Assessment Techniques

Introduction

The survey techniques used to evaluate social behavior, such as the one that generates adaptive profiles at GRI, are just one of many options available. This article introduces these techniques, including the most commonly used parallel techniques. It discusses the advantages of combining different approaches.

The assessment techniques are classified based on their inherent qualities and potential uses. As shown in the diagram on the right, other factors must be taken into account when evaluating the use of assessment techniques, including the environment, the users, and the publisher and consultant responsible for implementing the techniques. These are discussed separately in articles.

Generalities

Assessment techniques are tools and methods used to understand people broadly, including ourselves, others, and our organizations, through various concepts and for different applications. Since the rise of statistics in the late 19th century, computers in the 1980s, the Internet in the 1990s, and, more recently, AI, the potential of assessment techniques has advanced significantly. Over this time, the users of the most sophisticated techniques have also changed—from psychiatrists and clinical psychologists early on, to recruiters and consultants, and more recently, coaches. Assessment techniques have become more accessible and widely used; their nature has evolved dramatically, as have their applications and their potential impact on individual and group performance.

A Variety of Uses

In organizations, assessment techniques are used for different purposes, including recruitment, management, leadership, and organizational growth. Similar methods are also used in clinical settings for psychotherapy, family therapy, marriage counseling, and in everyday situations such as matchmaking, conflict resolution, career counseling, parenting, and education.

While exploring new approaches, we also retained those that naturally compete with them—our own private methods—which share many similar traits. At GRI, we have observed a rise in published techniques since the early 2000s, when we began our analysis, along with an increase in their application in life and business coaching. We developed and published our assessment method, known as the adaptive profile, which has been implemented at strategic levels within organizations. This provided us with a benchmark to analyze other assessment techniques across different contexts.

Classification of the Techniques

Assessment techniques can be classified based on various criteria. These include what they evaluate, such as personality, intelligence, aptitude, behaviors, competencies, leadership, and creativity. They can also be distinguished by how they evaluate—using intuition, internet-based methods, or the way results are presented, such as verbally, in reports, or graphs. Additionally, factors like how techniques are learned or their different applications play a role. The information gathered by these techniques contributes to shaping judgments, improving decision quality, and enhancing self-awareness, social awareness, communication, learning, and accountability regarding one’s unique thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Starting with an initial analysis of 68 assessments focused on personality, the number grew to 150 by 2025, with new methods like parallel techniques being introduced. When viewed from various perspectives, including their impact on performance, assessment techniques have been categorized as follows:

Assessment Techniques

Category	Technique	Definition
Statistics-based Technique	Personality assessment	These techniques rely on statistics to analyze and verify the results. They focus on specific individual characteristics and are often combined with other assessment techniques.
	Intelligence assessment
	Skills assessment
	Technical test
	Social Media Scan
	360-degree assessment
Formal Technique	Directive interview	These techniques are formally implemented in organizations, often involving a job analysis, a thorough process, and trained assessors. They may also use statistics to validate the results. Assessment centers combine other techniques, including those from the other three groups.
	Structured interview
	Work-sample test
	Job simulation
	In-basket exercise
	Assessment Center
Semi-formal Technique	Non-directive interview	Organizations often use semi-formal techniques. They don't require a specific process or statistics, although they might benefit from both when the amount of results being gathered is large enough.
	Semi-directive interview
	Reference check
	On-the-job-trial
	Resume
	Biodata
Parallel Technique	Private technique	Anyone makes inferences and constructs judgments without any formal process or detailed statistics. These techniques may eventually be shared.
	Common technique
	Esoteric technique

Comparisons Challenges

One challenge in analyzing assessment techniques is the availability of information from their users or publishers: the data is scattered, some is confidential, and obtaining all of it is difficult. The final information for each technique is always incomplete.

Another challenge is information volatility: assessments evolve, some have multiple versions; assessment techniques are introduced and discontinued regularly. Their users may change jobs or companies.

A third challenge is that the information is not always comparable across different techniques. Some characteristics that are relevant for certain techniques have little or no relevance for others, such as the number of dimensions being measured.

Our research focused on the utilization of assessment techniques (the independent variable), which involved recording, analyzing, and categorizing their use and effects on individual and organizational performance. The methodology from advanced social research allowed us to compare these assessments based on their use.

Clinical tests play a significant role in the personality testing literature. Psychiatry and clinical psychology laid the groundwork for the earliest assessments in the late 19th century. Although clinical tests have limited practical application in other areas, research in this field provides an initial understanding of assessment techniques, especially in relation to questionnaires and standards for their validity. The concept of personality is often understood broadly, encompassing traits that make an individual unique. At other times, its definition is narrower, focusing on a few traits. Both definitions were used during our work.

Assessment Techniques Characteristics

Looking at assessment techniques, we could identify 28 characteristics that can be found across them, account for the quality of their measures, and their potential use and impact on individual and organizational performance. The characteristics were regrouped into four categories:

• Upfront Characteristics, such as the nature and number of items being measured or the assessment time.
• Intrinsic Qualities, such as the number of facets being measured, the stability or intensity of the measures, and work-relatedness.
• Assessment Results, such as how the results are presented, conciseness, and general validity of the measures.
• Theory and Manual, such as the a priori theory of the technique, its age, and publications.

Our analysis considered separately the techniques' users, the environment and culture where they are used, and the technique's publisher and consultant. These factors all affect the way the techniques are marketed, serviced, and used.

Some techniques are in the public domain and free, others are paid for per unit, and still others are not sold but are integrated into consulting programs. Results’ analyses are sometimes subcontracted by the consulting company that distributes the technique, or the analyses may be handled by the client organization. The competencies and ease of the manager or consultant who deploys the technique and provides feedback also have an impact on their potential benefits.

It is not possible to be completely exhaustive in a list of criteria for qualifying assessment techniques. The characteristics listed, however, represent a relatively large sample. They relate to aspects other than metrics and those of their use. They help to account for the variety of assessment techniques with respect to their possible use and impact on individual and organizational performance.

Statistics-based Techniques

The techniques in this group use statistics to produce their results. Techniques such as surveys, questionnaires, 360-degree assessments, and tests fall into this category.

Unlike formal techniques, the assessment time may be short, and the process easy and standardized. Most often, individuals follow a rigorous, automated process that can be taken online.

The statistics-based techniques are naturally complemented by techniques from the other three categories. The concept assessed by those techniques may be intelligence, personality, or any type of skills.

Formal Techniques

These techniques are formally implemented in organizations, requiring job analysis and a rigorous process conducted by trained assessors. They may use statistics to get additional insights to validate the results, but they are not used up front to calculate them. Results are obtained through observation and are therefore subjective.

These techniques make it possible to further refine one's judgments on people based on expertise, whether it be for recruitment or in any other situation, after recruitment. Those Techniques require a formalized setting that usually takes time to prepare and deploy.

Assessment centers are a particular case that aggregates other techniques of the other three categories in a formal way. However, it follows the formal standards of this category.

Semi-Formal Techniques

Semi-formal techniques are the second most commonly used techniques in organizations after the parallel techniques. The quality of these techniques depends on the interests, preferences, and skills of their users. For instance, the quality of non-directive and semi-directive interviews is generally low.

It is through different semi-formal techniques that judgments continue to form, with all their potential biases. As for the parallel techniques, perception errors are not controlled. The other technique most commonly used in conjunction with the interview is that of the online resume. Reference checks enable validation and testing of initial judgments while collecting additional information. It chronologically happens before a more formal assessment technique.

These semi-formal techniques, when combined with parallel techniques, form the pillars of organizational evaluation because of their natural use and acceptance in work environments.

Parallel Techniques

In all situations where everyone assesses and is assessed, the most widely used technique is the one we have called the parallel technique. They include our private techniques, common sense shared among a group, and esoteric techniques that often remain in practice.

Parallel techniques are naturally used to construct judgments on individuals and their organizations. Unlike other techniques, parallel techniques are generally not fully articulated, if articulated at all, even if they are naturally used by everyone. They are the most subjective, the least formalized, and the least controlled. They remain essential to consider in situations such as building trust among people, management, and communication.

Techniques’ Practical Usage

The usage of assessment techniques is tightly connected not only to the techniques themselves as a tool with their technical qualities, but also to their users. Some techniques are meant to be used by professionals who will administer and interpret the results. Professionalism must be understood at different levels, depending on how long it takes to become certified to administer certain techniques and how close you are to clinical cases that require extra professional attention.

Ultimately, everyone uses their assessment techniques, either formally, informally, privately, or not, using statistics to objectify the assessment process and collect more information on individuals than a subjective process is capable of doing. How those techniques are used not only depends on the above criteria of the four categories, but also on what is expected from them to improve individual and organizational performance.

Combining Techniques

The private technique that are part of ourselves gives them primacy over other techniques. When considering the formal and statistics-based techniques, it must be noted that each one may not address the same needs. For instance, while structured interviews and personality assessments may be used in recruitment, a 360-degree assessment may also be used in recruitment but is typically not, for practical reasons, used for development.

Personality assessments working with typologies that are simple to deploy may have broader applications in communication, language, or management that are not found in trait assessments used in recruitment. As we’ve experienced at GRI, adaptive profiles can be used throughout processes in many applications, but they need to be complemented by other techniques for assessing skills, for instance, or by gathering additional information through a semi-directive interview. Each technique allows for collecting part of the information necessary for the objective at hand, complements others, and participates in an ongoing process where everyone continuously assesses everyone.

What each technique measures must be connected to how it will be used by the individuals involved, the HR professional and assessor, the supervisor or manager requiring information, as well as what the individuals' and managers’ own techniques will reveal. At the organizational level, once the employee is in the job, private techniques often have the final say among individuals and management.

Technical considerations are important for distinguishing among assessment techniques and for understanding what they measure. They must also be compared based on their potential use in recruitment, management, organizational development, learning, self- and social-awareness, and communication.