Brown & Kysar, Inc.
Headquarters: Battle Ground, WA
“Working with these [employee assessment] tests allow us to assess candidate abilities and personalities in such a way that we’re able to get our list of prospects down to just one or two solid candidates that are worth our time and effort.”.” – Erik Kysar
The Need
As a leading assistant to electric cooperatives, municipalities, and public utility districts in the Pacific Northwest, Brown & Kysar seek candidates for employment who will help strengthen the firm in its ability to consult and plan with these important organizations. In order to vet the best candidates, the company uses a strategic application process. This includes a short, 15-minute phone interview that, if successfully passed, is followed by a longer, 45-minute in-person interview for local candidates or phone interview for those who are further away.
If things are going well at this point, the candidate is brought into the office for a day of onsite interviews, spending roughly ½ hour with each member of the team. Herein lies the challenge.
Bringing a prospect into the office during this final step is a significant investment on every level. Brown & Kysar, Inc. needed a measure that would help ensure a decision to invest in a candidate in this manner was the right one.
The Customized Solution
It was based on this need that Brown & Kysar, Inc. began using the candidate screening tools offered by Success Performance Solutions. “Working with these tools,” says Erik Kysar, president of Brown & Kysar, Inc., “allows us to assess candidate abilities and personalities in such a way that we’re able to get our list of prospects down to just one or two solid candidates that are worth our time and effort.”
Kysar goes on to describe how insightful the candidate screening tools have proven to be. “Once we’ve brought a candidate into the office for the day and the team has really had a chance to get to know him or her,” he explains, “it is always interesting to go back to the assessment and be able to say that it was spot on.”
The Added Bonus
“The first time we conducted an assessment, I didn’t understand the results at all,” says Kysar. “Team members from Success Performance Solutions, however, took the time to spend an hour or more on the phone to go through it all and make sure I knew how to read and interpret the outcomes. I wasn’t talked “at.” I instead was asked what I saw in the results. We then went through the correct interpretation so I could understand the difference.”