¶ … pre-employment assessment tools to select employees result in hiring better workers. If one looks at job applications, sometimes companies may ask the applicant to fill out a survey or perform a test. These preliminary actions help "weed out" potentially incompatible or unqualified applicants in order to allow for an increased focus on suitable applicants. Although logically it seems like a good way to increase the pool of qualified workers and limit exposure to unqualified or incompatible workers, consistency may be a problem. In some of these articles, the gap information reveals that most companies may not follow through with the recommendations given by these pre-employment assessment tools. If that is the case, then such tools may be ineffectual because of the lack of commitment by the business or organization in following through with recommendations. Other articles highlight the effectiveness of such tools in order to remove potentially dangerous candidate through psychological evaluations (Christian, 2012). Exams remain the benchmark for many white-collar jobs to ensure the applicant knows the information and procedures they claim to know. However, are these exams outdated? Do these exams cover enough the job responsibilities that applicants will have? Are the potentially deterring qualified candidates? This literature review will help answer these questions.

Psychological Assessments

The first article deals with the consistency issue of the use of psychological assessment during selection processes in law enforcement agencies. Author Mark highlights that few of those who apply for law enforcement jobs pass the psychological evaluation, yet agencies still hire them. "Research has also found that very few applicants pass the psychological evaluations and that law enforcement agencies may be screening out candidates who would have been successful police officers" (Mark, 2014, p. 1). The purpose of a pre-employment assessment tool like a psychological evaluation is to remove potentially harmful or unstable applicants from the pool of qualified candidates. If law enforcement agencies willfully ignore the results of such evaluation, it removes the purpose of even having one.

The article continues by examining the current psychological evaluation used by USA's ten biggest law enforcement agencies. Mark gathered data for the study by sending a survey involving questions connected to the law enforcement "selection process," to chosen law enforcement agencies and analyzed the results. "Results showed that there was variance in the psychological evaluation procedure, with three different tests being used among the ten agencies, 50% of the agencies using more than one test, and 29% of the agencies using a licensed psychologist to administer the evaluation" (Mark, 2014, p. 1). Such results have insinuations for candidates screened in one agency but consequentially screened out by another for the same position.

This means people that could be qualified for a position in these law enforcement agencies may not get the job vs. unqualified ones or even worse, mentally unstable ones, because some agencies will not consider the psychological evaluation and will instead select based on other qualities. The entire purpose of assessment tools remains to reduce the pool of applicants to only qualified and mentally stable applicants as a higher quality employee pool means better output and increased performance within the agency. Perhaps the reason why there are so many corrupt police officers being revealed in the news has to do with the inconsistent selection process prior to employment.

Another article discusses assessments in hiring nurses. The medical field desperately needs highly qualified nurses. Nurses not only possesses the capacity to administer treatments to patients, but they now prescribe and function as the secondary doctor in some respects. Therefore, the quality of hires depends on the selection process. The article by Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez & Biddle suggest the important of choosing nurse applicants not just based on technical skill but also other things like bedside manner that may contribute to higher quality care. "Nurse applicants' technical knowledge is extremely important to avoid negative outcomes; however, there are soft skills that factor into their success, such as bedside manner, personality, communication, and decision making" (Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez & Biddle, 2013, p. 189). Pre-employment assessment tools thus became integral in choosing the right blend of qualified applicant and compatible applicant. Compatibility to a profession is important because if a nurse applicant is not sociable and is not a good communicator, no matter how smart they are, they may provide low quality service to patients since nursing involves more than technical knowledge.

The study analyzed prior participation in several kinds of assessments in order to determine if such assessments had a positive impact on predicting future job performance as seen below.

To rank applicants on divergent skills, 3 assessment types were investigated, resulting in...

The clinical, situational, and behavioral components that were created measure applicants' job knowledge, interpersonal competency in medical facility -- related situations, and aspects of personality and behavior, respectively. Results indicate that using the assessment can predict 45% of a nurse applicant's future job performance. Practical implications include hiring and maintaining a higher quality of nurses and decreased hiring costs (Kathy, Ramon, Gonzalez & Biddle, 2013, p. 189).
Author Jack Kitaeff discusses the process of employee selection in a brief overview in his book. The process emphasizes the critical importance of choosing the best candidates. Additionally, how this is true for all organizations except in some law enforcement settings. He goes on to explain that in any valid selection system, applicants that do well on tests and other tools/instruments utilized in the selection and screening process are most likely to become the high performance after integration into an organization. The same logic applies to those that do poorly and then perform poorly. "That is the essence of validity; something we find out about the individual in the pre-employment assessments accurately forecasts subsequent job performance" (Kitaeff, 2011, p. 193).

However, this is true especially in law enforcement; the best are not always selected nor are many instruments used to elect the best candidates. Traditionally speaking, police officers only have to have a high school degree and graduate from police academy to become a police officer. However, other things like mental stability and ability to handle stress are not taken into consideration. Things like this remain important because they are the markers of a good police officer as they are the front line protection of citizens and deliverers of justice. When assessment tools are underutilized in these scenarios, the quality of employees (police officers) diminish, leading to higher occurrences of accidental deaths and unlawful actions.

One of the main identifiable gaps in information is the ever-present lack of consistency examinations and variety of assessment tools. Companies tend to use only one or a few assessment tools to select high quality employees leading to poor employee performance. More research must be made on the kinds of assessment tools most organizations and businesses use. Furthermore, adherence to results of assessment tools and consistency of delivery must also be analyzed.

Many organizations commissioning high-risk positions identify the need to employ clinical psychological monitors in their individual selection systems to assist in protecting employees, employers, and the public from injury due to unproductive behavior. Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent & Lemond explain in their article the definition of CPEs and the overall process of a CPE. "Methods for the effective, ethical, and legal development and use of clinical psychological evaluations (CPEs) for employee selection, however, have received little attention within the industrial/organizational psychology literature" (Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent & Lemond, 2015, p. 209). The current chapter pursues to present a source for human resources practitioners as well as organizational/industrial psychologists for properly utilizing CPEs in their selection approach.

This may include information concerning the role and practical accountabilities of licensed mental health experts during this distinctive phase in the selection course. "Our goal is that this chapter will remove much of the uncertainty surrounding the use of CPEs in employee selection and help give practitioners the resources necessary to effectively implement CPEs when needed. (Stewart, Stewart, Bruskiewicz, Vincent & Lemond, 2015, p. 209). Clarity provides a means for better understanding something as complex as a selection process. So many people often do not understand what goes into selecting eligible candidates. This article help provide such clarity to help someone understand what goes into choosing candidates and what mental health professionals may screen for.

Weakened Companies

The opinion of a mental health professional may not matter if the company or organization is weak in implementing their necessary protocols. What may cause such weakness could be internal controls. An article by Skaife, Collins, Kinney, Jr. & LaFond (2007), observes the effect of internal control insufficiencies and their remediation on accrual quality. Through certification of companies recording internal control deficiencies, the authors found a connection between having lower quality accruals and internal control deficits. They measured this relation through accrual noise as well as absolute abnormal accruals relative to companies not recording internal control problems. They also found evidence that companies who report internal control deficiencies have purposely-greater positive and superior negative abnormal accruals relative to control firms.

Therefore, from this article, it is anodyne to assume…