A psychometric test is a great way to measure aspects of mental ability, personality, and behavior patterns for job selection. The word psychometric gets formed from the Greek words, Mental and Measurement. You are more likely to encounter psychometric testing as a part of the selection and recruitment process. While candidate assessment in any firm represents psychometric tools used by employers in the selection process. The usual procedures for choosing candidates will still apply. For instance, a job is advertised and you are invited to send your resume. It helps the firms to see whether your experience and qualifications are considerable or not. Only after the initial screening, you will get asked to sit for a psychometric test. Employers will make use of psychometric tests as a way of the following.
- It eliminates unsuitable candidates at an early stage.
- It will screen candidates for interviews.
- It will objectively determine someone’s personality, values, and reactions to their environment.
- It provides management with guidance on career progression for existing employees.
What are the requirements for assessment to qualify as a psychometric test?
A psychometric test needs to meet the following criteria.
- The score should not get affected by the tester’s values or beliefs.
- The test should get administered under controlled conditions. It should be as consistent as possible for the test results to be accurate.
- It needs to make an accurate prediction of performance.
- It should be unbiased and produce results irrespective of gender, culture, and ethnicity.
Firms traditionally use many methods to assess job applications. You need to do the following:
- You need to complete an application form.
- You need to send a copy of your resume.
- You must attend at least one interview.
Nevertheless, the traditional recruitment approaches can get perceived as flawed in many ways.
- Resumes and applications will allow a candidate to exaggerate responsibilities and achievements.
- There is a growing industry in both online and in books that help writing the perfect resume.
- The number of qualifications and courses has grown rapidly in recent years. It is not always clear what a particular qualification means in terms of abilities.
- The interview process will have shortcomings as a candidate needs to prepare for a short and predictable series of questions.
- The interviewer bias can act against the interests of recruiting firm by excluding the most capable candidate on spurious grounds.
- References are unbelievable as existing employers have nothing to gain by warning potential employers of a suitable candidate.
Hence, there is a shred of growing evidence that the use of a psychometric test for selection purposes increased in recent years. A psychometric assessment gets used by 80% of the Fortune 500 firms in the USA and 75% of the all-time top hundred firms in the UK. It has information Technology firms, management consultancies, and police forces. The Civil Service also makes extensive use of psychometric assessment.
Let’s talk about the reasons why you should use a psychometric test.
The psychometric test will offer increased Regulation and legislation
Employees need to follow a selection process that can be used to withstand legal challenges. A psychometric test gets seen as an objective measure of how a candidate’s skill set aligns with the competency profile.
Training proficiency
Organizations with larger training expenditures use psychometric testing more than those with smaller training expenses. Training builds more proficient employees that will benefit the company in the long run.
Testing costs will decrease
More the availability of tests faster the response and less the cost of recruitment. Decreased recruitment cost is a response to more psychometric tools including also other methods of selection.
It gives rise to more formal HR policies
The increase in employment-related litigation encourages many firms to recruit more qualified human resources personnel.
What are the types of psychometric tests?
The psychometric test will fall into two categories: aptitude tests and personality questionnaires. A personality questionnaire measures some aspects of your personality and an aptitude test will measure your intellectual and reasoning abilities.
Personality test
It has a role to play in deciding whether you have the motivation and enthusiasm that the employer is looking for. it will say whether you are going to fit into the firm in terms of your personality. The principle behind the personality questionnaire is that it is possible to qualify for intrinsic personality characteristics by asking about your feelings, behavior, and thoughts.
Aptitude test
Ability and aptitude tests get designed to check your intellectual performance. There are at least 5000 aptitudes and ability tests. Some of them include only one type of question, verbal ability, numerical reasoning ability, and more. It always gets presented in a multiple-choice format and has definite right and wrong answers. The best thing is that it gets time then you need to work through them to be successful.
You all will be wondering about the agility test. Firstly, let’s know What is the learning agility test – You will get presented with statements that describe many ways to assess the capabilities of the high learning-agile individual. Results of which can be measured in points like every one or two points, five-point, and a 7-point scale. The number of questions you are expected to answer will range from about 50 to 200 based on the duration of the test. The questions must be completed within a specified time. Employees with learning agility set creative goals in the workplace and do whatever it takes to achieve them.
Conclusion
You may hear that sometimes people say that it’s not possible to prepare for a psychometric test, which is not true. You can improve your scores by practicing the type of questions you are likely to face. You can get to know about psychometric tools companies are using that will increase your chances to get selected. These types of tests like psychometric and learning agility tests are useful for both companies and candidates. Due to its increased application worldwide these are performing well with the making promises to introduce new kinds of recruitment that will snatch best out of your team.
About The Author
Dan Taylor
Dan is responsible for content marketing and branding at GuestPostBlogging. He writes about topics related to startup naming, branding and entrepreneurship.
