Psychometric assessment – assessing the applicant correctly

Psychometric assessment is a recruitment strategy that focuses particularly on the psychological skills and characteristics of applicants. It can be a useful method to find not only employees with the appropriate skills, but also employees with the appropriate personality structure for the company. The following will focus on why psychometric assessment is so helpful in recruiting.

Different professions with different challenges

Every profession and every position in a company requires certain competencies. But it is not only the measurable skills and qualifications that distinguish suitable from unsuitable employees: Psychological and social skills are also important for optimal job placement. However, there is no universal rule as to which personality structure a good employee must fundamentally possess. Rather, it is a matter of finding the right person for the right position. For example, there are positions for which secretive, reserved and thoughtful employees are advantageous. On the other hand, there are also positions that require extroverted, courageous and spontaneous employees. Psychometric assessment can help to find out these hidden competencies.

Why personality is important

Employees without the ability to work in a team, the will to communicate or the willingness to compromise will do more harm than good to the company in the long run. It is therefore essential to hire suitable personalities who will fit into the team in the long term and contribute to a positive and efficient working atmosphere with their personality. Even if the resume shines, it does not tell everything about a person’s interpersonal attitude and psycho-social skills. Sometimes it can be a bigger win for companies to hire the second-best candidate if his or her personality makeup meshes better with the rest of the team. This requires empathy, intuition and an eye for the hidden. A personality test can help recruiters do this and streamline the assessment process without spending a lot of resources.

How psychometric assessment works

In an interview, or even a multi-stage recruiting process, it can sometimes be difficult to get to know an applicant’s personality. Many personality traits only reveal themselves in special situations: For example, under stress, time pressure, or after a failure. However, since most recruiters lack the time and resources to get to know each applicant in detail, a psychometric assessment personality test can help. This test asks specific questions with no right or wrong answers, but only provides clues to certain characteristics of the applicant. The tests are usually based on multiple choice answer options in order to ultimately assess a personality tendency in the applicant. In the case of more detailed tests, however, written answers may also be given. In most cases, the questions also relate to company-specific challenges in order to obtain an assessment of the potential employee’s way of working.

Why psychometric assessment makes sense

Most positions in the working world involve teamwork and cohesion. People are especially successful when they work together in more or less large groups. Here, factual competencies and skills are important, but they do not play the main role: much more important is how well people work together, how much they complement each other and how the respective skills of the individual can be used by the group. Modern and successful companies make targeted use of the findings of industrial psychology to increase the efficiency of a group enormously. A healthy climate in the team increases the performance and motivation of all employees and moves the company forward more than almost anything else.

What questions are asked in psychometric assessment tests

The questions of a psychometric assessment personality test usually describe a situation to which the applicant is supposed to react virtually. In most cases, multiple choice answers are sufficient – only in rare cases are detailed written answers required. Especially if a company works with fixed personality types from industrial psychology, multiple choice can simplify the evaluation. An example of a multiple choice question might be as follows:

• One of the team members cannot meet a deadline for personal reasons. However, the employee’s output is vitally important to the project: What do you do?
• Answer A: I work overtime and do the work myself.
• Answer B: I admonish the employee not to bring the personal problems to work and give a small extension.
• Answer C: I redistribute the work among the team so that the employee’s absence is not a factor.
• Answer D: I explain the situation to my supervisor and ask for a postponement for the entire project.
• Answer E: There is no right answer for me.

There is no absolute correct answer to these questions. But the answers can offer insight into an applicant’s basic attitude and problem solving. They can show whether the applicant is more of a disciplined and dominant personality type, or a harmony-creating and flexible personality type. Depending on the job and the work climate, both can be useful. However, it is not always easy to formulate the test questions correctly and to avoid transparency:

The problem with psychometric assessment

The difficulties with psychometric assessment tests lie in creating a value-free impression and not formulating transparent test questions that can easily be falsified. The applicant should really have the impression that there is no right or wrong answer for winning the job. After all, the test should be used to truly and authentically assess potential employees. If the test questions are worded too clearly or too transparently, applicants will each choose the answer they think will be advantageous in getting the job. This is the reason why some parties are critical of psychometric assessment. However, if the test questions are professionally developed, this concern is unfounded: Professionals are trained to develop and evaluate such tests. Since a well-formulated psychometric assessment test can be reused permanently and by the entire organization, it is worth investing some resources in test development.

Psychometric assessment as application procedure 2.0

In the future of personnel recruitment, the focus will increasingly be on personality structures and psycho-social skills. The time of doctored CVs and the fight for every decimal place in grades will give way to a more empathetic application procedure. Psychometric assessment tests are just one of many ways to get a glimpse behind the facade and resume of applicants.

The past has shown that companies are particularly successful when they employ the right people. However, this does not only refer to so-called hard skills, which are also reflected in the resume: Soft skills, manners and special characteristics will also be included in the question of suitability. This is good news for all those whose portfolio does not put them in first place, but who shine with other skills.

Through psychometric assessment, HR managers can look forward to future employees who not only have the required skills for the job, but also have just the right personalities and know how to complement the team on both a professional and human level. Psychometric assessment offers the team the opportunity to gain a new form of diversity and problem-solving strategies and to positively influence the long-term working atmosphere.

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