Use of Psychometric Test in Career Counseling

1. Psychometric tests are useful in helping students identify their future career path selection, switching career and making higher education choices. Psychometric test not only serves the purpose of measuring the aptitude of a student but also guarantees selection of correct and successful career. Psychometric tests can help students to know their true potential by identifying strengths, weaknesses, abilities, skills and interests.

2.     Normally students don’t know as to which type of career they should pursue, what they want to do in future, which career would suit them, more importantly they are ignorant of the fact that they don’t even know about their hidden abilities and don’t know whom to approach for advice and counseling.

3.    Psychometric test provides the all in one solution to career path selection and guidance. It is the panacea for all ills and a perfect remedy. But on the other hand it is pertinent to note that psychometric tests come with a variety of tools, which should be used in consultation with a certified counselors and professionals. Since psychometric tests are not self sufficient and require other assessment techniques as prescribed by professional psychologists.

4.    Psychometric testing tools enables the counseling experts in aptitude mapping, which gives a clear picture to counselor about student’s inherent abilities, personality type and interests and whether it corresponds to career a student wants to pursue. For example personality tests are conducted to observe presence or absence of certain personality traits. If such desired personality trait is inherently present then counselor would suggest success in that career but if that personality trait is absent then it would lead to underperformance and counselor would simply not recommend that career.

5.   In past the concept of career counseling along with use of psychometric instruments was not the real focus, instead getting a job was a real focus, which led to job dissatisfaction and underperformance. Therefore, in order to avert this situation concept of hiring career counselors with use of correct psychometric tools got attention of many, as it helped in exploring ones talent and thereby guiding towards right path.

6.  Psychometric test helps in talent mapping; these are much more reliable because they are standardized on large population scales. Validity of a psychometric test should not be lower than 0.60, and if it’s lower than this level then a career counselor needs to re-evaluate it. Since these tests are standardized and tested on large population scales, therefore, are reliable. A mix of psychometric tests and sub tests like mechanical aptitude test, language aptitude and mathematical aptitude tests can make it convenient for a psychologist to explore aptitude of a student. These tests conducted consistently not only explore the aptitude of the student but also taps ability, personality and interest of a student. These traits are then matched with available jobs.

7.     Therefore, in light of above discussion we can conclude that psychometric tests can help teachers, students and parents in exploring the real talent of a student and to suggest best fit path for future. 

Psychometric Testing In Career Counseling/Guidance

Every individual has the choice to select his own career according to his abilities and skills. However most of the individual find it difficult to take decision. Therefore a lot of career counselors and guidance providers helps an individual to come out of the difficult moment by involving individual in psychometric testing in order to get information regarding his strengths and capabilities.

Psychometric testing is one of the most important source of getting more and more information. Now a days it is more common and advantageous as online psychometric testing is available that is free of cost or with very minimum cost. It helps students to understand what career is suitable for them and what the requirements are for reaching towards a specific goal.

Following are the key objectives of psychometric testing for the domain of career counseling.

1-      Psychometric testing helps counsellor’s parents and teachers to identify hidden abilities present in an individual.

2-      It helps them to identifytheir strengths i.e. things they are good at and their weaknesses i.e. things in which improvement is needed.

3-      One of the major reason of using psychometric testing is to help individuals to identify their interests. In this way it will be more helpful and supporting as individual choses his or her career with his own will and thus work hard with full dedication to achieve his goal.

4-      Psychometric testing not only helps individual in choosing his career but also helps him in knowing his own personality. He gets an insight regarding his worth and his value. He will be able to know his personality dynamics and hidden talents.

5-      Psychometric testing helps an individual to gain insight regarding aspects of work i.e. what are the requirements, what are the needs, what are the necessities of obtaining such type of career.

However although psychometric testing gives an individual an idea regarding his career however most of the people thinks of psychometric testing as an tool for making finalized decision for themselves. Therefore following are the things that psychometric testing cannot do:

1-     Psychometric testing cannot take decision for you. Although psychometric tests are helpful in deciding about the right career however they are not final source for making decision. In other words at the base of psychometric tests only an individual cannot make decisions.

2-      Psychometric testing do not helps an individual in finalizing the list of careers that can be finally adapted or that cannot be finally adapted. We cannot rule out on just basis of career.

3-      Although psychometric testing can give you a little support in getting information about yourself, your abilities, strengths, weaknesses etc. however it cannot help you to leave all the possible thinking ideas and to just rely on these tests and make decisions. An individual should have to think hard in doing right decision for the right career.

4-  Psychometric testing should be supported or done under the guidance of some professionals in order to achieve proper and verified information regarding career options and adaptation.

Psychometric Testing

Psychometric testing is a process that is used to evaluate performance of an individual in particular domain. It is used in particular circumstances to meet individual’s needs and demands. It is not limited to performance measurement but also helps in identifying individual’s abilities, skills and potential.

Range of Psychometric Testing

The area of psychometric testing involves wide range of testing in the field of aptitude measurement, behavioral measurement as well as personality assessment. Most of the tests are time framed to assess how well an individual can overcome the time pressure and compete successfully.

Use of psychometric tests in job assessment

Psychometric tests are used for the assessment of job applicants due to its increase number of advantages and lesser value is given to disadvantages. One of the reason of using psychometric tests is that it’s less time consuming and companies can tests wide number of population in lesser time frame. Another main advantage is it reduces cost effectiveness. It is less expensive and more useful as compared to other methods of assessment.

Process of Job assessment

Following is the process of job assessment.

1. Online application: First step involves the online submission of application form against any jobadvertisement so that individuals can be assessed on basis of job criteria and specifications.
2. Online Psychometric testing:Second step involves the candidate to appear in psychometric testing. It involves wide range of personality and assessments tools that measures individual’s attitude and potential. There are following major reasons why psychometric tests are used for the selection of individuals related to specific job description.

• One reason is that it identifies individual’s knowledge, skills and abilities thus it helps in best selection of an individual.
• Secondly it reduces employee’s turn over as it identifies best fit for a job on basis of individual’s interests and benefits.
• It also help to identify individual’s intelligence level and how he deals in present circumstances if any particular event take place.

3. Interview: Third step includes the formal interview of an individual. It involves the verbal and non-verbal questioning which is also a part of psychometric testing. It includes questions related to personality and experience and attitude towards different settings and arrangements. There are few psychometric tests that require paper questionnaires and more than one sitting which is then followed after or during interview sessions for finalization of job candidate’s process.

Types of psychometric tests

There are two types of psychometric tests.

1. Personality tests

Personality tests helps to explore individual’s interests, motivation and values. It helps to identify individual’s dealing with emotions, relationships and stressful circumstances. It helps to determine individual’s particular set of traits and behaviors and how an individual adjust himself according to environmental circumstances.

2. Aptitude tests

It helps to identify individual’s cognitive abilities and logical reasoning. How an individual deals with numerical reasoning, verbal and non-verbal skillset. There are further types of aptitude tests that are designed to identify individual’s related abilities and skills according to job demands and description.