The executive candidate is picked up from an airport hotel by limousine early in the morning and whisked to the suburban headquarters of Development Dimensions International where a full work schedule awaits.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Andrew Gill, an executive coach at Bridgeville-based Development Dimensions International, watches monitors the company uses when it puts executives through role-playing exercises that simulate the events in a high-pressure job. Click photo for larger image.

But this is no ordinary day at the office. The candidate will report to a hypothetical company set up by DDI to simulate a real-work environment, complete with challenges, distractions and interruptions.

Flubbing or breezing through a one-day simulation won't affect corporate earnings or important relationships with customers or employees. But it could help determine whether that coveted promotion comes through.

DDI, a privately held human resources consultant, helps employers large and small assess the strengths and weaknesses of candidates for hiring and promotions, and trains and develops business leaders. It's been a lucrative growth business for the Bridgeville-based firm, aided by post-9/11 fears about employee security and the ever-rising push to make sure workers and managers are as productive as they can be.

The privately held firm says it now generates revenue of more than $100 million a year, making DDI one of the nation's largest suppliers of training and employee assessment systems and related products. It employs 925 in 22 countries, the bulk -- 785 -- in the Pittsburgh region at its headquarters and at a warehouse and distribution facility in Canonsburg.

One of its hallmarks is the executive assessment process championed for more than three decades by company founder and Chairman William Byham, an organizational psychologist. The basic idea is to replicate the job of a real-world executive for a promising management candidate and then rate his performance. The results can be used to either make hiring or promotion decisions or as a blueprint for further training and development.

PPG Industries, for example, uses DDI's assessment center program in the United States, Europe and Asia to prepare mid-level managers to assume increasing levels of responsibility. "What we like about it is it's an opportunity for them to get a very objective rigorous feedback from multiple, highly trained assessors," said Harvette Dixon, director, learning and development, for PPG. "It's high stretch. It's really testing them out of their environment."

General Motors is DDI's largest customer, but its client list includes many large and recognizable names: BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels), the parent of Monroeville-based Westinghouse Electric Co.; Coca-Cola; Gillette; Mattel; Texaco; and UPMC, among others.

Sales, which had slipped into the mid-$90-million range the last few years, are up about 12 percent for the current fiscal year that ends in August and should be $105 million once the books are closed, said DDI President Robert W. Rogers. The firm, founded in 1970, doesn't disclose profits.

After several years of little or no hiring, Byham said companies are beginning to expand staffs and bolster management ranks. But employers continue to be cautious and selective about whom they hire -- a trend that benefits DDI and other companies in the same business.

"We're having a great year. It's very good for us right now, no question," Byham said. "Two things. One, the economy. People are spending money. And two, we have what people want. People who are hiring are still very careful."

Security concerns after the 9/11 attacks and well-publicized corporate scandals such as the Enron collapse have pushed some companies to introduce more stringent hiring practices for employees, including senior executives.

Ron Alvarado, president of Venturi Staffing Partners, said his company's five offices in the Pittsburgh region also were seeing a "marked increase" in the use of various employment screening services. He cites selective hiring practices and a more cautious atmosphere in the wake of 9/11.

"In this buyer's market, clients are choosier about whom they hire," Alvarado said. "And with more candidates out there, with widely varying degrees of skills, screening is even more important as there are more poor candidates mixed in with the good ones."

Candidates for top jobs are now more likely than ever to face tests and other assessment exercises that measure such things as intelligence, aptitude for problem solving, employee-relations skills, management style or fit with a particular organization's culture.

DDI has designed what it describes as "legally defensible" systems for employee selection that can be used in a wide range of industries and for a myriad of job functions from the bottom to the top of organizational charts.

Corporate leadership training can be customized and delivered through an instructor or over the Internet. An online coaching feature, for example, delivers tips and resource materials to an executive's desk.

Byham, who co-founded the company with another organizational psychologist, Douglas W. Bray, is a well-known figure in the employee training and development industry. He is a featured speaker this weekend at an annual conference sponsored by the American Association of Training & Development in Washington, D.C. "He's a big name," said ASTD spokeswoman Danielle Povar.

DDI developed out of Byham's experiences working for J.C. Penney decades ago when the retail chain was moving stores from Main Street into suburban shopping malls.

Given the task of identifying managerial candidates who would do well in the larger mall environments, Byham knew of Bray's work in developing an employee assessment center for AT&T and decided to do the same for J.C. Penney.

The big break came in 1970 when Byham wrote about his experience with the retailer in an issue of the Harvard Business Review, and well-known companies started to seek his help.

"When you write an article for the Harvard Business Review, you're automatically famous and so they called me up and [asked] 'Would you help us?' This was Ford Motor, Shell Oil and Caterpillar," Byham recalled. "These were the giants of American industry calling little Bill Byham. That's how we got started."

The assessment centers have evolved over the years. At first, DDI trained supervisors at client companies to do candidate assessments, which generally took place at a work site or at a nearby hotel.

After rounds of downsizing wiped out middle management in many corporations, DDI switched tactics and in 1986 opened its own executive assessment center at its corporate headquarters with training rooms and offices for job candidates to use.

Acting ability helps since the DDI assessors interact and role play with the executive candidates during the exercises, which are adapted to different job descriptions.

Before the candidate arrives, he or she can search DDI's Web site for data on the hypothetical company for which he or she is going to work, review its business plan and financial statements, and see pictures of people he or she will meet. Some pre-testing is done over the Internet.

Once at DDI, the candidate is given a brief introduction before the role-playing begins. The set is an office equipped with a telephone and a computer. On the wall hangs a video camera that records the candidate's movements and conversation for later analysis. Web and voice mail data also is recorded.

The goal is to replicate a fluid work experience where routine is mixed with trials and tribulations. The day might include some business challenges -- say dealing with an unhappy customer, two employees who can't or won't cooperate, or perhaps a public relations crisis complete with TV reporter and camera operator.

All the while, the telephone is ringing, people are popping in the door and e-mails are flooding in -- creating a kind of in-basket exercise that assesses skills in time management and setting priorities.

"Everybody says it is exactly what it is like to be an executive. You never have a half an hour to get ready for something. You're squeezing time here and pulling time from there," Byham said. "What you find is they are so busy, they totally get into it."

The real pressure occurs in the afternoon. Candidates are usually asked to put together some kind of presentation, perhaps a strategic plan for their division or business unit, and present that plan to the boss at day's end.

"You do get some folks who may not have prepared like they should have, and by the middle of the day they have a bit of the 'deer in the headlights' look," said John DeSantis, an executive solutions consultant with DDI. He said those candidates who get off to such a rocky start usually have a chance to recover as the day progresses.

"Imagine a day where you've got a lot coming at you, and you have to rely on skills that may not have been tested recently -- time management, decision-making, prioritizing and interpersonal skills to work through some challenging role plays," DeSantis said

Assessors are looking for certain competencies -- items that can change depending on the job and the employer's requirements but could include personality traits that promote or inhibit job effectiveness and the ability to work with others. A company going through upheaval, for example, may want to make sure their new hires or promotions are adaptable, open to change.

After the day's end, the assessors meet for a "data integration" session in which they rate the individual on a dozen or more competencies decided on beforehand with the employer. They vote on each one, something like a jury.

This is where a candidate's strengths and weaknesses are identified. Byham says the system works because it uses multiple exercises and multiple assessors who must share and prove their conclusions.

"There's a truism in psychology that three people make better decisions than one person, and that's what we do here," Byham said.

Participants and employers are given written reports at the end -- not so much a report card, Byham said, but an evaluation of a person's strengths and weaknesses -- a road map they can use toward self improvement.

PPG, for example, is looking for factors it believes can contribute to success such as a person's ability to focus on results, to promote teamwork, to build trust and respect, to develop others and to understand the company's markets and customers. The results are used to put together executive development plans and to pair promising candidates with an executive mentor.

"It's the starting point. The feedback is just the beginning," said PPG's Dixon. "The important thing is to help them be more productive and positive, and position them to assume increased levels of responsibility within the organization."

Employers typically look for honesty and integrity -- attributes that can't always be uncovered in a test. But Byham said he had developed interview techniques that can get to those issues.

People generally see others as sharing their own values, so they tend to tell self-incriminating stories when properly questioned, he said.

Byham relates the story of a sales manager who was proud of how many frequent-flier dividends he had accumulated and mentioned while bragging that he took several unnecessary trips to pump up the total.

Then there was the administrative assistant to a prominent local politician who told Byham she would always collect extra restaurant tabs so her former employer could pad his expense account.

In the end, Byham said the best results came from a combination of paper and pencil personality tests, job simulations and thoughtful or targeted interviewing, using techniques developed by DDI. "And that's what we sell," he said.