A great deal of companies use external tests to help them make recruitment decisions. Although they are not a replacement for the interview, they can greatly help in the interview process by allowing a skilled recruiter to focus on particular areas.
Psychometrics generally fall into three main types:
Personality Testing
• Millions of personality tests are conducted on an annual basis and are used by employers and recruitment organisations in a recruitment context to eliminate unsuitable candidates. The cost of hiring and making a mistake in the current climate is particularly high.
• Personality questionnaires build up a profile of your personality and characteristics; there are no right or wrong answers. There are various types which measure different factors, the key ones being:
- Work style, your motivation, determination, and outlook on life and work.
- Your ability to handle stressful situations. How you relate to other people and your ability to deal with emotions (your own and other people's)
• It is generally accepted that approximately 75% of those taking psychometric tests find them fairly accurate and though the results can change with age, they generally remain more or less the same (unless you are currently going through a particularly stressful period like a divorce or bereavement).
• Be aware that if are facing an interview after you have taken the test, the interviewer will obviously be basing some of the questions on the results.
• Tests are generally untimed and can take between 15 minutes and 1 hour to complete…Be aware that there are checks built in to ensure you are answering accurately and consistently! Best advice is not to try and analyse what they want you to answer, your first reaction is generally the right one.
• Well-known ones you will come across are Saville and Holdsworth's (SHL) OPQ, Myers-Briggs MBTI, Thomas International and older ones like 16PF, Firo B and CPI.
Aptitude Testing
• These generally measure and assess your abilities in a recruitment context for the role you are being considered for. Primary ones are used to measure:
- Verbal comprehension - requiring you to evaluate the logic of given statements.
- Numerical reasoning — requiring you to interpret data from statistical tables.
- Diagrammatic (or spatial) reasoning - requiring you to recognise logical sentequences within a series of diagrams or symbols.
• You will get more specific tests ranging from technical, mechanical comprehension and dexterity, visual estimation, checking and classification. But these are used more commonly for technical roles.
• Your scores on these tests are compared to a 'control' group which is usually made up of job holders either within your function, organisation or as a collective group.
• Well-known ones you will come across will include Saville and Holdsworth (SHL) and Nelson NFER now branded ASE.
Ability testing
• Some would say there is not a great deal of difference between aptitude and ability testing. The differences are more than semantic though — aptitude tests tend to be job related and ability tests tend to measure more generic skills/mental processes.
How do I know if I've done OK?
• It is standard practice for the employer or recruiter/development consultant to provide feedback. The more sophisticated the test /exercise the more likely it will be a Chartered Occupational or Organisational psychologist who is involved.
How do I prepare myself?
• On personality tests - don't prepare. Just be yourself. Try to be anything else and the test will show it up.
• On aptitude and ability tests there is very strong evidence that - despite their objective nature - practice does make perfect. There is a certain style to these type of tests that is worth getting used to. Have a look at some of our links in this article.
• Keep the importance of testing in context: remember that psychometric testing will only be one of a number of measures used. At the end of the day good old-fashioned interviewing still prevails and employers generally use psychometrics as a back-up.