It’s likely that you’re hard pressed to make critical recruitment decisions about a range of candidates who have different skills sets and talents.
With spiralling recruitment costs and the need to maintain morale and motivation, making the right decision is vital.
You’d like to use a robust method to help your team make the right decision. How do you do that, and what do you look for? How do you ensure they are going to be the right fit for your team and your organisation?
Psychometric assessments, verified by a qualified assessor, are a key part of getting this right. They aim to provide a robust, objective and measurable view of an individual’s personality. There is a wide body of evidence linking the validity and reliability of a psychometric assessment in predicting successful performance within a job role. Psychometric assessments are now used widely by organisations, and by over 75% of the Times Top 100 companies in the UK.
But there are also a dizzying array of psychometric tools available. How do you choose the right one, and how do you use it correctly?
How do you choose the right psychometric assessment tool and how do you use it?
Here are 5 top tips to help you select and get the most out of a psychometric assessment:
1 Identify your aims.
Be clear about your aims and objectives for using the psychometric assessment. Is it just for recruitment, or are you aiming to also use it for ongoing development?
2 Pinpoint the skills, attributes or behaviours you are looking to identify.
What is most important for employees to have in order to be successful in the role. Understand the different between ability/aptitude and personality assessments. (Testing a candidate’s competence, intellect, or specific ability vs learning about a candidate’s behaviours, attitudes, motivations and values).
3 Select a test.
Choose a test that measures the qualities you have defined. Look for the following features of each test:
- Validity / Reliability. Validity shows whether a test is measuring what it claims to. You’ll want a test with a validity measure of 0.3-0.5. Reliability demonstrates how consistent a test is for a single individual. Look for a reliability score of at least 0.7. There is a large body of research showing that psychometric tests are among the most reliable and valid assessment methods you can use.
- Norm groups. These are the comparison groups that your candidate’s responses will be compared to. We would recommend looking for a large comparison group and generally representative of the role or existing workforce. The outputs of the questionnaire will then be given in relation to the responses of others in this norm group.
- Fairness. You should ensure the tool you select does not give an unfair bias in any direction to a particular set of candidates.
4 Using and interpreting the psychometric output.
Make sure whoever is administering the questionnaire has the expertise required to do so effectively and ethically. We recommend you seek an experienced provider to administer, interpret and feedback the outputs from your questionnaire. As we explained in a previous blog, at Dearden Assessment we consider the questionnaire results themselves as the starting point to the next conversation. An experienced provider will tease out key insights that will be so vital to you in your decision process.
5 Use the psychometric assessment as part of a larger process.
Using a number of different assessment methodologies such as psychometric assessments, structured interviews and other exercises allows you to see each candidate from a range of different perspectives.
Psychometric assessments can provide valuable and insightful information. They can also be used in both the recruitment and development contexts.
Correctly chosen, administered and fed back, psychometric assessments can add significant value for your team and organisation, both in terms of who you select and how you develop them.
If you’d like to know more about our approach to selecting and providing psychometric assessments, both for recruitment and development, please email: viv.walton@deardenassessment.co.uk
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