In many appointment processes there comes a moment when the assessment report is put on the table. The interview rounds are over, the committee has a preference, and everyone turns to the summary. The discussion about the candidate, which was in full swing until then, often falls quiet at that point. The report seems to have the final word.
That is understandable. A report is written by a psychologist, it contains scores and it sounds more objective than the impressions of an appointment committee. Even so, it calls for an honest delineation. An assessment measures some things well, and it barely measures several of the things that weigh most heavily in an executive or senior management appointment.
What the instrument does show
A well-designed assessment provides information that is hard to obtain in an interview. It shows how someone reasons under time pressure, how they organise complex information and how they behave in a simulated situation, such as a difficult conversation with an employee or a presentation to a board. It also gives a picture of preferred styles: where someone naturally gravitates, and where it takes effort.
Much has been revised in recent years about the predictive validity of selection methods. A group of selection psychologists revisited, in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the estimates the profession had relied on for decades. They concluded that the validity of many instruments had been systematically overestimated, on average by 0.10 to 0.20 points. The structured interview emerged as the strongest predictor, with a corrected value of 0.42. For tests of cognitive ability the researchers arrived at 0.31.
Those figures are worth pausing on. A correlation of 0.42 is high in this field. Statistically, though, it accounts for less than a fifth of the differences in later performance. The best instrument available therefore explains a limited part of what you want to know. Anyone who reads an assessment as a prediction is asking more of it than it can give.
Visibility is rewarded
Selection processes reward those who are visible. People who formulate quickly, take up space and can steer a conversation come out better in an assessment and in a series of interviews than someone who listens first. That is not a flaw in the method. It is a property of it: an interview measures, among other things, how someone behaves in an interview.
Part of what makes executives effective is hard to see in that format. Noticing that the tone of a meeting has shifted before anyone names it. Connecting a remark made last month to a decision taken today. Letting a silence fall in which the other person says more than they intended. Someone who speaks once, and to the point, scores lower on presence and higher on influence.
The same applies to modesty. It is often confused with reticence or with weakness, and it is neither. It is the willingness to assume that the best idea may be somewhere else in the room, and to act on that. Executives who do so receive information that others do not. In our observation it is one of the most reliable traits of executives who keep a team standing, while it remains almost invisible in an assessment.
What it does not predict: the task at hand
What an assessment cannot know is where the organisation stands at this moment. The instrument compares a candidate with a norm group of people in similar roles. It does not compare them with the task that is on your table.
That is where things most often go wrong in practice. We have seen appointments in which the candidate amply met almost every criterion in the assessment and still left within the first year. On closer inspection, the profile used for selection had missed the task. The organisation needed someone to bring a stalled change to completion. The assessment had mainly confirmed that the candidate was strong at collaboration and at bringing people along. Both were true, but the second did not answer the question the organisation had.
Research into top appointments shows how strongly the task determines what counts. American economists studied candidates for the top job at companies acquired or financed by private equity or venture capital investors. Those candidates had been assessed on more than thirty characteristics. In those companies, success was more strongly related to execution skills than to team-related skills. Traits that elsewhere are regarded as a precondition for good leadership predicted little in that context.
This is not an argument for the executor over the connector. It shows that no trait predicts everywhere. Which trait counts depends on what the role has to deliver. An assessment can sharpen that question, but the question has to be asked first. In an organisation emerging from a turbulent period, the candidate who fills the room is rarely the candidate who brings it to rest.
The conversation fills in what the report misses
The fact that a trait is hard to see in an assessment is no reason to ignore it. It can certainly be tested in conversation, provided you ask about behaviour rather than opinions. To whom does a candidate attribute their results, and in how much detail can they do so? What mistake did they make, and what did they set up differently afterwards? What criticism did they receive, and what did they do with it? The difference lies in the precision of the answer. Someone who genuinely changed course can tell you what changed.
We were involved in an appointment in which a candidate scored modestly on presence and persuasiveness in the assessment. The interviews and the references painted a different picture: this was the person who had held the team together during a period in which that was far from self-evident. The client took both pictures seriously and discussed them internally several times before making a choice. The candidate was appointed, and the appointment worked out well. The report was not superfluous. It gave the board a sharp question, and the conversations provided the answer.
On the other side of the table
For an experienced manager or executive, an assessment is not a matter of course. Someone who has led for twenty years may wonder what an afternoon of role plays adds to a career that speaks for itself. That question is legitimate, and the answer lies mainly in the way the assessment is used.
As a candidate, you are entitled to ask for clarity. What question is the assessment meant to answer? Who reads the report, and will you see it yourself before the client receives it? How long will it be kept? A careful organisation will have answers ready. In our approach we always discuss the outcome with the candidate first. Anyone who hears something in that conversation that does not sit right gains something from it too, if only the question of whether this role really suits them.
A board responsibility
Whoever appoints an executive or director carries the judgement. That is the supervisory board, or the executive team when it concerns the management level below. A report can support that judgement, but it does not take it over. A board that hides behind an assessment outcome has outsourced the decision to an instrument that does not know the task.
The Dutch financial supervisor in effect applies the same logic. Since 1 October 2026, financial institutions no longer need to notify De Nederlandsche Bank of the reappointment of executive and supervisory directors. If a reappointment comes with a heavier role or different responsibilities, however, a new fit and proper assessment is required. Suitability is therefore not a permanent label attached to a person. It is a judgement about a person in a specific role. The same holds for an assessment.
Algorithms in selection
The toolkit is changing quickly. Digital assessments, game-based formats and AI that helps interpret results are being used more widely, including for senior roles. Trade media following this development also stress that such tools work best as a supplementary instrument and not as the sole basis for a decision.
Legislators are paying attention. Under the European AI Act, AI systems used for recruitment and selection are classified as high-risk. Under Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026, the obligations for those systems apply from 2 December 2027. In the United States, meanwhile, a lawsuit is under way alleging that automated screening disadvantages certain groups of applicants, including people over forty. There is no ruling on the merits yet. For selection at executive level, the lesson is nonetheless clear: an instrument that measures experienced candidates against a general yardstick can easily end up measuring something that has little to do with the role.
New roles without a comparison group
That limitation grows as a role becomes newer. In the IJmond region and the North Sea Canal area, roles are emerging around the Energy Port, offshore wind and the decarbonisation of the steel chain that did not exist ten years ago. There is hardly a norm group for those roles. An instrument that compares a candidate with those who previously held such a position then has little to compare against. That is precisely where the question of what the role must deliver becomes more important than the score.
What we tell clients
Define the task before choosing an instrument. Use an assessment after the interview rounds, to test a specific question that emerged from the conversations, and not as an initial filter. Discuss the outcome with the candidate first. Read the report alongside the interviews and the references, not instead of them. When the report and your impression diverge, take the time to examine that difference. That is usually where the most valuable information of the entire process lies.
In closing
An assessment is a good instrument for those who know what it is for. It makes visible how someone thinks and behaves, and it can give an appointment committee sharp questions to ask. Whether someone is the right person for this organisation at this moment remains a judgement for the people who appoint.
Would you as a client like to consider what role an assessment should play in your appointment process, or are you a manager or executive considering a next step and wondering what you may expect from an assessment? We would be glad to talk with you.