Most employers have heard of the term Psychometric Testing but unfortunately many have not bought into the concept and they still rely on traditional assessment and selection techniques. The uptake is normally by multinationals (80% of the FTSE100 companies use some form of psychometric testing) and progressive SME’s.
Why use Psychometric Testing?
Cost of a bad hire – It has been estimated that hiring the wrong candidate can cost up to three times salary. There are obvious costs like recruitment agency fees, time spent recruiting, advertising, salary, training etc. There are also hidden costs such as lost sales, lost customers, managing poor performance and the impact on the team and morale. So the “hire them and get rid of them if they don’t work strategy” is expensive.
Better hiring decisions – Research has indicated that the combination of behavioural/competency interviews and psychometric testing is the most effective approach for assessing and selecting staff.
Failure of traditional techniques – CV’s, traditional interviews and a couple of bland references do not work. CV’s are self written fictional documents. Traditional interviews are nothing more that an unstructured rambling chat. And references – what do they really tell you?
Saves time, effort and money – I refer you to my first point.
Objective and fair practice – Psychometric Testing is objective and therefore reduces the subjectivity associated with traditional assessment methods. More importantly organisations need to have a water tight recruitment process to support their decisions if challenged.
Hire the best – and leave the rest for your competition.
What is stopping those who do not embrace Psychometric Testing?
I really do not know. It cannot be cost as personality questionnaires and ability tests are inexpensive starting at 100.00 euro per test. It cannot be a time issue as most assessments are now online and can be completed remotely by the candidates. Possibly lack of understanding BUT they above arguments should motivate you to find out a bit more. Anyway there are consultants to support your needs for example www.measurability.ie.
