Resources
The Client
Avenue Chiropractic and Nutritional Health is a full service Chiropractic clinic offering treatment, education and nutritional care. Dr. Bruce Crabtree D.C. bought the practice in 1989 and has been serving the Columbus community ever since with a staff of seven full- and part-time employees.
Avenue Chiropractic also operates a satellite clinic in O’Neill, Nebraska. The Avenue Chiropractic staff is in the clinic on the third Friday of every month due to the many requests from clients who travel from that area to Columbus.
The Products
Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT): Avenue Chiropractic practice uses the WPT as the initial test in its interview process for all job applicants. The 50-question WPT, which has been used by thousands of organizations since 1937, is a 12-minute timed test that measures a candidate’s ability to learn a specific job, solve problems, understand instructions and apply knowledge to new situations.
This test provides the Avenue Chiropractic Office Manager with objective information about candidate skills. Based on minimum test scores, it eliminates up to half of all applicants before time is spent on lengthy, one-on-one interviews, saving everyone time and helping Avenue Chiropractic make more accurate hiring decisions.
Comprehensive Personality Profile® (CPP®): If candidates score high enough on the WPT, they complete the Comprehensive Personality Profile (CPP), which measures key traits as they relate to job performance.
The 88-question personality profiling system describes a candidate’s character in terms of job-related strengths and weaknesses including emotional intensity, intuition, sensitivity, assertiveness and motivation. The CPP test data helps recruiters match candidates’ personalities against a custom profile of their highest performers, optimizing the person-to-job fit.
When candidates complete the test, Wonderlic returns a comprehensive report outlining their raw scores, where they fit on a scale of ideal performers, and an explanation of what these scores mean. Avenue Chiropractic also receives a one page summary, highlighting key scores so that the office manager can see, at a glance, how well the applicant did.
In a Small Company, Every Hire Counts
In a small company, each hiring decision has a huge impact on productivity and job satisfaction—not just for the new employee, but for everyone on the team. In small companies everyone works together as a team, doing whatever it takes to get the job done. In that setting, if one employee doesn’t pull his weight, has a bad attitude, or can’t do the job it impacts everyone, creating tension and frustration across the workplace. That’s why Dr. Bruce Crabtree doesn’t take any chances with the people he hires for his practice, Avenue Chiropractic and Nutritional Health in Columbus, Nebraska. The office has seven full- and part-time people on staff and each one plays an integral role in making sure the office runs smoothly.
“If someone isn’t honest or doesn’t have the capacity to do the job, there’s no point in spending time interviewing them. The Wonderlic tests tell us that.”
— Dr. Bruce Crabtree, D.C.
“In the past we had a hard time trying to hire the right people,” he says. “They would interview well, but on the job they weren’t qualified for the position. We needed a way to screen them to see whether were a good fit.”
Using Wonderlic’s ES2 kit, which includes the Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Comprehensive Personality Profile, Office Manager Kathy Slusarski screens applicants’ skills and behavior before going through a lengthy interview process. “If someone isn’t honest or doesn’t have the capacity to do the job, there’s no point in spending time interviewing them,” Crabtree says. “The Wonderlic tests tell us that.”
When Slusarski places an ad for an open position she begins the selection process with short phone interviews followed by a group interview in the office with all the potential applicants. “It gives them a chance to realize there are others vying for the job,” she says. During this time she introduces the position responsibilities while noting how applicants interact with each other and with her.
Those who are chosen to continue are invited to take the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which is a 50-question, 12-minute timed test that measures a candidate’s ability to learn a specific job, solve problems, understand instructions and apply knowledge
to new situations. It helps Slusarski determine whether applicants have the basic ability to do the job. “The WPT gives us a much more objective picture of the applicant,” she says. “It’s like Wonderlic is doing the work for us.”
“The WPT gives us a much more objective picture of the applicant. It’s like Wonderlic is doing the work for us.”
— Kathy Slusarski, Office Manager
The minimum score Slusarski requires on the WPT is 24, and the test eliminates roughly half of all candidates. “It’s a really good indication of their skills,” she says. If they do pass the first test, Slusarski meets with candidates for one-on-one interviews, after which they complete the Comprehensive Personality Profile, which measures key character traits as they relate to job performance. The CPP is an 88-question personality profiling system that describes a candidate’s character in terms of job-related strengths and weaknesses, allowing Slusarski to match candidates’ personalities against the needs of the position and the overall culture of the office.
Once the finished test is submitted for scoring, Wonderlic returns a detailed document to Slusarski outlining the applicant’s scores, where those scores fit on established scales for each position, and an explanation of what the data means. Wonderlic also gives her a brief one-page summary highlighting the most relevant results from the test. “The CPP Summary helps me make quick judgments about how people in the group scored in important areas like accuracy, self-motivation and trustworthiness,” she says. “Then I can go back later to review the full document. I like that.”
The last time she hired someone, the CPP eliminated all but two applicants, who went on to be interviewed by Crabtree. Before using Wonderlic, Crabtree interviewed many more of the applicants before the final decision was made.
“We all spend less time on hiring now,” Slusarski says. Thanks to the tests, she and Crabtree waste less time interviewing unfit candidates and because they are making better hiring decisions they have lower turnover and less recruiting. “The people we hire now are more stable and fit well into the office. We’ve been very pleased with Wonderlic.”
This website works best with a modern browser using Cascading Style Sheets (CCS). You are viewing this website with either an old browser or with CSS turned off.
Please update your browser or turn on CSS.