This document establishes requirements and guidance for clients working with one or more service provider(s) to carry out the assessment of an individual, a group or an organization for work-related purposes. This document enables the client to base its decisions on sound assessment results.

This document specifies the requirements of the client with respect to:

a) the needs and rationale for using assessments;

b) the conditions under which the assessment will be used;

c) the decisions about the assessment approach together with the implementation and evaluation of assessment procedures and methods;

d) the required competence and professionalism of any person working under its control with a role in the assessment process;

e) the decisions about the access, use and storage of assessment results and subsequent reports;

f) organizational decisions related to the delivery of assessment services.

This document also specifies assessment approaches and procedures that can be carried out for one or more work-related purposes made by or affecting individuals, groups or organizations, including, but not limited to:

— employment-related decisions (e.g. recruitment, selection, development, appraisal, promotion, outplacement, succession planning and reassignment);

— career-related decisions (e.g. recruiting, coaching, guidance, vocational rehabilitation and outplacement counselling);

— group decisions (e.g. training initiatives, team building);

— organizational decisions (e.g. restructuring, morale and culture initiatives, mergers and acquisitions).

No detailed technical or professional specifications are included within this document; however, an explanation of some of the more common professional quality principles used in assessment (e.g. validity, reliability, fairness, standardization) are included in Annex B. Despite the informative nature of this annex, the quality of assessment procedures and methods is important to the client in relation to the purposes of the assessment, the relevance of the measures involved, their validity, reliability, fairness, standardization and any issues relating to special needs of the assessment participant and other factors that affect the practicality, acceptability and utility of the assessment.

NOTE 1 Requirements for the service provider are specified in ISO 10667-2.

NOTE 2 See Bibliography for examples of various professional guidelines and national standards.

This document does not detail the specific competences required for assessors as these are dependent upon the nature of the assessment.

NOTE 3 See Annex C for further information on assessor competence.