Objective Versus Subjective Evaluation
Performing a job requires a combination of subject knowledge, work skills and the right attitude. Before hiring employees, organizations need to assess candidates on all three fronts to evaluate their suitability. Such evaluation can be objective or subjective in nature. Objective evaluation assesses knowledge by testing factors that can be quantified. Subjective evaluation can help measure more abstract notions, like the candidate's attitude. Combining objective and subjective evaluation provides a more complete picture of a job candidate.
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Objective Evaluation
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When you ask an engineer about water pipeline pressures, a doctor about dosage regimens for a disease or an accountant to calculate taxes, there can only be right or wrong answers. As employment management expert Joseph P. Murphy points out, objective evaluations provide numeric results that are reliable and do not require the evaluator to make a judgment about the accuracy of the answers. A multiple-choice knowledge test, aptitude or achievement tests and simulation trials are examples of objective evaluations.
Uses of Objective Evaluation
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Objective tests are easy to administer and judge, and can be useful when screening a large number of candidates. Many employers use them as pretests to assess the candidates' mastery of a given subject. Objective evaluation is also useful when assessing understanding and recall of facts. This method produces quantifiable data and there are fewer places for the evaluator's bias to influence the assessment.
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Subjective Evaluation
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Assessing qualities such as the engineer's skill in managing his team, the doctor's bedside manner and the investment manager's business acumen involves subjective evaluation. In these cases, the evaluator needs to make a judgment call to assess performance. Interview questions to assess the candidate's skills in decision-making, communication and creative thinking, and essay-writing tests to assess language skills are examples of subjective evaluation. The personal feelings of evaluators can influence the assessment in such subjective evaluation. According to Murphy, the reliability of such evaluations is suspect unless there are well-defined questions and rating scales.
Uses of Subjective Evaluation
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Subjective evaluation is useful in situations where you need to assess an individual's thinking process and personality characteristics. A multiple-choice test cannot capture a salesman's enthusiasm for selling, but this quality is quite apparent during a personal interview. Before an employer hires an accountant to handle large amounts of money, he needs to assess not only math skills, but also the candidate's honesty and integrity.
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