Psychometric Assessment – What Is It and How Can It Add Value?

At ICP we partner with a range of clients on candidate and employee assessment to help them get a three-dimensional view of their people. In the course of doing this, we are often asked about how to use the information provided by these assessments and translate this into effective recruitment decisions and development feedback.

Psychometric Assessments used correctly are a powerful tool that can help inform your decision making when it comes to your people. With the right interpretation and application, they can help you hire and onboard with confidence, the right way. Also, assessment can help you develop your team by identifying development areas and leveraging strengths.

The data gathered from this test generates information about the candidate’s personality, motivators, cognitive ability, emotional intelligence, strengths, development areas and communication style. Psychometric tests are a great tool to prepare for a candidate’s onboarding and career development and building confidence in your hiring decisions.

The most common area psychometric assessment is used in is recruitment. A growing number of organisations are incorporating psychometric and cognitive assessment into their recruitment process. Why? These assessments add an extra layer of information to resumes, references and interviews. These validated and reliable descriptions of a candidate’s personality let recruiters see the full picture and allow a more informed decision to be made. Not only can you measure thinking style and ability and basic personality, but understanding a candidate’s emotional intelligence is now playing a more crucial role than ever in decision making.

What are the Benefits?

Understanding more about fit with organisational culture

Understanding how aligned personality is with organisational culture is an incredibly valuable objective when selecting a candidate for your organisation. Psychometric assessments help with this alignment by describing working and communication styles, problem solving skills, how they deal with conflict and adapt to other’s behaviours. It gives you a far more rounded view of the candidate than an interview alone can offer.

Gather an unbiased and objective viewpoint

As recruiters, it is understood that taking an unbiased stance on candidate selection is crucial. Psychometric Assessment, through balanced, objective data helps remove any subjective decision making or influences, and can play an important role in overlaying insights on top of existing considerations and recommendations.

Highlights strengths and understand development areas

As part of the report, our psychologists bridge the gap between personality traits and which strengths and weaknesses are tied to these. By going a step further into a candidate’s profile, we offer insight into understanding what the candidate will be good at and where to develop their skill set. We provide development tips, practical onboarding techniques and considerations as to how to get the most out of your new hire.

Reduce employee turnover

Many resignations come from poor role fit. Being squeezed into a role that just wasn’t quite right; or alternatively, casting a candidate that wasn’t quite right into the perfect role is a tough experience for the individual as well as the organisation and their team. It is also costly, both in the cost of a new hire and the impact on organisational culture. By gaining comprehensive information about candidates prior to their placement you can ensure a better fit between the role and employee which ultimately reduces employee turnover and positively impacts organisational culture with happy, engaged employees who feel they “fit” both the role and the organisation.

Understand the candidates working style

Oftentimes a hiring manager will form a view about a ‘candidate’s working style’ through the recruitment process and it can sometimes be a question that is left open until they are hired. Questions like ‘How do they think? How do they interact with people? How do they lead? How do they work? How do they cope under deadlines and pressures?’. Questions like these and more can be addressed by using a good assessment process. Our psychologists have decades of experience analysing the data that comes from the tests and questionnaires and working with you to make more informed decisions. We discuss topics like analytical ability, strategic thinking, sociability, diligence, confidence, resilience, leadership and emotional intelligence.

Identify potential red flags in behaviour

It is natural to present the best version of yourself through a recruitment process, so it is not surprising that we really get to know each other over time. When recruiting, this presents some risk as you may not be super confident that the person you think you are hiring is just as they have come across in the interview. Psychometric Assessment can reduce a lot of the risk of the of the unknown. We help you identify any potential red flags or areas that are worth exploring further, prior to making a recruitment decision. Does that passion and drive translate to explosive trait or being quick to anger when the pressure is really on? They might be stoic and steadfast, ever dependable, but can they also struggle with change or bottle up their emotions? Can they be rigid and resistant to new environments?

These topics and questions are complex and our assessment can provide more insight and help you scope these areas for you. Through in-depth briefings with our psychologists, we can help you understand if this is an important growth area that can be coached or developed, or is it a hard to change de-railer that will get in the way of performance. It is all about building out the picture that builds confidence in the decision you make.

To experience the benefits of psychometric assessment in your recruitment process or when developing your people, or to understand more about how you can incorporate it into your organisation, contact us today or visit our website to learn more www.incorporatepsychology.com.au/assessments.