Taking the guesswork out of hiring

Insurance Hiring Systems offers a systematized approach to finding the right person for the job

By Nancy Doucette

Psychometrics. That’s a 50-cent word for the measurement of mental traits, abilities and processes. What does psychometrics have to do with running an insurance agency? Plenty, according to insurance industry pundits George Nordhaus and Virginia Bates.

Nordhaus has spent nearly 50 years in the insurance business. He is currently chairman of IMMS (Insurance Marketing and Management Services), which he founded in 1972. Before founding IMMS, Nordhaus was the executive director of the state associations of Tennessee and then Indiana.

Bates, who has over 25 years of insurance industry experience, is co-founder of VMB Associates, Inc., a management and technology consultancy based in Melrose, Massachusetts, which serves agencies, brokerages and carriers. Both Nordhaus and Bates are proponents of testing prospective employees as well as existing employees who are being considered for a promotion.

Cecilia Driza and Betsy Herold, AIM, have shared Nordhaus and Bates’ belief in testing for some time. (See “Preventing ‘Bad Hire’ Days” in the July 2002 issue of Rough Notes.) Driza is executive vice president of Scirocco Group, Inc., headquartered in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Herold is director of human resources for the agency.

Since we spoke with Driza and Herold in 2002, Scirocco Group staff has increased from 35 to nearly 100. And recently, the agency has added some new Web-based tools to support the agency’s consistent testing policy; among them, Insurance Hiring System (IHS), which includes the ProfileXT, developed and offered by Profiles International, and distributed by Nordhaus Profiles International (NPI).

“Most of the testing programs available are just that—testing programs,” Nordhaus declares. “They’re not designed for a specific job. IHS offers 14 job descriptions. That pretty well covers what’s in an insurance agency. But if an agency discovers that there’s nothing in those 14 job descriptions that matches a position in their agency, we can customize a job description for them. We offer the customization at no cost,” he says.

NPI is headed up by Nordhaus and his wife Sue, a psychologist. Throughout his insurance career, Nordhaus says he heard from countless agents that they were having problems with hiring and with employee management. And, he confesses, he had a few “horrible experiences” himself.

Sue Nordhaus had been using tests from Profiles International in her work. Several years ago, George was at a point in his tenure with IMMS that he had the opportunity to “reboot” himself. So he and Sue assembled the network of talent and founded Insurance Hiring System in early 2008.

“We are a strategic partner of Profiles International,” he explains. “We’re one of 700 strategic partners,” George says. “Our specialty is insurance. So IHS isn’t simply George Nordhaus or Sue Nordhaus or the staff of Nordhaus Profiles. It’s the 150 employees of Profiles International in Waco, Texas—many psychologists, IT people, designers and legal staff. It’s vital that all these tests meet legal requirements. They satisfy all the requirements of the EEOC, ADA, DOL and the Civil Rights Act.”

Scirocco is also using the Virginia M. Bates Hiring in Insurance Testing Service (VMBhits), a series of insurance skills tests developed by Bates to gauge an individual’s insurance knowledge and assess that person’s skills against those needed by the insurance industry. (See “What D’ya Know?” in the October 2006 issue of Rough Notes.)

Depending on the job candidate, agencies can purchase only the ProfileXT, only tests from VMBhits, or they can buy a bundle—the ProfileXT combined with the job-specific tests from VMBhits—at a discounted price.

“We offer services bundled and unbundled,” Bates points out. “So if a user is hiring somebody or considering somebody for a promotion and wants to get the full range on them, we’ve given the user the ability to select a job description and then all the tests that are relevant to that job description are automatically ordered as a bundle. With these tests, employers can learn about an individual’s psychometrics (their work style, work ethic) and determine how much they know about insurance, insurance accounting, or any other technical topic. Bundling the tests eliminates any confusion on the part of the user who might wonder if one test is more relevant than another test,” she says.

“The bundled tests give somebody who’s hiring an insurance person a true 360 view,” Bates adds. “Not only the individual’s work style but their action skills. That’s what differentiates IHS from other similar types of testing.”

Of course not every new hire has an insurance background, she acknowledges. In those instances, the agency could use the ProfileXT so they could get to know the person before they invest in hiring them. Additionally, the agency could use VMBhits tests on Word, Excel, and business writing skills. “Individuals with a non-insurance background should bring proficiencies in these areas to the job,” Bates says.

“There are no right or wrong answers in the ProfileXT. There’s a lot of science that’s gone into developing these assessments,” notes Jeff Matherly, founding principal of MWare, Inc., the developer for the VMBhits Web site as well as the IHS site.

Even though IHS and VMBhits are separate products and separate sites, “everything is very synchronous for the user, and for the test taker,” Bates says, thanks to having MWare develop and maintain both sites.

“The distinction that really needs to be made is that if people are looking to use both types of assessments—ProfileXT and VMBhits—then they can log into IHS and get everything that they want,” Matherly explains.

“If they don’t need the psychometric assessment from IHS, then they can go directly to VMBhits (www.vmbhits.com). It really doesn’t matter which site they order VMBhits tests from. Their logins are good on either site,” he says.

IHS is more than an e-presence, Matherly points out. Should an employer have questions about a prospective employee’s test results, the employer can contact Donna Collins, an IHS employee with an MBA in human resources. “She knows intimately what people are going through in trying to find the right individuals and avoid having failed hirings,” he says.

“It’s essential that people are able to call and find out why a rating is what it is or why it’s important that somebody have high manageability, for example. Donna tries to work with the individual client,” Matherly says.

“We interview people constantly—a minimum of six to eight people a month, year round.” Driza observes. “In addition to meeting with the many referrals we receive because of our reputation, we are continually growing our staff to accommodate the growth of our business. As we speak, we are considering several acquisitions and will need to increase our headcount accordingly. Ultimately, my goal is to be properly staffed at all times…so it never hurts to meet people who may turn out to be that perfect fit, even if it is down the road.”

Driza says that the ProfileXT is a thorough look at the entire person; it looks at the behavioral traits and the interests of the job candidate. “It gets at the ‘hard-wiring’ of the individual,” she says. “Using the ProfileXT, we learn a lot about potential new hires that we’re not going to pick up during the interviews. Our interview process is lengthy. We’ll have candidates in a few times to meet with a number of people in our organization.

“Getting to know people is critical for us,” she continues. “Even though we’ll do the VMBhits knowledge test and the person scores very high—we know they know their insurance—they also have to fit into our organization. The testing and our getting to know people contribute to our low turnover,” Driza says.

Nordhaus explains that IHS keeps records on every test given by any agency. So if an agency wants to compare a star performer that they tested and hired a couple of years ago with a prospective hire, IHS can provide that comparison. “IHS can even baseline for an organization,” he says, “identifying which individuals are doing the best job for the agency. The agency can then determine that they want future people being hired for that particular position to come to that level.

“The more individuals you test, the better your understanding of your organization becomes,” he notes.

Matherly concurs. “Employers need to have a system to determine if employees know/understand the business side of their job—the hard facts and policy language, the best practices—as well as the soft side—the behavioral traits. The psychometrics can be used for comparing how different individuals would do in the same position, and figuring out where a given person would best fit in an organization, based on their behavioral traits, strengths and weaknesses.”

He says that IHS provides all that in “one easy-to-use site where employers can register and administer those tests all in one order.” For instance, if an employer has three candidates and they want to have both types of assessments, it takes the employer just a few minutes to enter the necessary information. He says that e-mails go out to the people who are taking the assessments, informing them of the link. All the results are e-mailed back to the administrator as people take the tests.

The findings from the ProfileXT can be translated into a coaching report and into interview questions, Matherly notes. “The ProfileXT might indicate that this person fits in fine in terms of numerical reasoning and numerical aptitude; they’re within the range of expertise that’s needed for the job they’re being considered for. But their verbal reasoning isn’t strong. Or their manageability isn’t within the range.

“Perhaps it’s a job where they need to work closely on a team so they’ll need a high manageability rating. If the person falls below the expected range, IHS offers a coaching report and suggested interview questions focus in on that,” he explains.

“These suggested interview questions are especially helpful for final interviews,” he says. “They really pinpoint areas where there may be a less-than-perfect fit. This is a big help,” he says. Sample reports are available at the IHS Web site.

“Testing and hiring in general must be more effective in order for the independent agents and brokers to survive this soft market,” Nordhaus concludes. “Agencies may have been able to overcome bad hires before, but now—when every dollar really counts—agencies must do it right the first time around. IHS can help.”

For more information:
Insurance Hiring System
Web site: www.insurancehiringsystem.com
E-mail: service@insurancehiringsystem.com