• September 22, 2020 3:05 pm
• by Ajanth

While traditional tests assess a candidate’s ability in multiple dimensions, psychometric tests are scored on the basis of their “emotional” and “behavioral traits”. Psychometric tests can be used as a reliable method in all areas that range from emotional intelligence to cognitive capability and is increasingly being viewed as one of the most scientific ways to predict and evaluate a person’s cognitive ability, personality type, emotional intelligence, mental ability, observational ability, aptitude, and critical thinking. But what is emotional intelligence exactly? Psychologists define emotional intelligence as the ability of an individual to recognize their own emotions and understand the emotions of others. New studies indicate that students who possess higher levels of emotional intelligence show better academic performance than their classmates who are less emotionally aware.

Use of psychometric tests in education:

Psychometric tests have little or no importance on the academic performance of students. These tests are usually administered in educational institutions to discover the areas that the students are not yet decided about or have the potential to excel in that particular field. Additionally, the test can also reveal a student’s weaknesses and strengths. This will deliver teachers intelligent insights about the areas that are of greater interest to students. These insights can help students to better decide their fields of specialization and plan their career.

Use of psychometric tests in business recruitment:

In addition to being used by students in school, they can also be used in the business recruitment process. A recent study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management revealed that almost 20% of enterprises in the world currently rely on psychometric tests in their hiring process. Since psychometric tests can be easily administered, many recruiters consider it as an objective way of evaluating the potential ability of candidates for specific job roles. This is the reason why many of the companies are opting for psychometric tests along with skill assessments and HR interviews. Most of them rely on a pre-hiring assessment tool to administer these tests.

When used properly in the recruitment process, this pre-hiring assessment tool can mean the difference between finding a star employee, and someone who doesn’t fit the culture or job requirements. However, recruiters should strictly adhere to legal compliance while they add psychometric assessments to their pre-hiring process. In addition to being used in traditional recruitment, many businesses administer psychometric tests during campus hiring. Campus hiring is an important part of the recruitment process of most businesses, companies invest millions of dollars in their campus hiring programs each year, hoping to onboard the best quality talent for their business. However, companies often fail to onboard the highest quality talent from the right camp at the right price point. This is where the importance of psychometric assessments arises, apart from predicting the suitability of a candidate for a particular job role, it can save money further down the road by making sure that the right candidate is recruited.

How effective is a psychometric test?

Some are still skeptical about the effectiveness of psychometric tests and it’s potential to reveal the inherent traits of a candidate. This is because some candidates can answer questions by deviating from their real personalities. However, the advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning have now made psychometric tests more effective and accurate than ever. While psychometric testing can be effective in predicting the suitability of candidates, it needs to be administered by someone who is well trained to precisely evaluate the results.

Psychometric Assessment: What Kinds of Tests Are Being Used?

Cognitive Tests or General Mental Ability Test:

Many studies have revealed that there is a strong correlation between mental abilities and job performance (or the performance of a student in school). These studies reveal that a candidate who scores higher on these tests is more likely to learn quickly, absorb new knowledge, process information and solve problems all of which are traits that lead to being a successful employee or a student who excels in his academics. The majority of cognitive ability tests span around three areas of mental ability:

• Abstract Reasoning
• Numerical Reasoning
• Verbal Reasoning

Numerical Reasoning:

Interpreting, Analyzing, and converting numerical data into actionable insights is one of the in-demand skills that many companies are on the lookout for. Candidates who are good at are desired by many multinational companies. The numerical reasoning test evaluates candidates on these sets of skills. It helps recruiters to identify the right employee that can find solutions to their critical business challenges.

Personality Assessment:

Personality is defined as the unique patterns of thought emotions and behavior that make us “us”. It’s a profound concept that influences so much of our life. Personality tests are designed to reveal a candidate’s deepest feelings, impulses, and desires by showing ambiguous images or phrases, and then asking them to write a story, interpret an image or complete a sentence. The test is aimed at evaluating how a candidate might approach a particular situation at work, rather than using a personality-centric approach.

Advantages of Psychometric Tests:

There is no other better way to assess personality traits than psychometrics. Results from psychometric tests are ten times more accurate when compared with results that are obtained via other assessment methods. These results are precise and reliable which clearly turns out to be the major advantage of this method. Psychometric evaluations can help identify a student’s attitude and behavior before they are admitted to their academic course. Psychometric tests also help identify an employee’s behavior before they onboard in an organization. This gives recruiters a clear picture of the personality of a potential employee as to whether or not they will fit into their new work culture.

Choosing the Right Psychometric Assessment Tool

So how to choose a Psychometric Assessment Tool? Adopting the wrong or less than the optimal tool can cause more problems than solutions. Also, changing an assessment tool often is expensive and requires recreating all the assessment questionnaires and learner records. So, choosing the right tool is key. To make the selection simpler, let’s point out some of the features and benefits one needs to look for while selecting a Psychometric Assessment Tool:

1. Look for a Psychometric Assessment Tool that enables easy online question creation. The user should be able to customize the questions based on the needs of candidates. For example, you may want to have one type of course for someone from the engineering division while a different kind for the sales division. If you lack the technical skills or in-house developers who have expertise in building online psychometric assessment software
   , it’s always better to consult with an Offshore Software Development Company in India that have expertise in ed-tech domain.
2. A good Psychometric Assessment Tool should have seamless integration with third-party tools like mail chimp, Trello, etc
3. The Psychometric Assessment Tool should allow the automation of easy to understand reports.