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SelectWrite Will Help Companies Assess Job Candidates’ Writing Ability

WINDSOR, Conn., April 2, 2015—LIMRA and LOMA today have launched a new assessment tool that will evaluate the job candidate’s ability to communicate effectively in writing.

SelectWrite^TM is different from other writing tests in that the scoring is completely automated, using artificial intelligence to:

• Immediately evaluate and report on candidate writing skills
• Eliminate the time, effort, and expense of training in-house graders, and
• Eliminate subjectivity in scoring the applicants’ responses.

“In today’s business world, email is the number one way we communicate within our organizations, to our customers and others,” said Ina Allison, PhD, director Employee Assessment, LOMA Assessment and Development Solutions.  “Writing effectively is possibly the single most important skill for business people.  SelectWrite offers hiring managers and HR professionals an easy-to-use tool to assess a candidate’s ability to write and be assured they can appropriately represent their organization.”

How it Works

Job candidates are given prompts that are in the form of business situations and asked to respond in an email message.  The email format for the response closely resembles the type of writing that the candidate would need to perform on the job. Once the test is finished, an online report is available immediately with an overall hiring recommendation and evaluation on candidate’s writing ability.  The writing sample(s) is rated on the following dimensions:

• Purpose and Impact: Clarity of the main point and purpose of the document and effective use of details to support the main point.
• Accuracy and Completeness: Accuracy of the applicant’s response based on the details provided in the prompt.
• Writing Mechanics and Grammar: Accuracy of grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation.
• Vocabulary and Word Choice: Appropriate vocabulary and word choice that accurately reflects the intended meaning.
• Business Writing Style: Appropriateness of tone, voice, conciseness, clarity, and avoidance of redundancies.
• Organization: Correctness of paragraph structure, cohesiveness and organization of the content throughout the document.
• Overall Writing Quality: Demonstration of effective business writing skills.

-end-

Contacts

Catherine Theroux, 860-285-7787, ctheroux@limra.com
Mark Morris, 860-285-7875, mmorris@limra.com

About LIMRA

LIMRA, a worldwide research, learning and development organization, is the trusted source of industry knowledge, helping more than 850 insurance and financial services companies in 64 countries. Visit LIMRA at www.limra.com.

About LOMA 

Established in 1924, with 1,200 plus member companies in over 80 countries, LOMA is committed to a business partnership with its world-wide members in the insurance and financial services industry to improve their management and operations through quality employee development, research, information sharing, and related products and services. To find out more about LOMA and the learning opportunities it offers, visit LOMA’s Web site at www.loma.org.