Introducing the HR Tests Wiki

I've been toying around for a while with the idea of creating a wiki for this blog, and finally went ahead and did it. I didn't want to create one just to create one but strongly believe in their usefulness and came up with (I hope) a good idea.

For those of you that aren't familiar with wikis, they are web pages that can be modified--often by anyone, but they can also be password protected. The most famous collection of wikis is Wikipedia, now one of the top 15 websites visited. For an example of a wiki page, check this one out.

Wikis are constantly evolving digital recording mediums that grow in power the more they are used. They serve as knowledge management devices and enormously useful resources, as the more they are added to and reviewed, the more accurate (and thorough) they become. In fact, studies have found that Wikipedia entries are as accurate as those in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

So why do we need one? Here's the way I see it.

I'm guessing every one of us, at some point or another, has had to answer a question like: "What does the research say about X?" with X being anything from the value of job analysis to structured interviewing to personality testing. Maybe it's because you were writing a thesis or an article. Maybe it's because a manager wanted to know. Or maybe you were just curious.

Whatever the reason, I'm thinking there's a lot of duplication of effort out there. I know I've created at least 20 separate files summarizing various research (just don't ask me to find them!).

With that in mind, I present the HR Tests Wiki, available at hrtests.pbwiki.com. The purpose of this wiki will be for us to gather together answers to those common questions like, "What does the research say about structuring an interview?" You'll see that it's organized according to these topics.

Viewing the wiki is available to everyone. Editing it, however, requires a password. And that password is very creative: test123

Feel free to play around with it--it's everyone's resource. I will be adding to it slowly over time but I hope you will add to it, correct any mistakes, and make use of it. I really do think this could be a helpful resource for all of us. And this is just one idea for a wiki--I'm sure you can think of others.

Note: Editing can be a bit squirrely. I've bolded a sentence only to find entire paragraphs bolded. But no worries, it's not meant to be perfect.

p.s. I've also started another blog, HR Coal, which is devoted to more general HR news. It can be found at hrcoal.blogspot.com