Every mis-hire costs 1.5–3x the employee's annual salary — and that number doesn't account for the turnover, team disruption, and manager time you never get back. Objective, research-backed assessments remove the guesswork before you make the offer.
If you are dealing with high turnover, a lengthy interview process that keeps stalling, or a team that keeps losing ground, you are not facing a people problem — you are facing a data problem. Here is what that is costing you right now.
Every mis-hire costs 1.5 to 3 times that employee's annual salary. Add recruiting fees, onboarding hours, lost productivity during vacancy, and the manager time spent coaching someone who was never the right fit — and the number climbs fast. Most organizations dramatically underestimate this figure until they calculate it.
A hiring manager reviewing 10 resumes at 30 minutes each burns 5 hours before a single conversation happens. Add scheduling, multiple rounds, inconsistent scorecards, and a decision that still comes down to gut feel — and your team is losing days on every open role. Every week a seat stays empty costs you revenue, morale, and competitive ground.
Research shows that 46% of new hires fail within 18 months — and the warning signs typically appear within the first 6 months. By then, you have already paid onboarding costs, given up management bandwidth, and watched the rest of the team absorb the gap. The organization moves slower, morale drops, and your best people start questioning whether leadership has a plan.
The time and cost pressure of a wrong hire does not come from interviewing — it comes from interviewing without data. PXT Select® shifts the decision upstream, so you walk into every conversation already knowing whether this candidate fits the role.
Hiring mistakes are expensive. Every mis-hire drains productivity, damages morale, and increases turnover costs. Too often, decisions rely on gut instinct or first impressions that don't reveal the full picture. Organizations that use objective, personalized insights into how people think, work, and grow make better hires — and build stronger teams.
Inconsistent evaluation across managers leads to inconsistent results — and missed talent that goes to your competitors.
Most organizations underestimate the full financial and cultural impact until they sit down and calculate it role by role.
Without structured data, onboarding is guesswork — and attrition risk climbs in the first 90 days when managers fly blind.
Resumes don't reveal cognitive ability, drive, or long-term fit. The best candidate on paper is not always the best person for the role.
Define what success looks like before you post a single job. PXT Select® creates a Performance Model benchmarked to your top performers.
PXT Select® measures the factors proven to impact job success — before you review a single application stack.
PXT Select® measures 20 variables across three predictive dimensions:
The Multiple Candidates Report compares applicants side by side against the role's performance model.
Hiring the right person is just the beginning. PXT Select® reports support managers at every stage of the employee lifecycle.
Five research-based tools — each designed for a specific hiring or development need. Not sure where to start? Schedule a Strategy Call and we will map the right solution to your organization.
| Assessment | Best For | What It Measures | When to Use It |
|---|---|---|---|
| PXT Select®Most Popular | External hires, promotions, lateral moves | Cognitive ability, behavioral traits, occupational interests | Pre-hire screening through ongoing employee development |
| PXT Select® Non-CognitiveStreamlined | Roles where cognitive ability is already verified | Behavioral traits and occupational interests only | Faster screening, onboarding support, coaching, workforce planning |
| Step One Survey®First Screen | All applicants before any interview | Integrity, reliability, work ethic, theft risk, substance risk | First filter every candidate must pass before advancing |
| Customer Service Profile™Service Roles | Customer-facing roles in service industries | Service-oriented traits and role fit | Hiring, onboarding, and managing frontline service teams |
| CheckPoint 360°™Leaders Only | Managers and leaders already in role | 8 leadership competencies across multiple rater perspectives | Leadership development, coaching, and performance improvement |
Every assessment is built for a specific need. Here is what each one measures, who it is for, and what it delivers.
You want to hire employees who are the right fit — people with the skills, traits, and motivation to succeed in the role you are filling, not just the role they describe on paper.
A comprehensive measure of how well a candidate fits a role by evaluating cognitive ability, behavioral traits, and interests. Reduces mis-hires, shortens the interview process, and improves retention.
A research-based assessment comparing candidates against role-specific performance models, with actionable reports for hiring, onboarding, coaching, and workforce planning.
In some roles, cognitive ability has already been established — you still need accurate insight into soft skills, cultural alignment, and what will actually motivate this person once they are in the seat.
Focuses on behavioral traits and interests using the same scientific rigor as the full PXT Select — but shorter, faster, and simpler to deploy at scale across multiple open roles simultaneously.
A streamlined assessment measuring behavioral alignment and motivation. Ideal for onboarding support, internal coaching, development planning, and strategic workforce planning.
Employee theft and fraud cost US businesses over $50 billion annually. You need to identify high-risk candidates before making a hiring decision — not after the background check comes back clean.
Helps organizations reduce risk by hiring honest, reliable, and hardworking employees. Use it as the mandatory first filter before any other assessment or interview conversation.
A scientifically validated pre-hire assessment measuring integrity, reliability, work ethic, attitudes toward theft, and potential risk factors including substance risk.
A poor customer experience damages buyer trust and brand reputation faster than any marketing campaign can repair it. You need frontline employees with the right traits to deliver consistency every time.
Identifies and develops employees who excel in customer-facing roles. Reduces frontline turnover and delivers the kind of buyer experience that wins lasting loyalty and repeat business.
A targeted assessment measuring service-oriented traits and job fit. Applicable to hospitality, healthcare, financial services, and retail — any environment where the buyer experience depends on your people.
When managers and leaders are ineffective, productivity, engagement, and retention all suffer. You need a structured, objective way to surface leadership gaps and develop effectiveness — not just annual review scores.
Provides leaders with detailed feedback from multiple perspectives — direct reports, peers, supervisors, and customers — so they can strengthen the skills that matter most in their specific role.
8 core leadership competencies: communication, leadership, adaptability, task management, relationships, production, development of others, and personal development.
Hiring assessments tell you who to bring in. If you already have a team and want to understand how they sell, where the gaps are, and how to coach them to quota — that is a different conversation. Explore our Sales Development programs to see how we help sales leaders build high-performing teams from the inside out.
Not all assessments measure the same things. Here is how the leading pre-employment tools compare across the dimensions that actually predict whether someone will succeed in a specific role.
| Assessment Tool | Publisher | What It Measures | Adaptive Testing | Job Fit Score | Interview Qs Generated | Sales-Specific Report | All 3 Dimensions | Primary Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PXT Select® ★ | Wiley | Cognitive ability, behavioral traits, occupational interests | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | All three — one tool | Hiring, onboarding, coaching, development |
| Predictive Index (PI) | Predictive Index | Behavioral drives + cognitive (separate tools) | No | Partial | No | No | Cognitive + behavioral only | Hiring, job fit, team design |
| OMG Assessment | Objective Management Group | 21 sales competencies: Will to Sell, Sales DNA, Tactical Selling | No | Sales roles only | No | Sales-only | No cognitive or interests | Sales hiring and team evaluation exclusively |
| Hogan Assessments | Hogan Assessment Systems | Personality, derailers, values (3 separate assessments) | No | Partial | No | No | Personality + values only | Executive assessment, leadership risk, succession |
| Caliper Profile | Talogy | Personality traits + intellectual abilities | No | Partial | No | No | Cognitive + personality only | Hiring, leadership coaching, development |
| SHL OPQ / Verify+ | SHL | Personality + cognitive via separate instruments | No | Partial | No | No | Cognitive + personality only | Large enterprise hiring, global volume screening |
| Criteria Corp (CCAT) | Criteria Corp | Cognitive aptitude, personality, emotional intelligence | No | Partial | No | No | Cognitive + personality only | SMB hiring, high-volume applicant screening |
| Wonderlic | Wonderlic | Cognitive aptitude only | No | No | No | No | Cognitive only | Quick cognitive pre-screen — no behavioral or interests data |
| Kolbe A Index | Kolbe Corp | Conative strength — instinctive action modes | No | No | No | No | Instinct modes only | Team role clarity and work style awareness |
★ PXT Select® is the only pre-employment assessment combining cognitive ability + behavioral traits + occupational interests in one adaptive instrument — generating a Job Fit score, personalized interview questions, and a full suite of selection and development reports from a single tool.
Everything you need to know about PXT Select® and pre-employment assessments.
Stop relying on guesswork. With PXT Select® and the full suite of hiring assessments from Strategic Dynamics, you can make smarter, data-driven decisions that improve retention, strengthen culture, and drive results.
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