The Client
North Mississippi Medical Center’s flagship hospital in Tupelo, Mississippi is the largest non-metropolitan hospital in America and is the third largest rural hospital system in the nation. NMMC provides a broad range of diagnostic and therapeutic services offered through a community-based hospital system that includes: North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, NMMC-West Point, NMMC-Iuka, NMMC-Pontotoc, NMMC-Eupora in Mississippi, and NMMC-Hamilton in Alabama; more than 40 medical clinics located throughout the service area; and comprehensive home health and rehabilitation services.
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 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.
Employee Reliability Inventory (ERI): The ERI is a risk management tool that helps recruiters determine which individuals are most likely to become valued employees rather than organizational liabilities. This risk management tool evaluates freedom from disruptive behavior, alcohol and illegal drug use, as well as courtesy, emotional maturity, conscientiousness, trustworthiness, long-term job commitment, and safe job performance. The ERI also provides follow-up questions that recruiters use during interviews and reference checks to help clarify an individual’s assessment results.
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.
Recruiters and Employees Appreciate Online Testing Facility
North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC) recruiters evaluate thousands of candidates every year. The company relies on Wonderlic testing as part of its recruitment strategy, which means it needs the most efficient process available for delivering those tests so recruiters can make decisions quickly and effectively. That’s why NMMC recently transitioned to Wonderlic’s online testing platform.
“When we used paper versions we had to fax the tests back to Wonderlic and wait to get the results, which added time to the process,” notes Lisa Dyson, Retention Recruitment Manager. “Using online testing we get results instantly, and with as many tests as we administer, that makes it a lot more efficient for administrators.”
Since moving to online testing last spring, NMMC has added a dedicated facility with three computers used only for online testing. Dyson originally estimated the company would perform 3500 assessments in the first year, but it surpassed that number in six months, in part because employees are using the tests internally. “The Wonderlic tests are great workforce development tools,” she says. Employees take the tests in preparation for promotions and transfers, and managers use them to assess employees for future development. “The internal use of the online tests is triple what we anticipated.”
The testing computers are busy from the moment the doors open until the end of every business day, with only the support of one administrator and a back-up person. “We could never have accommodated this many users if we were still using paper tests.”
NMMC requires every potential applicant to complete the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT), which is a short-form measure of cognitive ability, and the Employee Reliability Inventory which assesses candidates likelihood of risky or inappropriate behavior in the workplace. Recruiters also use a specialized skills-based assessment from Wonderlic designed for clerical and medical positions, and they give applicants for upper level management positions the Wonderlic Comprehensive Personality Profile (CPP), which assesses a candidate’s character in terms of job-related strengths and weaknesses.
“All of the test results help us make the right hiring decisions,” Dyson says. “The Wonderlic tests are true indicators of whether a person is right for the job.” The combination of tests give recruiters fast, comprehensive data about candidates before they make hiring decisions, which is critical, Dyson says, due to the volume of applicants. “The WPT quickly shows us if candidates are qualified, or over-qualified. You can’t judge that from an interview or résumé.”
Similarly, recruiters rely on the ERI to help them identify red flag issues, which helps them shape their interview questions. “The ERI is the best tool we’ve found for assessing customer service candidates.”
