RE: Writing test

["Keeley, Bill" <KeeleyB -at- wipp -dot- carlsbad -dot- nm -dot- us>]

I strongly recommend that you contact your HR folks before proceeding with
pre-employment testing.  A pre-employment test can be a highly effective
selection tool provided that it is valid, reliable, and non-discriminatory.
Pre-employment tests should directly relate to the knowledge, skills, and
ability (KSAs) necessary to perform the job to the greatest extent possible.
KSAs should be determined through job/task analysis and defined in the job
description.  If a individual is expected to edit multiple-choice test items
on the job, it is reasonable to ask the person to edit multiple-choice test
items in a pre-employment test.  If the person will not be editing
multiple-choice items on the job, the case can (and probably will) be made
that the test is invalid.  Is the test reliable?  Does it reasonably predict
on-the-job performance?  Is it standardized?  Does it discriminate on the
basis of race, creed, color, gender, national origin, or physical
impairment?

I'd also be cautious about hoisting up web-obtained documents as examples of
bad writing (your next customer or employer?).  Stick to sanitized,
names-and-events-changed-to-protect-the-guilty, in-house stuff, or make it
up.  If all of this sounds like too much hoo-ha, use a psychometric firm.


Bill Keeley
Former Catbert
Westinghouse/WID



  
                 

We're recruiting some new technical writers and I wanted to give a short 
writing test to each applicant.  I was hoping to find a really bad piece of 
technical writing on the web and ask them to edit it.   A multiple choice 
test of some kind might be okay too.  Believe or not, I can't find what I'm 
looking for despite spending like an hour on the web.  Anybody have any 
suggestions?

Thanks,

Dave Strausfeld
eMotion, Inc.