For us, getting involved in an FMI peer review group has been one of the smartest ways to grow our business. We meet periodically with other construction companies in non-competing markets to discuss best practices. I kept hearing others talk about using employee selection assessments in the hiring process, and we made the call to add this to our recruiting recipe.

We brought in a consulting team we’ve partnered with in the past, and worked on identifying what kind of team member will be the most successful in our atmosphere. One of our seasoned project managers took the test, and we used his results as a benchmark, combined with knowledge about our company culture and also best practices character traits in the construction industry. Here are a few things our test measures:

• Learning ability
• Attitude
• Attention to detail
• Manageability
• Assertiveness
• Aptitude for customer service

The process is fairly easy and takes place online in about an hour. It has assisted us in the hiring process as we try to make the right additions to our team. The test can’t override intuition, but it’s another tool in the toolbox.