An introduction to Psychometric Testing

Understanding how personality affects behaviour and performance at work can be critical to matching the right people to the right jobs, both in personal development and recruitment.

Indeed, in many ways, this is what the interview is supposed to examine. But the interview is neither infallible nor always effective. And while a CV is supposed to be a factual summary of a career, too often it becomes a sales brochure that suffers the flights of fancy of aspiration. All this is made worse by an recessionary environment where a candidate might not really wants your job but just a job. In other words, assessing people can be extremely difficult.

Increasingly, therefore, recruiters are turning to psychometric testing in the recruitment process to help make better hiring decisions. Psychometric testing is a process whereby candidates are assessed according to pre-defined competencies and criteria in order to ensure a better match between candidate and job. The tests are administered either online and on paper and generally follow a multiple choice format.

Psychometric testing can assess different aspects of a candidate: personality, aptitudes, work ethic etc. In general it is used to assess candidates for a particular vacancy or vacancy requirement. For example, a test for a customer service role might assess a person for their contact style; while another test might assess a candidate's dependability and behaviour under pressure. But testing can also be used for motivation, graduate recruitment, identifying leaders, team building, succession planning, sales recruitment, absenteeism etc. Psychometric testing can test just about anything you need it to test.

Where you place psychometric testing in the recruitment process is also a consideration. Some recruiters make the assessment part of the initial job application. Indeed, some recruiters make their recruitment decision on the basis of the psychometric assessment process alone. Other recruiters introduce psychometric testing later and use it as a candidate screening process. Where you impose the assessment will depend largely on your own needs.

Implemented correctly, psychometric testing can bring a raft of benefits. Firstly, it can lead to improved hiring decisions leading to improved performance from your workforce. Secondly, it can help to reduce staff turnover through better person-job and person-team fit. Thirdly, psychometric testing can save time and money with early identification of the best candidates. And finally, psychometric testing offers better insight into individuals' strengths and development requirements.

However you implement a psychometric test, the key objective is to make better hires. Nothing in the process should get in the way of applications or annoy candidates. The process should be as simple and transparent as possible.

Next steps? Check out these articles

< Corporate Online Recruitment >