Blair Kennedy recently applied for a long-distance driving job with four trucking companies. “None looked at anything other than my driving ability,” he says. One potential employer threw a set of keys at him, they drove around the block, and the hiring process was complete. At a time when trucking operations are parking trucks for lack of people to drive them, Kennedy’s express-lane interview experience is hardly shocking. Perhaps it’s more surprising that other companies didn’t conclude their interview with Kennedy by tossing him a set of keys and giving him a unit number. Indeed, if you only want to hire a guy who can move a truck around, a commercial driver’s licence is all the qualification you need.

But there’s more to being a truck driver than the ability to drive. The most valuable truck drivers are good people: dedicated professionals who are willing to work hard. These drivers are in short supply, to be sure, but the fact is few employers know how to even look for these qualities in an applicant. Many find the task of recruiting and hiring so daunting that they make hasty hiring decisions-whatever it takes to get the process over and done with so they can get back to doing their main job.

More and more fleet managers are looking for insight into potential new hires by using psychological assessments-personality tests designed to predict how well suited a person would be for the job. These pre-employment screening tests have been used for years by trucking companies looking to bring a greater measure of uniformity and fairness to the hiring process.

They may also help protect against allegations that the company’s decision to hire one person over another was somehow biased or discriminatory.

Sounds good so far. But psychological testing is not a fail-safe endeavor. There are hundreds of tests on the market, many of which don’t meet minimum standards for validity and reliability (reliability, simply put, is the extent to which a test yields consistent results; validity refers to the extent to which the test actually measures what it’s supposed to measure).

If you use a test, consider carefully how it was developed and how you will use the results, advises Dr. Angelika Mellema, a Toronto-based behavioral psychologist who consults with trucking companies on personnel and leadership issues.

“A good test uses a mathematical relationship between the test and the driver’s performance,” she explains. For example, a test claiming to measure a driver’s “safety risk” must show a strong and defensible relationship between test scores and safe operation. This helps show that the test is non-discriminatory-that it’s equally valid for all groups protected under Canadian human rights and employment equity laws. If you decide not to hire a person because he scored low on your test, he issues a legal challenge, and your test is determined to be not valid, “you could be in a difficult position,” Dr. Mellema says.

Psychological testing is most effective when used in conjunction with a series of personal interviews and reference checks, says John Thomson, president of Oakville, Ont.-based Huron Services Group, which supplies transport workers to private fleets. With less than a 3% turnover from a workforce of 300 (some of whom have been with the company for over 25 years), Thomson found an unexpected benefit from using the tests: they identify applicants with more potential than experience, something that might have been missed otherwise. If the applicant looks good after testing, two interviews follow. “But nothing replaces their experience and references,” he says. “Both are checked thoroughly.”

One of the most popular suppliers of screening tests for the trucking industry is Scheig & Associates of Gig Harbor, Wash. Company president Mark Tinney says psychological tests can help employers identify applicants with the greatest probability of being outstanding in their job performance. “The test is not invasive. We’re not looking into the crevices of the applicant’s psyche,” says Tinney. “These are behaviorally based tests, and they’re recognized at 90% accurate.”

The test identifies between 300 and 500 job behaviors. These behaviors, displayed by the top 10 performers in the field, are isolated. The test taker is assessed based on how he measures up to those outstanding workers. “The top performers in any given category tend to produce two or three times more than others in the field,” says Tinney. “We’re not interested in the personality types, but in the behaviors on the job.”

Wayne MacFarlane, manager of JVI Commercial Driving School in Summerside, P.E.I., submits the Scheig test to new students. “We’re looking for someone who fits the long-hauler lifestyle,” he says. MacFarlane calls psychological tests “a self-awareness tool, not a hiring tool,” he says. But an interesting feature, according to MacFarlane, is that the employee’s weaker characteristics, as identified by the test, are the very ones likely to surface in times of stress.

How a test is delivered and explained to an applicant is critical if you want reliable results, according to Michael Hopkins of Training Alternatives, a Toronto company that develops online screening tests for the trucking industry. “If applicants are not comfortable with the testing process, they will sabotage the process, either consciously, or unconsciously,” he says.

If you don’t want to administer a test yourself, Training Alternatives will send testers into organizations to administer tests onsite. “It’s important that tests be ethically administered,” he says, and to that end the company hires people with human resource and behavioral science backgrounds, then trains them to their standards. Measuring emotional intelligence, the Training Alternatives tests are designed to ensure the applicant is able to use his relationship skills. “It’s not simply about being nice to people, but being able to handle different situations with appropriateness, and be resilient,” says company founder and president Richard Ross. Results are thoroughly explained to the employer, and with an applicant who’s about to be hired (results for applicants not hired must be destroyed).

But hiring the cream of the applicants is only the beginning, according to Ross. “Testing for the best applicant is like testing for the best trained athlete,” he says. “Once an employer has hired the best trained applicant, everything stops. The employee is given no help to remain fit, and degenerates.”

Training Alternatives supplies an online learning program to complement the hiring test. “The outcome of online learning and retention is astonishing because people get online when they want to rather than being compelled to attend a workshop at a specific time,” says Ross. “It’s perfectly suited for drivers. It’s difficult to get drivers into a training program, but they can use this in the truck stop, at home, or at the roadside with a laptop.”

If you don’t use psychological screening during your hiring procedure, are you selling your company short? Perhaps not. There’s no psychological or behavioral testing at J.S. Crawford & Sons, says David Gaddess, fleet and safety manager at the 13-year old Mississauga, Ont., company. J.S. Crawford has only a 5% turnover, and more than half its drivers have been with the company for more than seven years. Although a driver has to meet standard hiring criteria, Gaddess says, “We like to approach them with, ‘This is what we have to offer.’ ”

He considers previous experience, training, driver abstract, and drug and alcohol testing. Two face-to-face interviews are required, one through the fleet and safety manager, who checks references and U.S. and Canadian driving compliance. The second interview is conducted with the director of operations, who checks the applicant’s experience with the job description.

“Drivers have three or four key questions,” says Gaddess. “They want to know about pay, what equipment they’ll be using, where they’re going, and when am I going to be home?”

After answering these questions, Gaddess asks questions outside the focus of the position. “I find out their interests,” he says. “From their answers you can pick up some kind of attitude.” Gaddess wants the interview to become a two-way conversation. “I’m not here to sell anyone a job. I put across a specific point about the company and back off. That makes them inquisitive,” he says. The nature of the applicant’s questions give Gaddess an idea of the type of person he’s talking to.

But the key, says Gaddess, is in the respectful and safety-conscious work environment. “We motivate drivers by acknowledging, at all times, that the driver is the front-line worker, and the most important part of our team.”

Recruitment ads for J.S. Crawford & Son Transport Inc. say, “We’re not a company. We’re a family,” and Gaddess says testing doesn’t fit with that statement. “We believe in trying to get that balance between family and work, and we have no need for the tests other companies are putting in place,” Gaddess says. “Testing isn’t something you do in a family.”

Resources: Dr. Angelika Mellema, Mellema Behavioral Sciences Group, Toronto, 416/777-6725. Scheig & Associates, Gig Harbor, Wash., 800/999-8582 or 253/858-3534; www.scheig.com. Training Alternatives, Toronto. 416/598-1795; www.trainingalternatives.com.