Client
Non-profit business membership and research organization
Challenge
The client, a non-profit business membership and research group organization, is undertaking a groundbreaking research study that centers around the changing nature of education and vocation. The ethos of this study lies in the simple idea of supply and demand as it relates to the labor force. Businesses need skilled, high-performing employees, and it is clear that they are not finding them. There is presently a “skills gap” that has business leaders concerned about the future capabilities of their workforce. But what if this skills gap is artificial because employers are looking at the wrong information when attempting to hire the skilled employees they require? Perhaps the status quo of using formal educational credentials as a gateway to employment is placing an artificial limitation on employers. To answer these questions and help call attention to systemic social injustice, the client embarked on a large-scale, multi-year study to investigate the value of pre-hire assessments as a substitute for the use of educational attainment as a predictor of job success. The study’s goal is to show empirically that the overvaluing of education by employers has served to exclude qualified individuals and that the use of assessment data can help level the playing field for those who do not have academic credentials. The study requires extensive use of employment testing, but the client did not have any internal expertise in this area. The client needed an Industrial-Organizational psychologist with experience implementing and validating assessment tools to manage the testing program, provide technical support to participants, and execute the experimental design on which the study is based.
Solution
The client engaged Rocket-Hire to serve as a part of the core project team. Rocket-Hire helped the client to review assessment solutions and identify the best vendor partner to achieve the study’s goals. Rocket-Hire worked side by side with the client to enlist corporations to be study participants, interfacing with their talent acquisition leaders to address technical questions and identify specific solutions that best fit each client’s needs. Rocket-Hire assisted the vendor partner with implementation of assessments, providing additional support to ensure compliance and legal defensibility.
Results
The multi-year study is still in its first year and participants are still being enlisted. Rocket-Hire will continue to assist the client by helping participants choose and implement the best assessments for their needs within the context of the research program. As data is accrued Rocket-Hire will assist in the data analysis and interpretation. Rocket-Hire’s partnership provided the client with an essential technical foundation to ensure that the assessment portion of the study was successful.