Psychometric Testing — How Much Testing Is Too Much?

It is very understood that employers looking forward to hiring new candidates within the company are today looking forward to conducting psychometric testing to evaluate them before making a decision. Many companies have psychometric testing laboratories within their premises to conduct the tests at their convenience. Some companies have a procedure, which can be completed within a couple of hours while the others take longer to complete. Therefore, questions have been raised about how much testing is actually required to understand the intelligence, aptitude and the ability of an applicant. Unfortunately, every individual seems to have his or her opinion about how much is too much. Some have confirmed it only takes a few questions to understand an individual while others have a conflicting stance and believe extensive testing is necessary. Let us look at the reasons why differences have been seen in the time required to complete psychometric testing.

There could be various reasons why companies have psychometric testing of varying durations. Until this moment, there is no information available about whether a standard testing procedure has been made available for use by all employers. This is an indicator that the tests usually are prepared by independent evaluators who may have their own assumptions about how an applicant for a job should be evaluated. It is also certain that most companies have been provided the questionnaire by these independents with the information that this is the best way to screen candidates.

Companies and establishments will have their individual requirements and will be looking forward to adding questions or removing them according to their needs. In these conditions, it is likely that they could be looking forward to information, which does not really matter to them. It is basically for these reasons that various time differences have been seen in the kind of psychometric testing conducted by companies.

Applicants for a job who are subjected to lengthy psychometric testing are likely to become annoyed with the procedure and even begin to believe it is only to show them as candidates who are unfit for the position. They could even begin spreading the word making it known to all that the company advertising the position has a biased approach making it difficult for them to find proper candidates.

Things would have been a lot better if there was a standard procedure for psychometric testing, which would take the basic information needed from applicants to assess them. Information is available to prove psychometric testing, which is effective and provides all the information needed should not take more than 25 minutes to complete. Any employer who is trying to subject applicants for a job to hours of psychometric testing is only wasting time and money when they should be looking forward to utilizing the services of the candidates after completing the selection by getting the information they need.

Therefore, there is a need for employers to understand that they should not indulge in psychometric testing of the endless variety because it will merely hamper their progress making it difficult for them to get good candidates of their choice.