The Client
Factory Card & Party Outlet, based in Naperville, Illinois, currently operates 182 company-owned retail stores in 20 states with 2,700 employees.
They offer a wide selection of party supplies, greeting cards, gift-wrap, balloons, everyday and seasonal merchandise, and other special occasion merchandise at everyday value prices.
The Solution
Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT): The 50-question WPT, which has been used by thousands of organizations since 1937, is a 12-minute timed test of cognitive ability that accurately measures a candidate’s ability to learn a specific job, solve problems, understand instructions and apply knowledge to new situations. This test provides hiring managers with objective information about candidates, and based on minimum test scores, automatically eliminates a significant portion of the applicant pool enabling recruiters to focus their time on those candidates most likely to succeed.
Comprehensive Personality Profile® (CPP®): The CPP is an 88-question personality profiling system that describes a candidate’s character in terms of job-related strengths and weaknesses including emotional intensity, intuition, sensitivity assertiveness, and recognition motivation. The CPP test data allows recruiters to match candidates’ personalities against a custom profile of their highest performers, optimizing the person-to-job fit. The assessment data is delivered to the hiring managers through summarized reports allowing them to quickly and decisively identify candidates who will achieve the greatest success in their culture.
The Value of Employment Testing: Selection and Career Development
Last year Debbie Smetana, Director of Human Resources for Factory Card and Party Outlet, went to the Society for Human Resources Management conference with one goal in mind: to find a pre-employment test that would help her company make better hiring decisions, select people who would stay longer, and learn how to better manage them.
Smetana and the vice president of her division had used the Wonderlic tests while working at another company, but she wanted to explore her options before she selected a provider. At the conference she met several employment test vendors, reviewed their products and invited them to demonstrate how they worked.
“Based on what we saw from all the vendors, we picked Wonderlic,” she says. “They are the most flexible, the customer service is wonderful, and the price is right.”
Smetana’s Wonderlic Service Representative walked her through all the Wonderlic products and, based on her specific needs, helped her choose the tests that would best fit the company and its hiring strategies.
To test the fundamental abilities of all potential employees, they chose the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT), which is a timed measure of basic skills such as problem solving and the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. Every candidate considered for a position at the company’s headquarters now takes the WPT so that recruiters have hard data about their ability to perform on the job.
To evaluate upper level management candidates, they also selected the Comprehensive Personality Profile (CPP), which assesses a person’s character in terms of job-related behavior.Smetana chose Web-based versions for both tests because of their ease and speed of use, however, she also insisted on having access to paper and pencil versions for those situations when computer access is not possible. “It’s so nice to have the tests online,” Smetana says of the choice. “I can set up a candidate to take the WPT, and by the time I’m back to my desk I have the results. It’s that fast.”
The Web-based format also offers candidates the flexibility to take the CPP off-site if necessary. That way applicants from out of state, or internal applicants can take the test from home or their offices and the results are sent directly back to Smetana. “It’s very convenient.”
CPP Guides Managers
Since launching the tests in August of 2004, the CPP has given Smetana and her staff great insight into candidates applying for upper level positions. “The CPP tells us what their strengths and weaknesses are; what motivates them and what gets them excited,” she says. “It’s helping us choose people who better fit our culture and our business.”
The profile results allow Smetana to identify the best people and match them to the right departments and bosses. For example, if a candidate shows a high need for recognition and praise she may hesitate to assign that person to a manager who’s not as “warm and fuzzy,” she says. Or she may discuss the candidate’s needs with that manager so that they can decide together whether it will be a good fit. “People don’t quit companies they quit bosses,” she says. “The CPP helps us match people with similar styles and personalities so that doesn’t happen.”
Not only has the test been a useful tool for identifying and matching high performers, Smetana also uses it as a management and career development tool. When a candidate is selected, that person’s new manager receives their CPP score report which they use to customize their leadership strategy. “The CPP gives you so much information about how to manage and motivate people,” she notes. “It also identifies what problems they may have and what those behaviors could be tied to.”
The CPP has been so useful that Smetana recently incorporated it into an internal hiring strategy to fill a newly created market manager position. The market manager oversees two or three stores in an area overseen by the district manager who may be responsible for a dozen stores. The new position helps managers get multi-site experience and they will use it as a stepping-stone to the district manager job.
Several internal managers applied and three were hired, but all of them received their CPP reports, Smetana says. “The assessment helped them see where they need work. It was very well received.”
