Gustav Lienert played a leading role in the construction history of the measurement procedure Jobfidence®. He saw “no problem” when, in 1965, the Dusseldorf Ministry of the Interior wanted to have aptitude tests which measured well for its police academies. He warned forcibly however “You guys are going to have to wear your fingers to the bone calculating”.
Patiently, he allowed his statistical guidelines (“Testaufbau und Testanalyse”, 1961/67) to be fed in co-operation with IBM into the most innovative mainframe computer of the time. The specially developed program PSYTES processed numberless test-runs with several thousand police officers and applicants, whose results were delivered by the crate as punched-cards. He referred to the following two years of ongoing toil with statistics as “an orgy” and accompanied it with infectious good humour and commitment.
In conclusion, he wanted a football match between his employees and our team. We suffered a crushing defeat on the Rhine meadow, in spite of police reinforcement, and got the following piece of advice “Stick to your tests! You’ll never learn to play football!” We followed this advice to our advantage.
Gustav Lienert died on May 8, 2001 aged 80. He created the statics and framework of Jobfidence®, still today the leading psychological measurement procedure.
Tanto nomini nullum par elogium.
