General Tips for On-line Assessments: 1 Start with getting a profile of yourself.  You are the boss and your managements skills, style and behaviors are the baseline.  The assessor needs to know this baseline to do a good job.  Besides, this gives you a chance to assess the assessor.  If your report comes back describing someone you never heard of, that's not the assessor you want to use. 2 Be sure you get a written report for each candidate.  Do not accept simple "Hire/Don't Hire" recommendations.  If you hire the candidate, you want to know what strengths he/she is bringing to the table so you can build on them right out of the gate.  If you don't hire the person, you want to know what to avoid (or tell your search firm to avoid) in future candidates. 3 Make sure the assessment focuses on managerial behaviors, not values.  You want to know how this candidate actually goes about making decisions, influencing others, approaching new projects, resolving conflicts.  You want to know what the candidate does, not what the candidate believes should be done. 4 To be truly cost effective and give your executive search the clout of the big guys, be sure the assessment process is set up so that candidates receive, complete and return the assessment remotely.  With this approach, you can consider candidates from anywhere in the country (the world!), and, after culling out the obvious rejects from the resumes, use the assessment to narrow down who to interview.  A richer pool of applicants, less time spent on interviewing and no hordes of unscreened candidates (some of them from your competitor's firm) wandering through your offices.  If you use a search firm to find candidates, require that the firm provide you with an executive assessment report for each candidate, conducted by an outside assessor, before you spend time interviewing anyone they refer. 5 Carefully check the credentials of anyone you contract to conduct executive assessments.  Also, review the instruments they use (see #1).  The assessor should be certified to administer and analyze psychological assessments and the assessments should be reliable and valid.  The entire assessment process should conform to the guidelines given in The Ethical Practice of Psychology in Organizations issued by The Society of Industrial/Organizational Psychologists and the assessor should assure you of this in writing. ©2010 Copyright Informed Decisions International. All rights reserved.