J. Tom Janz, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist and Co-Founder
Tom began his career with academic positions at the University of Waterloo, in the Faculty of Engineering, Simon Fraser University in the Faculty of Business Administration, and The University of Calgary in the Faculty of Management. During this time, he published several articles and book chapters on topics ranging from expectancy theory to motivational culture to selection utility. In 1986 he co-authored a book on the selection interview titled “Behavior description Interviewing: New, Accurate, Cost Effective.” In 1992 Tom left academia and took a position as Director of Behavior Description Systems with Personnel Decisions International (PDI), in Dallas, Texas. After PDI sold its selection business to ePredix in 2000, he accepted a position as Director of Assessment for Guru Worldwide Inc. of San Francisco. When Guru was being considered for sale to Unicru in 2001, he briefly joined Unicru as a Chief Scientist. As Unicru completed the purchase of Guru, he ultimately took on the role of Chief Scientist for Behavior Description Technologies to pursue a long held belief in the value of online interview decision support technology.
Since then, he has taken roles as Chief Scientist for Batrus Hollweg International of Dallas, and Senior Product Manager for Lominger International of Minneapolis. Tom currently serves as chief scientist at PeopleAssessments. Tom is a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Canadian Psychological Association. He has designed the measurement processes underlying several software programs to widen the application of his research and techniques. Tom has served on the HR.com advisory board for the Institute for Human Resources, on the Executive Board of the World of HRIS, as a founding member of Global Talent Advisors, as Chair of the SHRM ANSI work group charged with creating standards for job descriptions. Tom received his B.A. (hons) in psychology from the University of Winnipeg in 1972 and his Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1977 under the direction of Dr. Marvin Dunnette.