1. Are pre-employment assessments legal?

In short, yes: pre-employment assessments are legal. However, there are a number of laws and regulations that will determine if an assessment is okay to use in a specific situation. For instance, there are guidelines set on the wording and content of permissible pre-employment questions, with some differences within U.S. states and among various countries. By and large, all Vangent assessments use permissible questions; and where there are differences, we have specific versions of the assessment for varying states and countries.

In addition, the use of an assessment is often more critical to legal concerns than the assessment itself. For example, a standardized use of an assessment that is administered, scored and graded identically for all job applicants is recommended. However, when an assessment is given to some applicants, and not to others, that can raise questions about the assessment's legality.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigates complaints of unfair assessment usage or results. Many organizations track assessment results by voluntary collection of race, ethnic group, gender and age information, and then monitor the passing rates of these different protected groups. Vangent, along with other respectable organizations, monitors the subgroup's passing rates to ensure that the assessment is being used in a fair and impartial way, thus, justifying the use of the assessment.

Please review our Legal Brief for a summary of legal actions that Vangent has addressed over the years.

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