BONUS AUDIO CLIPS: Snippets from "Who Are These People Anyway?" by HR expert Paul Endress. Click on the title below to listen now.

SOME OF OUR FAVORITE RESOURCES -Click on the title below to view.

CDs & More

Our exclusive Home Study Courses, Audio CDs, Software and more.

Using Technology in Hiring, Team Building & Management

(Turning the odds in your favor)

We believe that human resources/hiring is the one area of business operations where businesses have failed to implement technology. While every HR department has plenty of computers, they are being used mainly for administration and not to directly impact the quality of hiring and the development of managers and teams.

As a result, hiring is still being done the same way that it was done 100 years ago using resumes and interviews.

While the hiring process is largely the same as it was in the early 1900’s, the world of business is not the same. Not even close. No longer can a business hire and fire at will without fear of potential legal consequences. At the same time the costs of training and payroll have grown geometrically, and the costs of mistakes have become a significant drag on the bottom line of companies.

What would happen to the bottom line of your business if you were able to use modern technology to gain an edge in the hiring, team building and management processes? For more details about a specific area, select a menu link above. For general information that will impact your business in a positive way, keep reading!

Our Philosophy

The Maximum Advantage philosophy can best be described as "the application of psychology to business". During the past fifteen years there have been dramatic advances in the fields of psychology, linguistics and neurosemantics.

While these technologies have traditionally been used for purposes of therapy, they can also be applied to the challenges of business to yield dramatically improved hiring, retention, team cohesion and management results.

While Maximum Advantage provides a variety of services related to our philosophy, this web page is dedicated to the use of modern psychometric assessments in the business environment.

About Assessments

A psychometric assessment is a series of validated questions developed by psychologists and designed to reveal and measure the characteristics of an applicant that may not be readily apparent from a resume or interview. The understanding gained from these questions can also be used for coaching and improving existing employees, building cohesive teams and developing outstanding managers.

A traditional interview is a form of an assessment in that the interviewer tries to discover the characteristics of an applicant and assess their potential value to the company, but it is limited by the skill of the interviewer.

The assessments provided by Maximum Advantage are scientifically designed and software based with a sophisticated set of checks, balances and validations. Many times, computerized assessments are used prior to the interview to give the interviewer additional insight into the applicant, level the playing field and make the interview more effective.

Assessments have been used for years for many purposes including hiring and psychological counseling. However, in the early 1990’s, changes in equal employment regulations invalidated most existing assessments and led to the development of a new generation of non-biased and validated psychometric testing instruments. For a summary of current EEOC regulations, click here.

These types of assessments are not designed to measure specific skill sets such as typing or mechanical ability, but rather to create job patterns and evaluate an applicant against these patterns. This allows the employer to quickly identify individuals that will tend to fit well into positions, and in what way they might have to make adjustments.

The Advantages of Using Assessments

The are several advantages to using assessments to supplement traditional hiring and management techniques:

Assessments allow you to discover intangible qualities of an applicant or employee that may be difficult or impossible to discover using traditional methods.
Validated assessments are extremely fair when administered properly.
Employers can save expensive management time by not interviewing people who appear to be good prospects but really aren't a good fit.
Assessments allow you to fine tune the final choices and find the candidate that best fits your organization.
Management responds positively to management development and compensation programs that provide clear, consistent and measurable criteria.
When employees understand each other, they work better together.

Everything You Need

Now that you realize the benefits of using assessments, here is more detailed information about each common use.

Hiring top performers who fit your organization.
Hiring top producing sales people.
Hiring customer service personnel who have a natural affinity for customer service.
Loss prevention.
Retaining existing employees.
Coaching and employee development.
Creating job descriptions.
Building teams.
Management evaluation.
Management development.