Dr. Michael Mercer
Articles by Dr. Michael Mercer
January 18, 2012
Warning: Only put people in your training program who are ultra-likely to complete or "pass" the program – and then will stay with your organization.
More companies are creating and operating training programs or apprenticeships – mainly to train people for jobs requiring technical skills. Re...
December 16, 2011
You can learn amazing leadership lessons and skills in a forest – if you pay attention.
Dr. Michael Mercer knows first-hand, because he has a forest behind my house. This article
reveals three terrific lessons he learn in the forest – lessons to help you improve your leadership skills.
October 17, 2011
Michael Mercer, Ph.D., is a book author, industrial psychologist, and speaker. His six books include "Hire the Best & Avoid the Rest(tm)" and also "Turning Your HR Dept. into a Profit Center(tm)." Dr. Mercer spent years researching and creating three pre-employment tests that many company use. The three tests are "Abilities Forecaster(tm)test," "Behavior Forecaster(tm) Test," and "Dependability Forecaster(tm) Test." You can get your own subscription, at no-cost, to "Dr. Mercer´s Management Newsletter at
www.Pre-EmploymentTests.com
September 28, 2011
Pre-employment tests can help you avoid hiring troublemakers – including applicants who have lousy or unproductive interpersonal skills. This article reveal those traits.
August 02, 2011
Job hunters should do specific actions before each job interview. Here are seven job hunting tips that you should do before every job interview – to help you get job offers. When you use this pre-interview job hunting advice you will stand out as enormously more wonderful than other job candidates...
July 14, 2011
Job hunting for recent college graduates and the inexperienced can feel very tough. Fortunately, Dr. Michael Mercer of www.JobHuntingMadeEasy offers immediately useful and unique job hunting advice or tips to help the job seeker get a job.
1. Volunteer
Problem: Job hunters find it hard to get...
June 24, 2011
Fortunately, certain pre-employment personality tests help you avoid hiring liars. By liars, I mean applicants who try to appear ´better or different´ than they truly are. Sure, every applicant seeks to make a good impression. But applicants who go out of their way to deceive you can cause expensive problems – if you hire them. Learn what to do now.
June 03, 2011
Unfortunately, job hunting for recent college graduates can feel tough. Fortunately, here is immediately useful job hunting advice or tips to help the job seeker get a job.
1. Volunteer
Problem: Job hunters find it hard to get a job without experience – but it is hard to get experience withou...
March 25, 2011
Charlie Sheen´s two key phrases give job hunters wonderfully wise advice, claims Dr. Michael Mercer. How could a celebrity on a wild streak with drugs, porno stars, and hookers give tips to job seekers? Dr. Mercer reveals the answer.
August 18, 2010
Pre-employment tests plus other techniques may help you avoid hiring violent, perhaps even murderous, employees. You do not want to hire potentially violent employees and you also need to create a safe workplace.
Recent news reported a company´s employee murdered co-workers, and then commi...
July 14, 2010
Pre-employment tests can tell you if a job applicant has qualities similar to your best employees. If the applicant´s pre-employment test results look good, then you can feel comfortable spending time interviewing the applicant. When you evaluate job applicants, you can learn a lot about them . . . if you listen to how they talk. Learn about some phrases to help you learn to hire the best.
May 10, 2010
Pre-employment Test are tests that organizations give to job applicants to help them hire employees who are productive, dependable, and low-turnover.
What does research say about Pre-Employment tests? Research on pre-employment tests and other prediction methods indicate pre-employment tests ar...
April 02, 2010
Pre-employment test expert Michael Mercer will appear today on KGO´s Gil Gross radio show.
Dr. Mercer is author of "Hire the Best & Avoid the Rest" (13th printing).
The pre-employment tests he researched and created are "Abilities Forecaster™ Test, Behavior Forecaster™ Test, and Depend...
March 16, 2010
PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTS ACCURATELY TELL YOU IF APPLICANT WILL ´FIT IN´ YOUR COMPANY´S CULTURE
Pre-employment tests clearly tell you if a job applicant could ´fit in´ your company´s culture. But, you must carry out an important step.
Specifically, pre-employm...
February 19, 2010
Companies using pre-employment tests I devised want to hire the best. They want to hire employees who will be
> highly productive
> low turnover
Summary: They want to hire the best.
So, I tell them about something I saw.
TRUE STORY on HIRING THE BEST
I was in a restaurant with a ...
January 22, 2010
Every manager hired some employees they wish they never hired. To make light of and also put light on - hiring losers, I now give you a special gift:
a. Jokes about types of employees you wish you never hired
b. Solutions: Methods you can use – so you avoid hiring such creeps
December 08, 2009
Managers make four mistakes that result in hiring losers – employees they wish they never hired. This article will help you avoid making these four blunders. Plus, I will reveal to you three guidelines that will help you hire fantastic employees.
September 28, 2009
A pre-employment test I researched and created – "Dependability Forecaster(tm ) Test" – helped me learn a lot about people who are turnover risks, accident-prone, and rub co-workers and customers the wrong way. Specifically, such people are impulsive. So, you should avoid hiring impulsive people. ...
August 06, 2009
Managers using my pre-employment tests sometimes call me with a question that sounds something like the following:
"I gave your pre-employment tests to a job applicant, and the applicant´s five intelligence or mental ability tests´ scores are low. But, the applicant has a bachelor´s or master´...
July 29, 2009
Health care reform is a hot topic in Congress. Obama advocated a Responsibility Society begin in the U.S. Finally, a responsibility expert figured out how to combine health care reform with increasing personal responsibility to solve two huge, expensive problems.
July 14, 2009
So, why didn´t his entourage stop his self-destructive actions?
They did nothing due to the "Entourage Effect" – a term coined by Dr. Michael Mercer, an expert on the psychology of responsibility.
July 13, 2009
Companies using my pre-employment tests often ask how to decide which applicants should take the tests. I generally respond:
1. Do not give pre-employment tests to every applicant.
2. Most companies test the top 3 – 5 applicants for each job opening.
This article tells you about a quick, 1...
June 04, 2009
Opportunity knocks. You want a workforce of only productive, responsible, dependable employees. Right?
Problem = You have some (A) unproductive or underachieving employees, (B) irresponsible employees, plus (C) employees you cannot depend on.
YOU HAVE FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY = HOLD "PUBLIC EX...
April 28, 2009
Pre-employment tests plus other applicant evaluation methods help you select salesperson job applicants who will turn into highly productive, super-profitable sales reps. These applicant evaluation methods include pre-employment tests, intriguing bio-data, vague job interview questions, plus colorf...
March 30, 2009
Managers often talk trash about hiring young people – Millennials (18-28YO) and Generation X (29-42YO). However, pre-employment test research and other methods reveal the true message every manager needs to know.
Fact: Managers need to realize it does not make any difference how old or young ...
February 26, 2009
Pre-Employment Testing & Hiring Expert,Dr. Michael Mercer,
Partners with AgentsOfAmerica.ORG
"Dr. Michael Mercer is the most widely respected, national expert on pre-employment testing – so it is a huge benefit for our members to have his expertise," said Angelo Gioia, Executive Director of AgentsOfAmerica.ORG
February 05, 2009
One kind of pre-employment personality test gives hiring managers a quick, easy-to-use way to avoid hiring substance abusers – e.g., alcoholics and drug abusers – and other bad characters. Plus, you also have few more methods you can use in your quest to avoid hiring substance abusers.
FACTS: S...
January 13, 2009
Pre-employment tests plus two other techniques help reduce stealing and theft by your employees.
"Wall Street Journal" and Fox News reported (a) increases in employees stealing plus (b) employee theft´s financial drain on companies.
How financially draining is employee stealing and theft? (A...
October 22, 2008
Question = Do you want to hire productive and dependable people for your company´s "Blue-Collar" jobs?
Note: "Blue-Collar" jobs are
- Unskilled jobs
- Semi-Skilled jobs
- "Lower-Level" jobs
Examples of "Blue-Collar" jobs include laborers, warehouse workers, shipping and receivi...
September 16, 2008
Pre-employment tests plus corporate culture convulsions could have saved Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, according to industrial psychologist Dr. Michael Mercer.
August 14, 2008
You can use pre-employment tests, interview tricks and more to uncover if a job applicant is lying to you or embellishing the truth.
Question: Did you ever have a job applicant lie to you or, to be charitable, embellish the truth?
Answer: You probably answered, "Yes."
This is important....
August 11, 2008
"Pre-employment tests may have caught John Edwards as a person who may lie or not be fully honest," explained Michael Mercer, Ph.D., author of the book "Hire the Best & Avoid the Rest."
John Edwards denied "National Enquirer" magazine reports he had an affair and baby with a woman his president...
July 09, 2008
You can use pre-employment tests and other methods to help you hire obsessive-compulsive employees – when the job requires an organized perfectionist.
I read a hand-wringing article in a management magazine about obsessive-compulsive employees. The article gave a moaning account about how such p...
May 21, 2008
Research proves pre-employment tests are the most accurate method to predict or forecast how an applicant may perform on-the-job. Plus, this is borne out in my 20+ years of research in developing and helping companies hire the best using pre-employment tests. I also research and helping managers e...
April 30, 2008
DID YOU EVER HIRE A "SQUARE PEG FOR A ROUND HOLE?"
You can use pre-employment tests, certain astute insights, less laziness plus a shocking realization about betting to help you avoid a huge hiring mistake – avoid hiring ´a square peg for a round hole.´
March 18, 2008
Avoid hiring psychopaths using pre-employment tests, key job interview questions, background and reference checks, and even their aura.
November 06, 2007
Stress is a hot topic in the workplace. Some employees get bent out of shape by almost anything. Other people calmly take almost any sort of situation in stride.
Here are immediately useful tips for leaders and all employees. First are tips to help leaders avoid hiring people who will waste ti...
September 26, 2007
Leaders & Hiring Managers Profit From ‘Birds of a Feather Flock Together’
By Michael Mercer, Ph.D.
Hiring managers and leaders use pre-employment tests, job interviews, role modeling and strategic de-employment to increase profits based on the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” In b...
June 15, 2007
You can use pre-employment tests, specific interview questions, realistic job previews, and role-modeling to hire employees who crave to use teamwork and collaboration.
Warning: Many jobs do not need teamwork-oriented employees. Our society greatly values “teamwork.” Also, many leaders are tea...
May 08, 2007
Paris Hilton represents many things to many people. And now she inadvertently offers fantastic lessons in leadership skills, according to Michael Mercer, Ph.D., a management consultant with The Mercer Group, Inc., in Barrington, Illinois.
“Paris Hilton’s crimes and follow-up botches offers lesso...
April 18, 2007
A mass murderer at Virginia Tech has employers across America wondering: How do we avoid hiring a job applicant that ends up hurting or killing employees? After all, no one wants to have a Cho – the Virginia Tech murderer – on their payroll.
Solutions include pre-employment tests, key job inter...
December 12, 2006
In this holiday season, people love to receive gifts. Well, what gifts would your company’s CEO love to receive from you?
Here are seven “gifts” you really need to go all out to give your CEO, according to Michael Mercer, Ph.D., a consultant and book author in Barrington, IL.
As the saying ...
November 13, 2006
The Wall Street Journal (10/23/06, pages B1 & B8) reports on Google revamping its hiring methods. Google is on the right track, but is sorely missing crucial pre-employment tests plus other prediction methods.
Google needs a step-by-step hiring process in order to succeed to hire the best. Hi...