Testing the Marketplace

REVIEW SUMMARY
Company: Psychological Assessment Resources Inc., Lutz.
Industry: Testing resources for professional, educational and corporate uses.
Key: Owns publishing rights to the Self-Directed Search, a popular online career choice tool.

Double-digit unemployment has a way of forcing people to examine what they do for a living and what career changes they should make. For R. Bob Smith III, that means opportunity for his quiet company tucked away near Interstate 275 in Lutz.

Smith and his wife, Cathy, have been operating Psychological Assessment Resources Inc. since 1978 and have built what began as a sideline business into a 60-employee company with annual revenue in the eight-figure range.

One of its top products, the online Self-Directed Search, allows users to click on answers to a battery of questions to help them determine whether the job they have now (or had, if they were recently laid off) is the right fit.

“There are no right or wrong answers with this test,” says Smith, a former Veterans Administration psychologist who is now chairman and CEO of PAR. The assessment, designed specifically for individuals without the need for professional counseling, measures six characteristics designed to match the test-taker to the most appropriate occupation and can serve as good reassurance for people happy in their current job or looking to change.

Currently the largest-selling product marketed by PAR, Smith explained that the Self-Directed Search was originally authored by the late John L. Holland, a former Army classification interviewer who noticed common personality types among his subjects. The original test was available in print form, but after acquiring publishing rights from Holland in 1984, PAR developed software for a computer-based version of the test, then ultimately put it online and has now introduced a mobile version.

“It really gave us a lot more credibility,” says Smith, whose company markets more than 300 evaluation tools for use in various professional and government sectors. Sales for the Self-Directed Search alone have advanced during the past 25 years from $400,000 annually to at least $2 million, he says.

A better way
While PAR's purchase of those publishing rights has been a driving force in the company's continued growth, with revenue and profits finishing positive each of the last 31 years, the company's genesis resulted from Smith seeking change in the way psychological assessments were provided to the private sector.

On a leap, he left the security of his job at a VA hospital psych ward in Tampa, where his wife continued to work as a nurse for the first few years of the company's existence.
“It started as sort of an experiment,” says Smith, who holds a doctorate in psychology from the State University of New York at Albany and continued practicing as a clinical psychologist until 1986. “We didn't know at that point whether it was going to become a business.”

Buying the rights to produce the Self-Directed Search started PAR on its growth track, along with other key offerings such as the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery and the Personality Assessment Inventory. Smith won't disclose specifics on the company's recent revenue growth in recent years, except to say those figures now exceed $25 million annually.

Most of the products in the PAR catalog range from a few dollars to as much as $20 per use, but Smith believes the return on such investment is literally priceless. Given the upfront costs involved in hiring personnel, or firing them later if things don't turn out well, he would argue that the assessments eventually pay for themselves.

“Interviewing people for jobs is probably the worst predictor of whether they will do well at those jobs,” he says. “It's hard today to get good reference information — you call them and they either say he or she is a great person, or we don't give out that sort of information. The only real objective information you have is testing.”

Jim Gyurke, vice president of sales and marketing for PAR and a former psychologist, says the use of SDS and other evaluation products could become more valuable as employers start hiring again in the upcoming recovery. The number of qualified candidates for any available position used to be scarce, he says, but now any job posting is likely to attract a slough of applications or resumes.

“Bad hiring decisions can cost a lot of money,” Gyurke says, pointing out that traditional interviewing doesn't always help people in charge of hiring sort out how well a candidate will fit into their corporate culture or job demands. A resume outlines someone's knowledge or job skills, yet cannot indicate how well those mesh with the required tasks, he says.

“If you can get the best fit possible between the person and the job, you will have much happier employees and people who are likely to stay in their jobs for a long time,” Smith added. “It's a really inexpensive investment up front that will ultimately save you a tremendous amount of money.”

Smith also pointed out that the SDS, which costs roughly $5 to take, can be a good tool for parents of college-bound youngsters to determine the best career choices before declaring a major. In most cases, kids wind up doing something completely different than their parents: None of the Smiths' three grown children work in psychology, though one of them now serves as PAR's online marketing coordinator.

Family workplace
Fostering a family environment is important to PAR, which owns two single-story buildings at 16204 N. Florida Ave. Customer service, distribution and product development are housed in the same area, allowing for quicker response to customers around the world.

“It distinguishes us from our competition,” says Cathy Smith, whose official title at PAR is vice president of community relations but easily doubles as the company's matriarch. “We are very focused on customer service and developing long-term relationships.”

Beyond day-to-day work, she says PAR tries to keep its employees focused on serving the community even if only a few of its clients are anywhere near the Lutz headquarters. Workers have donated time and money to such causes as domestic abuse prevention, animal shelters and food distribution to residents in need.

“Even though it might be intense at times, it's a fun place to work,” Cathy Smith says. “There is a lot of emphasis on community involvement and helping others. If people don't like that, they just don't fit in here.”

While PAR is very selective about who it hires, Bob Smith emphasizes that the company tries to take care of its personnel as much as possible, including conducting frequent salary surveys and paying for 100% of their healthcare benefits. The company was recognized last year by Principal Financial Group as one of its “10 Best Companies” based on employee benefits packages.

PAR has also been credited by its own competitors for superior customer service, which Gyurke says is a two-way street. Its best ideas for new products, including 25 to 30 now in development, come by way of customer surveys and other feedback from clients.

“We like to think that we're smart, but our customers are smarter,” Gyurke says. “You can build a lot of good stuff, but unless someone wants it and is willing to pay for it, it goes on a shelf.”

Morning show boosts assessment

If Diane Sawyer wasn't currently anchoring ABC's “World News Tonight” every evening, she might very well be working the same shift behind a bar at happy hour.

The former “Good Morning America” host was at the forefront of an on-air experiment televised in the fall of 2008 that utilized Psychological Assessment Resources' Self-Directed Search to help its stars figure out what they might be suited to do for a living, based on the personality and interests of each. The results turned out fairly interesting.

According to their respective results, Sawyer (who transitioned from “Good Morning America” to “World News Tonight” last year) could be a bartender or therapist; Robin Roberts is suited to be a lyricist; Sam Champion might be a judge and Chris Cuomo would be, of all things, a hair stylist.

The week-long media exposure provided a short-term blip of activity for PAR's online version of the test, with a tenfold increase in visits to the self-directed-search.com Web site. “Our run rate was anywhere from two times to five times greater,” says Jim Gyurke, the company's sales and marketing VP.

The feature was followed by a series of 60 radio segments across the country promoting the online SDS, which was likely worth the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in actual advertising. “I probably couldn't buy that amount of time with $10 million,” Gyurke says, adding that the product and company gained an undeterminable amount of credibility and brand awareness in the process.

After paying $4.95 to take the SDS, customers receive a personalized report outlining their skills and interest rated to career choices. The test analyzes six key personality types — realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional.

“So few people take jobs knowing what they want to do,” Gyurke observed. PAR estimates that more than 30 million people worldwide have taken the SDS, which is available in at least 25 languages.