Brian Alwine, CPA, ASA
ClarityBV, Inc.
Osceola, IN

Management guru Peter Drucker insisted that knowledge workers have to learn to manage themselves. Yet, how many of us are “flying blind” when it comes to hiring and personnel decisions? How well do you truly understand your firms’ most important asset, its people? Do you know your own professional strengths and weaknesses? Are you building your career and productivity?

Thanks to the Borrowman Baker BV Candidate Assessment, there are solutions to these questions. For owners and managers of small businesses, there is little margin of error when it comes to building a team. The personnel issue is even more important in a professional service firm. For those of us in “BV” there are no more excuses. Borrowman Baker makes it possible to evaluate a person’s BV aptitude, career interests, and behavioral traits.

At our small firm, this assessment has become a key resource in evaluating potential employees and ourselves. (I took it and confirmed what my parents have known for years, my independent streak runs deep.) The assessment combines the rigorous Profile XT assessment, developed by Profiles International, with the candor and insight of John Borrowman.

The Profile XT measures three major job components that help make a person productive. These include thinking and reasoning style, behavioral traits, and occupational interests. The heart of the assessment is an online questionnaire that takes about an hour to complete. Included are tons of questions about personal interests and a miniature SAT/IQ type of test. The results are presented on a bell curve from one to ten in more than a dozen areas. John Borrowman helps interpret the results based on his substantial experience working with people at all levels in the BV profession.

A recent graduate who participated in the assessment as part of our interview process had this to say about the experience. “Prospective employees and employers have much to gain from this assessment. It was an extremely valuable tool in determining personal strengths and weaknesses. The breakdown of categories between thinking style and behavioral traits gave me a more accurate picture of my personality and capacity for this position. It allows a potential employee to be aware of areas that may be challenging in this industry.”

As in BV analysis, the best personnel decisions result from a combination of empirical analysis and expert insight. I have found the Borrowman Baker BV Candidate Assessment to be a great tool for both interviewing candidates and enhancing my own productivity.

Alwine, Brian
Brian Alwine