The Importance Of Psychometric Testing In Recruitment
Best practices for administering psychometric tests to candidates.
Highlights:
Psychometric testing measures psychological traits to assess both the skillset and cultural fit of candidates, ensuring better-hiring decisions.
Administering these tests with consideration for candidate comfort is crucial to reducing stress and anxiety and improving test results and candidate experience.
Removing identifying information from CVs promotes fairness and reduces bias, encouraging a more inclusive hiring process and better diversity outcomes.
Definition of Psychometric Testing
Psychometrics refers to the measurement of psychological traits to test and assess a candidate’s field, i.e., in a professional/career setting, or assessing the candidate’s culture fit within a team.
History of Psychometric Testing
In 1859, Charles Darwin studied plants and animals, and how different species have diverse characteristics - some were less adaptive to their environment. Those more adaptive were likely to survive and reproduce, and those with less adaptive characteristics were likely not to.
This inspired Francis Galton’s curiosity to study human beings (how we vary from one another). And also, in what way can we measure these differences? This leads me to discuss the Importance of Psychometric testing.
My Thoughts on the Importance of Psychometric Testing
As both a candidate and a recruiter, I have taken these tests myself, as well as administered them to people. I have always believed in treating people the way I want to be treated and understand that doing these tests could cause anxiety and stress to candidates, also. That is why I suggest they ensure to do them with no interruptions around them, i.e., turn off their phones, have nobody around when doing the tests, etc.
These tests are also really important for employers as they help assess if the candidate has the right skill set to do the job, as well as measure if the person is going to be the right culture fit for the team. For example, you would not want to place a mature candidate in a young team, as they may not feel comfortable working with them on a daily basis.
To ensure we are not ageist, we can remove candidates’ date of birth off their CVs (if included), or the year they graduated from High School. As an Internal Recruiter for a large organization, I have also removed candidates’ names from their CVs. In an ever-changing world, where there is more emphasis on encouraging diversity and inclusion in the workplace, this is important.
You would not want to hire an incorrect person for the role, as you will end up spending time and money to train the person up, to just have them leave. It is also vital you have a good onboarding process, as it works both ways for the candidate and employer working relationship. You want to administer the psychometric tests to ensure you have the right candidate for the role, but you also want to retain them.