The word psychometric basically refers to the measurement of the mind. Unlike facets such as education, skills, experience, appearance and punctuality, the behavioral traits and personality of a candidate can be much more difficult to assess during an interview.
Recruiters, nowadays use psychometric test online during their recruitment process to help give a better overall evaluation of a candidate and hopefully secure the best fit for the role. For any organization, psychometric assessments could help gauge the future performance of a candidate and hopefully improve employee retention by making successful hiring decisions.
Reasons why a hiring managers should use psychometric test online in their recruiting.
1. Obtaining standardized information
Psychometric assessments provides standardized information, which means that candidates are assessed using the same criteria and compared against reliable market standards. This standardization adds freedom and neutrality to the assessment process, which can sometimes be lacking in solely internal processes. By comparing all of the candidates with various standards and valid psychometric tools, a more complete profile of these individuals can be obtained.
2. Companies of all sizes can utilize psychometric testing
Psychometric assessments does not necessarily need to be reserved for larger corporations or organizations looking to recruit fresh graduates. SMEs can use this tool, too, as part of their overall recruitment strategies. Here, it is important to make sure candidates are being tested for the right traits, small and medium organizations might not necessarily tailor tests quite as much as larger organizations. Rather, they can be used to give a more general idea of candidate’s’ abilities and personality.
3. Psychometric assessments means you are not relying solely on interviews
Of course, a interview is the crucial to any organization’s recruitment strategy but being a recruiter you know very well that some candidates could be absolutely perfect for your job but they just don’t interview well. On the other side of the coin, some candidates could have lots of confidence or be well versed in the art of interviews and will offer a whole range of well rehearsed answers to your questions. Recruitment is all about filling your positions with the right people for the job and, on their own, interviews do not measure capability. Psychometric assessments gives you a benchmark where you can compare results against other candidates who have applied and also previous candidates who might be thriving within your company. Introducing this type of test means you don’t need to sit and rack your brains, trying to remember everything that each candidate said in interview.
4. Psychometric testing saves employers time and money
Recruiting a new staff can take up a lot of valuable time and can also prove costly, especially if the best talent you’re looking for isn’t found straight away. Psychometric assessments can save employers both time and money here. If you work for, or own, a organization where competition for jobs is high and hundreds or thousands of applicants apply for your roles, you will appreciate effective filtering methods such as psychometric assessments. Also, if you’ve written a great job advert that is going to tempt all those students and graduates towards your company, psychometric tests used early in the application process means you can quickly identify those young people who will best fit your organization both through their abilities and their personality. In this way, psychometric assessments can contribute in more efficient way of recruitment because you are only taking those most suited to your company to the next stage of the application process.
5. Psychometric assessments provides a true picture of candidates
Psychometric assessments can give a very good picture of your candidates – they give an idea of the candidate’s personality what makes them tick and how they prefer to work in given situations; how they work under pressure, for example, and how they work alone or as part of a team. The very nature of psychometric assessment is that they are difficult to game so the results you get from each test should be true results in that they show you what your candidates are really like in the workplace. This means that you will also know about not only their abilities but how well they are going to get along with other employees within your company.
6. Psychometric assessment is fair for your candidates as well as for you
Psychometric assessments offer a standardized approach to recruitment and it is fair for candidates because they all go through exactly the same assessments process. If you have done interviews in the past, perhaps you have had days where you are not feeling well or you feel a bit fatigued. This means candidates who apply for your job roles might not be getting the same type of interview as the candidates who were interviewed the day before. Psychometric assessments also helps candidates to better judge themselves. If you have found their personality really suits your company, however, you might be able to make use of the candidate’s new found strengths elsewhere in the company. In this way, psychometric assessments can be a win win situation.
7. Psychometric assessments can be used at any stage of the application process
A further advantage to psychometric assessments for employers is that they can be slotted in at any time during the application process. Depending upon the size and nature of your organization, they can be used right at the beginning in the form of a fun questionnaire or they can be slotted in at various times during the day at assessment centers. Some organizations even run two lots of psychometric assessments, at the beginning and the end of the process, just to compare the results and double check they are employing the right candidate.
8. Psychometric assessments is about measuring skills and abilities, not just education
When it comes to recruitment strategies, many organization still place a lot of emphasis on academic achievement, as well as any previous work experience. What is important here, this is valuable to a certain extent, psychometric assessments can be used to plug a gap in that academic achievements are not going to give you a complete picture of what your candidates are actually capable of in the place of work. Again, on the other side, another advantage of psychometric assessments for employers is that it can reveal to you if a candidate is over qualified for the role they are applying for.
9. Psychometric assessments can protect and develop the culture of your workplace
Recruitment is not just about hiring any candidate who have demonstrated they can do the job. Rather, this is obviously a key requirement, you also need to know how well the candidate will fit in with the rest of the team already working for you and how they will operate within your company’s culture. Someone who actually prefers to work alone in a quiet atmosphere, for example, is not going to feel fulfilled or work to their full potential if your company thrives in a fast moving environment which relies heavily on teamwork. Psychometric assessments can help do this both with the personality test and the other tests because you will get an idea of how that person works and what motivates them.
10. Psychometric assessments removes bias from that area of your recruitment strategy
So, now we’ve looked at all the advantages of psychometric assessments for employers, let’s summarize and take a quick look at some points to note if you want to implement this method to your recruitment process. Although psychometric testing is a scientific process, it is not a faultless system so here are some points to bear in mind. As a recruiter, you need to be able to utilize psychometric properly and be fully aware of what particular tests are showing you. The assessments must be suitable for your company, otherwise the results you get will be interpreted incorrectly and you will end up with the wrong people in the wrong jobs. This is not good for your staff retention and not good for the candidates involved. So the key to getting the most out of psychometric assessments and making sure that there are advantages for you as an employer is to make sure you don’t rely solely on that one method. Have psychometric as a part of your recruitment strategy that works alongside your other methods. Psychometric testing can be very a very valuable part of your recruitment strategy when utilize to complement more traditional methods of recruitment.
11. Psychometric assessments encourages consistency in recruitment
Last, but definitely not least, is the advantage that psychometric assessments encourage consistency and standardization when you are looking to hire new candidates. As we have said above, every candidate is given exactly the same tests and you can use this as a benchmark. Other sides of recruitment and your company’s application process are certainly valid, references are from outside your company and a candidate’s previous workplace might not have had the same values as your own workplace. The previous company might also have been looking for different requirements from their employee. Covering letters and CVs, whilst they offer clues about previous experience, employment, and achievements, are always carefully prepared and have usually been checked and double-checked. These can only offer a clue as to how your candidates will operate in your particular environment.
Here is a free sample of few of the industries top employ-ability tests.
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