You only take a couple of seconds to assess an individual. But, have you ever wondered how challenging it is to determine their abilities and competencies just by an initial impression? When hiring new employees, a glance at their resumes isn’t nearly enough time to eradicate subconscious bias and establish if someone is the proper match for the job.
The pressing concern is: In a world where businesses realize the importance of having the right team and workforce, how can they ensure hiring the top talents that can encourage each other and help the business thrive in the cut-throat competition? How do HR managers and recruiters make more research-based, unbiased, and accurate predictions about the best fit for a role or team?
Hiring someone who appears to be qualified enough but has trouble settling in or disturbs the work culture is a costly and time-consuming mistake that businesses should avoid. While a seasoned recruiter can be confident in assessing whether a candidate is a good fit for their team, a more objective procedure is required to make the recruitment dependable and fair.
The world of recruitment and hiring has undergone a major transformation, where recruiters today employ numerous modern-day tech and solutions to help them hire the right people. One such solution becoming the trend for recruiters is psychometric tests that examine each candidate thoroughly and provide a clear image of how they might perform and act in the workplace, taking the selection process to the next level.
What is a Psychometric Test?
Psychometric assessments are pre-employment tools that assess candidates’ fitness for a position based on required personality traits and aptitude. They present prospective employees with scenarios and evaluate their reactions and responses to quantify personality traits and work habits. While the exact criteria assessed by a psychometric test varies based on the source of the test and the industry being tested, common factors include personality type, numerical, verbal, mechanical, and abstract reasoning. Using these assessments, recruiters get an accurate picture of a prospective employee’s general personality, motives, talents, habits, and intuition if they ask enough questions and get enough answers.
What is the Buzz All About?
Recruiters can use a psychometric test to objectively analyze the additional traits and skills required for a specific job role, giving each candidate an equal chance of success. Standardizing this evaluation also eliminates the risk of interviewers’ unconscious bias and levels the playing field for candidates.
Adding to the list of benefits is that recruiters have a range of psychometric tests to choose from, each designed to evaluate a distinct ability or feature. As a result, they can select which tests are most appropriate for their organization and the job opening, allowing them to establish a recruitment process tailored to their specific requirements. This feature becomes relevant when jobs require specific skills, and the hiring process needs to carefully screen individuals to ensure they meet these requirements.
For instance, law enforcement officers must be assertive while maintaining high levels of honesty and integrity. Therefore, an assessment that can efficiently assess the said qualities becomes of utmost significance in filtering candidates for law enforcement vacancies. Likewise, employees in caring professions, such as nursing, must have empathy and patience and the ability to handle numerical data required for proper drug delivery. A psychometric test is a dependable and multi-dimensional means of thoroughly assessing each candidate when a mix of skills and talents is required.
What Role does HR Play in Employing Psychometric Tests?
Like the traditional hiring process, HR managers and recruiters play an equally important role in implementing psychometric assessments in recruitment. Recruiters must comprehend that each company is different and should ensure not to use a single psychometric test for every role. A broad version of the assessment can still give an idea of a candidate’s overall aptitude. However, they should consider using a personalized psychometric evaluation to find the ideal person for the job. Moreover, with more companies and job networks offering custom psychometric tests for various industries, the responsibility of finding the most appropriate solution falls on the shoulders of the HR team.
Other critical roles HR executives need to play in staying prepared for this evolving assessment style include:
- Defining the objectives
- Conveying the objectives to the applicants
- Conducting the assessment fairly
- Finding a solution without disrupting the overall budget allocated for the hiring drive
It’s worth noting that specialized tests can be prohibitively expensive for small businesses, but the quality of the data speaks for itself. Recruiters can also develop special tests by altering the template to match their needs and focusing on certain goals while staying within their budget.
It is in everyone’s best interests to guarantee that the applicants have been thoroughly evaluated and have true potential to advance. Therefore, companies should partner with psychometric test providers like Discover Assessments to observe specific behaviors and traits among candidates and tailor assessment activities to explore them further. Our psychometric test findings can help distinguish between candidates who appear to be competent in education, experience, and skills when making hiring decisions.
To explore more about our gamified assessments and psychometric assessments, contact us today!
