Assessment centres are a key part of our graduate recruitment process and training programme."

Although graduate recruitment has dropped sharply over the past 18 months, SHL's revenues have remained steady, partly because it operates in a diversified range of industry sectors. The company has more than 1,000 employees operating in 40 countries. Gross revenues dipped slightly to 66.4m (€96.3m) last year from 66.6m in 2001.

In February, SHL sold its recruitment subsidiary, Park Human Resources, as part of a restructuring intended to sharpen its focus on its core assessment products and services and reduce its cost base. However, the costs of the restructuring wiped out profits for last year.

One helpful development for the firm may be the increasing use of assessment centres beyond graduate recruitment - many companies use the technique for general recruitment and staff development, especially when succession planning or downsizing are an issue. Its increased use on more senior levels has met with some opposition among employees who see it as a highly subjective and often unfair process.

Davis says: "Sadly, more senior positions are filled on the basis of reputation rather than the ability to do the job, a method with appallingly low validity."

Recruiters agree that this kind of testing has been slow to be accepted for more senior positions.

Ben Dear, managing director of Cresta, a financial services recruitment firm, says: "Many senior candidates would be reluctant to sit an assessment centre test unless specifically requested by the client. Testing is more prevalent and useful when dealing with business areas where candidates cannot be benchmarked upon factors like revenue generation and where there is a history of potential personality clashes within the business. In these cases the tests are reviewed but are not used as power of veto over potential hiring decisions."

SHL believes that the use of internet-based offsite assessment and computer scoring technology will be key to future revenue growth. That was the chief reason behind its acquisition last year of APT, a UK consultancy specialising in the use of technology in managing human resources.

Davis says: "In the past six to nine months the growth of assessment over the internet has grown immensely. The use of technology has become bona fide as companies have become less hesitant to use it. As we begin to harvest the gains through the internet as a delivery mechanism then virtual assessment centres become a real possibility."