In contrast, a paper-and-pencil test that consists of multiple-choice items that assess a
job candidate’s conscientiousness can be developed by testing experts without the help
of job experts and can be efficiently administered and scored. Obviously, the costs for
both developing and administering this type of assessment will be significantly less.
Assessments can be relatively expensive to develop but inexpensive to administer or,
conversely, relatively inexpensive to develop but costly to administer over time. One
point to bear in mind, however, is that there are enormous costs to an organization of
consistently hiring employees who do not perform effectively or who leave the organization
after investments have been made in training them. Even the highest development
and administration costs generally pale in comparison to the costs associated
with unproductive or unsuccessful employees. Furthermore, implementation of effective
assessment procedures has been shown to result in very substantial productivity
and revenue increases as well as cost savings for organizations. Therefore, it is important
to not only consider the costs associated with developing and administering effective
assessments, but also see these investments in light of the financial and other
benefits that will be gained. The upcoming section on utility of assessments discusses
how to calculate the benefits associated with using assessment methods.
Another cost factor that HR professionals need to consider is whether the organization
desires to use a commercially available assessment or prefers to develop its own customized
assessment. If HR professionals choose to use a commercially available assessment,
they will need to enter into a licensing agreement with the test publisher, and the
organization will be charged either for each use of the test or for the duration of time
the test is used. The advantages of a commercially available assessment are that it can
usually be implemented quickly, it is typically maintained and updated by the publisher
over time, and the data usually continue to be amassed across the different organizations
using the assessment. Probably the biggest downside of commercially available assessments
is that licensing agreements can be expensive and last in perpetuity.