Choosing the Right Psychometric Test for Your Recruitment Process

While many might write psychometric tests off as simply yet another hoop to jump through when they apply for jobs, these assessments are actually an incredibly useful way to not only get a sense of a prospective employee’s personality, but to gauge for which role within an organization they’d be best suited.

While many people believe the erroneous notion that psychometric testing determines if one is “good” or “bad,” in actuality these tests instead tell the story of who an applicant is – their personality, their cognitive strengths, their motivations to excel and more.If you’re an employer who wants to use psychometric tests in your hiring and onboarding process but aren’t sure of where to start or which test to select, here’s what you need to know about selecting the right psychometric test for the role that you’re trying to fill.

Personality Assessments

These tend to be the first tests that people think of when they think of the psychometric tests associated with job applications. This is also the test for which most people incorrectly believe there are right or wrong answers. While these tests can determine if a person has a brasher personality than most, there are some industries where this can be a good thing. After all, you wouldn’t want a shy security guard or a meek corporate lawyer. This is a popular assessment for those looking to fill customer-facing roles, particularly retail and food service. Determining an applicant’s personality traits can help you to decide whether they’d be better suited for front of house or cashier duties, as opposed to placing someone more timid yet quite detail-oriented in an administrative or back of house position.

Aptitude Tests

Much as a personality test doesn’t determine if a person is good or bad, an aptitude test doesn’t determine if one is intelligent or unintelligent. We all have our cognitive strengths, and aptitude testing helps you to determine where your applicant’s strengths lie.Aptitude testing is beneficial for just about any industry. For example, say you were looking to fill a wide array of entry-level roles within a small office from a group of equally qualified applicants. Thanks to aptitude testing, you determine that one of your applicants particularly excels with numbers and reasoning, making them a perfect candidate for the vacant bookkeeping role. You also determine that another applicant shows a real strength for word meaning, making them a smart choice for a social media manager position. Indeed, aptitude testing can take the guesswork out of deciding which candidate should fill which role.

Behavior Assessment

While a personality test can tell you a lot about who a person is, a behavioral assessment enables you to determine what a person will do in a wide array of situations. These tests tend to be very popular for companies hiring for security or law enforcement positions, as it helps employers to predict what a candidate might do in a high stakes situation where decisions might need to be made in a split second. However, these tests can be useful for less high-stakes roles as well, as they can also provide insight into how a candidate might behave when trying to close a sale or troubleshoot a customer’s problem.If you’re interested in utilizing psychometric testing to make your hiring and onboarding process more efficient, Thomas Psychometric Testing can help. In addition to helping you to determine which psychometric test would be best for your organization and the roles you seek to fill, Thomas Psychometric Testing offers industry-leading tests that are easy to implement within your company.