IBM Kenexa assessments combines workforce science, research analytics and technology with IBM's content library to help companies hire and develop the right talent. By combining scientific understanding of employee behavior with employee data, we create a formula for developing meaningful careers that keep your employees fully engaged for the entire employee lifecycle-and we know engaged, motivated employees can be your greatest asset.

At the NHS Leadership Academy, Rob Farace, National Resourcing Manager, says: “By using Kenexa’s assessments, we have adopted an approach that judges people’s skills instead of their background. Because of this, the quality of candidate coming through is excellent”

Jaguar Land Rover: Laura Wigley, the HR Head of Talent at Jaguar Land Rover, talk about how her team used IBM Kenexa Leadership Assessments to align job qualifications and drive an innovate program called Advance to identify and develop future leaders and predict the qualities of high potentials in a brand new way.

• Reduce recruiting time and costs
• Concentrate interviewing time and effort on high-potential candidates
• Increase organisational performance by increasing the quality of hires (predicting engagements)

• Identify the key personnel needed to increase business performance
• Optimise individual and team performance for current and future needs
• Identify and develop potential leaders
• Improve employee satisfaction / improve staff morale
• Retain top talent to drive business performance

IBM has been using assessments in its own IT recruitment selection procedures for at least 50 years, particularly in its graduate ‘milk round’ recrutiment. Kenexa has been using assessments in different forms as a consultant to businesses and governments worldwide for at least 30 years.

They came together in 2012 when IBM bought the total business of Kenexa, repackaging it as as part of the IBM Smarter Workforce offering, a service for HR Management under the name of Talent Management.

In 2015, IBM Kenexa processed on its own servers over 40 million on-line SaaS assessments worldwide for many thousands of satisfied customers.

IBM Kenexa have on-line SaaS assessment questionnaires in all four ‘C’ areas above, and they have been normed across many thousands of candidates worldwide who have been interviewed by chartered psychologists to confirm the strong correlation between the questions asked and the skills and behaviour of candidates. This has been validated by the Kenexa High Performance Institute.

The questionnaires are normalised and are neutral to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, and where applicable, to language.

The IBM Kenexa questionnaire product range has been developed to be of maximum use in the current commercial and governmental selection market places. It is structured into five main areas of demand and supply : -

• Office worker skills including those of health workers (Capability).
• Cognitive assessments of Verbal, Numerical, and Logical, Reasoning (Capacity).
• Realistic Situational Judgement (Capability).
• Personality Profiling (Commitment & Culture).
• Leadership and Development (Capacity, Capability, Commitment, & Culture).

IBM Kenexa uniquely have Computer Adaptive Technology (“CAT”) testing for cognitive ability in a) Numerical Reasoning, b) Verbal Reasoning, and c) Logical Reasoning.

In the 1980’s, metadata analysis by Hunter and others found that, for entry-level jobs there was no predictor with validity equal to that of ability. IBM Kenexa offers on-line tests that adapt to the candidate’s ability level and are designed to assess an individual’s aptitude in understanding (and using) complex verbal and numeric data and information in the workplace. From the candidate's perspective, the questions seem to tailor themselves to his or her level of ability, continually challenging them.

• Senior management and directors.
• Middle management.
• Graduates.

There are 3 types of test and combined NRT/VRT/Logical Reasoning test is also available for quick assessments.

• Measures ability to interpret, analyse and draw logical conclusions from data.
• Information is presented in a variety of statistical charts and tables.
• Content is representative of the information likely to be encountered in a business context. Such as using numerical data to make reasoned judgements.

• Measures ability to understand, think logically and accurately draw logical conclusions from written information.
• Presented in the form of comprehensive paragraphs.
• Content is representative of the information likely to be encountered in a business context such as interpreting and writing company reports.

• Measure the ability to quickly identify patterns, logical rules and trends in new data.
• Applying this skill to solve business related problems such as evaluating patterns and trends in information.

The idea of categorising people by traits can be traced back as far as Hippocrates; however more modern theories have come from Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell and others.

Gordon Allport, one of the first modern trait theorists, was the first to create a lexicon of personality-describing words in 1939. From this, the number of words was reduced to approximately 4,500 adjectives considered to describe personality traits.

Raymond Cattell 10 years later reduced this list to 171 words and from these created his “16 Personality Factors” – the personality assessment called the 16PF, now in its 5th edition.

Psychological tests and assessments have been used in personnel selection since World War I, but until the 1980s, it was still assumed that the determinants of success varied extensively from job to job, and from organisation to organisation. It was widely believed that tests that were highly effective predictors of success in one job or one organisation might turn out to be useless as predictors of success in other similar jobs or organisations, and that it would be necessary to build selection tests one job and one organisation at a time. Research by Hunter and Schmidt showed that the best and most effective method of candidate interviewing and selection was the “assessment centre” with 0.51 efficacy. All other methods trailed well behind.

IBM Kenexa offer a suite of behavioural assessments incorporating traits-based questionnaires that examine an individual’s preferred style of behaviour. These are self-report questionnaires, which means that they measure how candidates report their own preferences. IBM Kenexa assessments are administered and completed online, and on completion of the questionnaire, a range of reports can be generated automatically.

Assessments can be used with a wide range of employees in different roles and at different levels; they are not specific to any particular group. In most cases, job analysis or validation information is used in order to identify traits that are important for specific roles or job families.

Once these traits have been identified, they can be selected from the list to form a bespoke client specific assessment of personality. Doing so will enable each client to measure everything they want, but nothing more. Working with IBM Workforce Science consultants and project managers, the client will be able to develop a behavioural measurement solution that fits their needs precisely.

Research shows that personality is relevant to all employees, and it is important to identify and use this information in aiding selection and recruitment decisions, as well as forming parts of development plans for new and existing employees, providing discussions points for career coaching, and in talent management initiatives.

For front-line staff

• Call Centre – Inbound & Outbound Selector.
• Distribution Associate Selector.
• Dynamic Personality Sift.
• Healthcare Associate Selector.
• Hospitality Associate Selector.

• Bank Teller.
• Call Centre.
• Hospitality Associate.
• Industrial Warehouse Worker.
• Retail Associate.
• Sales Representative.
• Nurse Selector.
• Service Questionnaire.
• Sales Selector.

• Counter-Productivity Indicator.
• Customer Service Indicator.
• Engagement Indicator.
• Teamwork Indicator.
• Motivation Questionnaire.

For Professional and Managerial Roles

• Manager Assessment.
• Call Centre Manager.
• Healthcare Manager.
• Hotel Manager
• Manufacturing Manager.
• Sales Restaurant Management.

Occupational Personality Inventory (OPI)

IBM Kenexa Behavioural Assessments for Executive Roles

• Leadership Assessment.
• Leadership Preference Assessment.
• Leadership Behavioural Assessment.

IBM Kenexa Skills Assessments are the most effective method for sifting through large talent pools to determine if the skills for a specific job role are met by applicants.

Skills assessments are basic on-line hiring tools that are easy to administer, cost-effective and a reliable way to determine whether or not a candidate truly possesses the skills represented on their CV. They are generally easy to implement and standardise throughout an organisation and they can quickly become a key component in a world-class hiring system.

So, with these and other great hiring tools available today…why leave things to chance?

• An exclusive way to measure the distinct skill sets that an individual possesses, such as typing speed and accuracy or accounting knowledge.
• Validated skills assessments that include basic, intermediate and advanced-level items, which reveal the level of knowledge in a particular area.
• A multiple-choice format plus Microsoft interactive tests that can test individual knowledge of software products, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft PowerPoint.