A candidate walks into the interview room, smartly dressed. Her resume speaks highly of her achievements. Perfect scores, a stellar track record, and even volunteering experience!
She must be the one for the job, right? Don’t be too sure about that.
Instead, fortify your hiring decisions by using comprehensive psychometric tests.
In simple words, Psychometric test meaning, an assessment of a candidate, designed to measure attributes like his/her intelligence, personality, and aptitude.
Psychometrics is an indispensable part of the hiring process which provides a clearer picture to the recruiter.
A small history snippet:
In its most rudimental form, these tests were used as far back as 2200 BC by the Chinese emperor to refine his army of warriors.
More recently the origin of psychometrics has been attributed to Sir Francis Galton who proposed that different people had different characteristics making some more fit than others. He was inspired by Charles Darwin’s famous work, “ The Origin Of Species”. Initially, the term ‘mental test’ was used, which was coined by James Cattell in 1890. A more structured approach was given to these tests by French psychologist Alfred Binet through the intelligence test in 1908. Since then psychometric tests have only evolved further and have become an indispensable tool in the hiring decisions of the 21st century.
A survey conducted by Global Assessment Barometer states that 81% of companies across 14 countries believe that psychometric tests ensure well assured and more reliable hiring decisions.
The word psychometric is derived from the Greek words for mental and measurement. As such they aim to measure both personality characteristics as well as cognitive abilities of the candidate. This reveals to potential employers how well a candidate fits the desired role.
What makes psychometric tests vital to recruiters:
They measure intellectual performance
Psychometric tests measure work-related cognitive ability. Whether it’s being able to think on your feet or learning from past experiences, aptitude tests shed light on a candidate’s overall individual intelligence. High results on an aptitude test are synonymous with increased comprehension, strategic thinking, and a propensity to integrate new information.
Understand the disposition of candidates
Personality tests reveal aspects about candidates that would otherwise be hidden to the recruiter. They are a self-report questionnaire with covert questions that provide quantifiable results to recruiters, preventing them from making erroneous judgments. Knowing what kind of personality a candidate has is very important to ensure that he/she upholds the organization culture.
Psychometrics lead to cost-efficiency
The assessments enable the selection of only those candidates who will remain loyal and hardworking. Hiring new staff takes up valuable time and can be extremely costly. Psychometrics provides a more filtered group of job seekers to HRs. This allows them to make effective choices from already qualified candidates and take through further rounds of recruitment.
Skills and abilities are tested
A perfect score may make a candidate stand out for a recruiter. But what’s more important is whether candidates are prepared for hands-on work. Psychometrics reveal exactly this. How a candidate deals with pressure, communicates with trusted clients, and comprehends reports quickly and efficiently can be clearly determined through these assessments. They help pick out such talent that will stay long enough to contribute constructively to the company. This works both ways as a recruiter can also find out whether someone is overqualified for a particular position thereby making sure of quality hiring and company suitability.
Promoting consistency throughout the workforce
As a recruiter you have an idea of the work environment, be it easy going or hectic or anything in between. Psychometrics allows you to tailor your workforce in order to fit into such a climate. One of the key elements of streamlined hiring is making sure that the candidates you have recruited not only possess the necessary skills and abilities but also follow closely with the values and work ethic set up by your company. Psychometric tests provide a level playing field thereby promoting complete fairness.
Here are a few more reasons why hiring managers could really use online psychometric assessments in their filtering processes.
This content was brought to you by Evalground Online Testing Platform. Evalground is an online assessment and test evaluation system focused on helping Recruiters in the initial screening of potential candidates from an ocean of job seekers in an automated way. Evalground supports Online Aptitude Tests, Spoken English Communication Skills Assessments, Coding Contests in JAVA, C, C++, Ruby, Python, JavaScript and PHP. Evalground also supports Automated asynchronous interviews. Evalground Screening Tests can be used by Recruiters during campus hiring or to screen walk-in candidates.