Should you use Psychometrics in Recruitment and Selection?
Should you use psychometrics in recruitment and selection? To answer this question, HRLocker’s CEO, Adam Coleman, shares his thoughts.
“This is a question that is asked over and over again by a lot of people throughout the recruitment process. Some people swear by the test and other people run a million miles when they hear the word.
Throughout my career, I have hired and trained many people how to hire and I have to say that I do believe there is a time and a place for Psychometrics – if used properly!
When Should You Use a Psychometric Assessment?
1. It all depends on what type of role and at what level you are recruiting.
2. It all depends on the experience and whether the interpreter of the profiles is qualified to do so.
3. You should never use a Psychometric Profile as the only determining factor of the suitability of a candidate for a job.
4. Psychometric Profiles must be used with other selection tools and techniques to hold validity in selection.
5. Psychometric Profiles will only reveal the preferences of the person and how they feel other people perceive them and are not an accurate predictor of a person’s capabilities.
6. Other things that need to be taken into consideration are:
- A person’s qualifications
- How they have behaved and performed in the past
- Their preferences and style ( this can be determined by the psychometrics)
- Their personal motivations
When a proper behavioural interview has taken place with people who are skilled experienced and qualified (DDI international is a good source and reference point for this ) in behavioural interviewing, then a psychometric profile is great to determine how the potential candidate will interact with the team and what their personal preferences and decision-making styles might be.
Insights Discovery – Working with the Four Energy Colours
As a qualified and accredited licensed professional with Insights, I had a great conversation with the founder of Insights, Andi Lothian, back in 2008. The Insights products and services are world-renowned and are used in most high-profile multinationals worldwide to name but a few Google, Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Heineken etc.
When I questioned Andi about his Interview chapter he told me that this was an area that they did not want to develop as a service as he preferred that their profiles would be used more in Personal, Leadership and Team Development. I pushed Andi a little on this and guess what?! I got a job! The job was to redevelop their interview chapter which I did by converting all of the set questions that were produced when the interview chapter was used into Behavioural or Motivational Fit Questions.
There were almost 3,000 questions that had to be converted! So after all the questions were finally converted we finally had a Psychometric Profile with an effective Interview Chapter. The chapter consists of 10 behavioural questions that in the hands of a skilled professional can relate the Psychometric Profile to the real experience of the potential hire.
This was a Eureka moment that we continue to use with our clients at the senior level to establish a robust interview and assessment process.
So would I advise you to use Psychometrics as part of the interview process the answer is yes, but only with a few stipulations.
1. Never use the profile alone. Profiles are not an example of experience or skill.
2. Make sure the person driving the process is qualified and experienced in Psychometrics and Behavioural interviewing.
3. Ensure if you get any individual to complete a psychometric profile as part of a selection process ensure that both the successful candidate and unsuccessful candidates get copies of their profiles and that appropriate feedback is afforded to both.
This full candidate assessment using job analysis Behavioural Interviewing and assessments against motivational fit helps the interviewers to make really good selection decisions based on appropriate Behaviors, preferences and the motivation fit of the candidate towards the job the location of the job and the values of the company and the industry that company and job reside in.”
