Do Hiring Assessments, Uh, Prove Anything?

I’m not really sure we have a conclusive answer to this.

Most people by now, if you’ve applied to a job in the past 10–15 years, have probably had to take an assessment or two. If you’re on Indeed as a job-seeker, probably 1 in every 3 jobs has 2+ assessments you have to take. (Thankfully, you take them once and can reshare your scores with other employers.) LinkedIn has an assessments arm. And many companies will send you a “generalized intelligence” thing, or a Predictive Index thing (you can use an old code on those to avoid retaking the full test as well).

Question is: do these things work?

Let me give you two recent examples from my life.

One company, called TOPS Software, was hiring for a Content Marketing Manager. This is a job that works on editorial output, SEO, content calendars, sales enablement, gaps in content, etc. Writing, editing, being organized. The assessment they sent me was all about shapes and patterns. Now, I think being good at shapes and patterns has some relevance to your overall intelligence and eye, of course. But what possible bearing does that have on your ability to write, edit, and plan all week? None. And of course I eventually got the “generic pipe email” (“While your skills are impressive…”) from them. Based on what? My…