General Mental Ability(GMA)

The Trego Personnel Survey (TPS) has a “Reasoning Ability Scale” and the StartRight EQ has a ”Can Do Scale” that contains a measure of General Mental Ability (GMA) also called cognitive ability, reasoning ability, general intelligence, “smarts”. Research evidence for the accuracy of GMA for predicting performance is stronger than for any other pre-hire selection method including the interview, reference checks, job experience, and years of education.

Thousands of studies have been conducted over the last nine decades involving hundreds of thousands of individuals in over 500 diverse industries and jobs. General mental ability has been shown to be the best predictor of job-related learning, acquisition of job knowledge on the job, performance in job training programs, promotion, and for overall job performance for virtually every job.

Many organizations rely solely on interviews when they can use more accurate methods. In a competitive world, these organizations are unnecessarily creating a competitive disadvantage for themselves. By adopting more accurate hiring methods, they could turn this competitive disadvantage into a competitive advantage. For example, research has consistently shown that workers hired with an improved selection method will have on average 9% higher output. For many organizations, a 9% increase in productivity might make a difference between success and bankruptcy.

In conclusion, every decision to hire a new employee involves the risk of making a costly hiring mistake. Hiring results based on thousands of applicants consistently indicate that requiring applicants to obtain GMA scores that are within the recommended range of scores produce the lowest level of employment risk.