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Maximizing The Benefits Of Online Ability Testing

Executive Summary

Many organizations and companies face the question of whether the advantages of selfadministered online ability testing are worth the potential risks of faulty results. Online ability testing allows potential job applicants to take a test whenever they want and wherever they have access to the Internet. Applicants can take the test in a comfortable, non-threatening environment. Administratively, un-proctored tests are very efficient for companies because your costs will be lower. Facilities are not needed and people are not needed to administer the test. Still, many companies worry that the results of self-administered tests can be tainted by various forms of cheating, skewing results and giving you a faulty indication of the applicant's potential to succeed as an employee. Based on its extensive experience, Batrus Hollweg provides insight to help clients manage the risks and ensure online test results effectively identify quality job candidates.

What are the Risks?

Mistakes in pre-employment testing can drive up the cost of hiring for your company and hurt the overall performance of the company over the long-term. Cheating on un-proctored online ability tests usually takes one of three forms:

Applicant substitution involves a smart friend or a relative taking the test for the applicant.
Cheat sheets or answer keys provide the applicant with the correct answers to a test. Applicants often purchase cheat sheets or find them on the Internet. It's easier to develop a cheat sheet when companies rely on standardized ability tests to filter thousands of job applicants. A cheat sheet for a popular test can be quite valuable. Some applicants build their own cheat sheets by reviewing an online test before actually taking it. A friend might download the test so the dishonest applicant can research the "right" answers.
Practicing the test means taking the test several times under different names before the applicant takes it under his or her real name.

While cheating can inflate self-administered test results, other aspects of online testing can just as easily deflate results. For example, disturbances and distractions like phone calls, noise from a neighbor, or an unreliable connection to the Internet can affect how well or how poorly an applicant does on an ability test.1 The capabilities of the applicant's personal computer can also have detrimental effects on results, especially if the test is a timed mental ability test and the computer or its access to the Internet is slow. Moreover, some applicants are not familiar with computers and this could drive up their anxiety levels to the point where it affects their performance on the test. In addition, while most candidates have easy access to the internet, not everyone does. Some people do not have their own computers. This fact in itself will exclude some applicants from taking an online ability test.

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