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Why do organizations really need assessments? According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 53% of resumes they reviewed contained false information, as employees and candidates have a tendency to embellish their qualifications.

There are three primary reasons to use an assessment tool:

• Very few former employers will provide a negative reference about a job candidate. While employers aren’t prohibited by law from providing truthful information about a former employee to a prospective employer, good or bad, crossing the line into making misrepresentations or outright lies could make a bad reference illegal. Legal actions based on misstatements made in job references are typically based on defamation laws which prohibit anyone, including employers, from knowingly publishing or spreading false information about another.

• Managers have a tendency to “filter and scrub” employee performance reviews. Fearing a possible lawsuit, few former employers will provide a negative reference about a job candidate. Performance reviews are often filtered through an employee’s immediate supervisor, who, though well intentioned, for various reasons, may be less than fully objective.

• People are often difficult to read. Employee behavior is often compared to an iceberg—about 90% of our behaviors are explained by factors that, on the surface, cannot be easily observed or understood in a meaningful context. Without advanced training in psychology, many of these behaviors are difficult–if not impossible–to detect, putting the manager or potential employer is at a disadvantage.