Key facts about using psychometric testing for hiring
Psychometric tests are growing ever more popular. For instance, more than 75% of Time’s top hundred companies nowadays use some type of psychometric testing, particularly during a selection and recruitment process.
Technological progress in online testing enables candidates to go through tests at their location and time, implying cost-effective and efficient recruitment process and a potential for a much wider pool of candidates.
Why Use Psychometric Tests?
If you do a poor hire, it is a time-consuming and expensive process - a cost which is counted as over three times the annual salary of a candidate. Apart from the financial cost, a poor hiring decision can have a damaging impact on the morale of the organization and also creates a negative image of the company in the industry.
When used rightly and tailored to a particular role, psychometric evaluation can inject more objectivity and rigor in the process of recruitment and supports better and accurate identification of personal and occupational features required by the organization.
While psychometric tests will not and must not substitute for a structured interview as the focal point of any selection and recruitment process, by using them the recruitment process will be standardized. This is particularly crucial in non-specialized roles in which candidates may come from diverse sectors and backgrounds with distinct experiences.
When used properly, personality and cognitive tests can raise the chances of new employees to succeed. But too many organizations use psychometric testing in the wrong way. Here are some tips to minimize risks and maximize the accuracy of prediction of these tests:
Be aware of the law
HR managers and organizations need to keep abreast of legal compliance when they add psychometric tests to their screening system for pre-employment. Because of the laws of anti-discrimination, psychometric tools need to be well validated and job relevant. For instance, in the USA, the Americans with Disabilities Act assure the need to respect privacy and prevent the diagnosis of candidates in any manner.
One example of breaking the law includes concerns of racial discrimination in the hiring process of National Football League. Other than companies in weaponry, law enforcement or special considerations of safety, organizations should not force potential job candidates to diagnose tendency for depression or other types of mental illness.
Understand needs of business
Psychometric tests will not help you in case you don’t have well-set means of measuring job performance. In case, an organization lacks quantitative measures of performance of employees on the job, then there is no basis for statistical correlation of how well psychometric tests can predict performance.
After you know the needs of the business, ensure you find a test which will really measure these characteristics. For example, while there are laws which prohibit companies from invading or discriminating privacy of candidates, there are no laws which prevent companies from using invalid or unusual tools of assessment.
Reduce chances of cheating
The companies may need to proctor or do video surveillance to prevent candidates taking online tests to cheat. They also need to cross check if candidates are doctoring their psychometric evaluation to impress examiners. For this, some tests have built-in measures, which can detect inconsistencies in test results of psychometric tests.
These are some tips to conduct psychometric tests.
source: https://mettl.com/psychometric-tests/
