Advantages and Disadvantages of Psychometric Testing

1.  Psychometric tests are specialized tests, aimed to achieve successful recruitment of personnel by conducting series of personality and ability tests designed as per the organizational needs. These tests are company specific, task/ job oriented, dynamic and flexible, and are conducted in controlled environment by a certified clinical psychologist. Psychometric tests are considered to be of paramount importance in selection process to meet the desired needs and standards of HR department. There are many recruiting firms which are providing a wide range of psychometric testing services specially designed to match client’s job description and job specification.

2.  If a company wants to conduct a psychometric test for a manager role it would be design to test cognitive abilities, personality trait assessment and assessment of desired skills required by the firm to be present in the applicant to fulfill that job description. Since these tests are focused to test the knowledge area that is not imparted in educational institutions. To succeed in psychometric test is a challenging task as it takes a lot of preparation and practice to train your brain accordingly. Psychometric tests generally comprise of two types i.e. cognitive ability tests and personality trait tests.

3.  Psychometric tests are not only used for job selection or recruitment purposes but it also has a pivotal role in assisting young students in a challenging task of career path selection. These tests are also useful in assisting current employees, who are looking for a job switch at a higher management level. Moreover, it also helps those applicants who are entering into the job market for the first time. Following are the astonishing features that these tests provide to variety of users i.e. students, fresh candidates and already employed personnel.

• Career Path Selection.  Career path selection is very critical decision and it is difficult for a student or teacher to have complete knowledge about the skills, interests and abilities required to make right decision. It is therefore necessary for a student to undergo a controlled psychometric test to make correct decision about professional studies that matches his / her aptitude that keeps him / her motivated to excel in his / her field of interest.

• Job Seekers.   Finding a right job at right organization where an applicant can utilize his/ her skills in an effective and efficient manner is a difficult task, therefore, it is mandatory for a job seeker to go through a series of psychoertic tests that enables him/ her to have his/ her own assessment about what really is desired skill set and job requirements which are to be performed by that applicant. When a fresh job seeker goes through a process of psychometric testing, it helps him find a job he would love to do. It allows him to avoid job that makes his life miserable.

• Uses of Psychometric Testing for Career Counselors. These tests makes it easier for career counselors to find out candidates abilities, skills and personality traits and relate these personality features with demands of a job, to find out which job best fits his/ her true potential and personality. Psychometric testing helps candidates to gain insight into their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and strengths in job environment to make informed decisions on their future career and path selection process.

• Psychometric test results provide insight into an employee’s role in the organization.

• Psychometric tests have the capability to predict how a candidate is likely to perform and whether the individual will fit into the organizations culture.

• On part of the candidates appearing in psychometric tests, it provides an equal opportunity to all candidates to be tested in a standardized environment.

4. Psychometric testing is an important assessment tool for HR department engaged in finding right person for the organization.

• These tests are very constructive for HR personnel of any organization as it provides assistance not only in hiring right people for right job but also aids in ascertaining, whether the person assigned with a particular position matches his/ her skills, abilities and temperament.

• HR personnel can use psychometric tests to explore causes of under-performing employees and can suggest suitable remedy either by replacement or job rotation to bring efficiency and effectiveness in a particular department.

• Psychometric testing also provides objective assessments about which/ when an employee needs training, development or motivation to perform better.

• Psychometric tests also provide insight into the personality traits an employee carries and results of these tests are useful in ascertaining whether which employee is best suited for which type of job. Moreover, these useful assessments also bring forth the inefficiencies of employees and how to reduce/ overcome those inefficiencies.

• Psychometric tests helps in assessing organization’s training and development needs, explore job specific inefficiencies, job rotation and enrichment needs and development of HR policies.

• Psychometric testing is not only cost beneficial but it also provides a long term benefit in the form of providing best suited person to the organization.

• Psychometric testing provides objective preview of a prospective employee, whereas, other type of tests are more off subjective in nature. This all-round assessment process measuring attributes including knowledge, critical reasoning, enthusiasm and personality profile provides objective data about suitability of a candidate.

• In today’s competitive environment where HR specific organizations are highly dependent on high performing employees, psychometric tests extraordinary benefit in making correct HR decisions.

5.   There are many pros and cons of psychometric tests but in the nutshell it is the most reliable and valid testing method, which can be implemented in many different scenarios. To conclude above discussion we may reach a consensus that there are many types of psychometric tests that can be applied to many different situations and when it comes to dealing with HR, it is not wise to stick to any one type of method but an array of tools both psychometric and traditional approaches customized, to fulfil a given situation is a perfect remedy.

Importance of Psychometric Testing

Psychometric test is most important and influential field of testing that helps students in a very supportive way to make decisions or choices for the most difficult area of their life i.e. career path selection. It also helps those individuals who are currently doing job but they seemed unhappy for their job or they lack motivation that is essential to excel in their field. Thus this testing helps them to easily switch over without any hustle or hesitation. Moreover this testing also helps those employees who have completed their education and are entering into the field of market and are searching for employment. Given below are the most important characteristics of testing that help, students, professional as well as laymen to move confidently and successfully in their profession.

• Psychometric testing helps all the students who are thinking to choosing some right profession for themselves. These tests help them to assess their attitude, skills, abilities, talent, capabilities, resilience and other social and development skills that will help them to choose field according to own will and choice so that they keep themselves motivated and keep their morale high.

• Similarly when some laymen go in professional life or choose some field for themselves this testing helps them to choose those profession in whom they love to spend their time and also helps them to avoid those job that are source of tension and frustration. Therefore this testing helps them to do a healthy and wise decision.

• Psychometric testing not only help students but it also helps counselors and psychologists to find out which personality is more demanding for a particular job and to find out potential candidate that is required for the job.

• Moreover this testing also helps counselors to find out what are the abilities or characteristics of an individual that are required for this job. Thus it helps in both ways. Firstly it helps to find out what characteristics or abilities of an individual are important to do this job and secondly it helps to find out the individual who has those abilities and characteristics

• Testing also helps individuals to find out what are the positive or negative aspects of their personality. They help them to find out their strengths, weaknesses, de-motivating factors of their personality, things that satisfy their professional needs, their level of understanding to the given tasks etc. thus it helps them to go easier in their filed with composed and poised personality and to work with full dedication and enthusiasm.

• Another important fact about this testing is that it helps to predict if the employee serving in any organization is fit for the job or not. If he is having some social or behavioral issues then how one can deal with them or how he can handle these issues in most effective and useful manner. Thus testing helps to identify problems as well as finding solutions for them too.

• Another most important use of this type of testing is that it helps organization to do job rotation of employee’s i.e. to move employee from one position to another to rule out his abilities and capabilities.

Therefore these tests are more usable due to its reliability and validity which enhances the efficiency of an organization as well as and leads to better HR practices. The main important thing is that this testing gives a complete information about an individual thus no fake work or guess work can be done in HR processes. These processes involves hiring of an individual, recruitment and selection of an employee, team building processes, training and development, career counseling and progression of an individual in particular field. In large organizations these testing procedures gives a very smooth functioning as these are easy to rely upon and are with proper procedure to administer and implement for the required purpose. These tests can provide better environment and unity among employee because once these tests are used to find out weak areas more work can be easily done to bridge the gaps and to create harmony among organizational members. This is one of the biggest reason that creates strong relationship and sense of bonding among employee and they compete with each other in positive direction with positive attitude.

Moreover as per needs of the organization these tests are customized for example if an organization have flexible environment these tests are utilized as per organizational demand. If an organization wants to conduction this test on systems then these tests can be administer online. However if there are organizations who do not have enough resources to conduct these tests online then may administer them through pen-paper method. Thus it gives wide number of choices to organizations. These tests also contains facility for individuals to provide feedback related to testing services, their procedures, facilities and roles. Thus it can be applied to all types of organizational environment.Testing is low in cost and gives long term advantage to the organization by enhancing and activating the organizational benefits and profit. It helps in reducing the expenditure of organization by catering large number of population. Testing delivers unbiased screening of a potential member. This outstanding valuation progress of gauging characteristics comprising knowledge, critical reasoning, and enthusiasm and personality profile provides objective data about suitability of a candidate.

In today’s competitive environment where organizations are highly dependent on high performing employees, these tests have unusual assistance of bringing competence in making correct HR decisions.It is pertinent to note that these tests are organized by certified psychologists who manage the complete testing process and provide expert advice to the management during selection process as to whether the candidate is suitable for that specific job.Therefore, in light of above discussion we can conclude that psychometric test provides customized solutions in a dynamic situation not only in selection and recruitment process but also in career progression, training and development and growth process, building workplace relationship in organizational setting.

Impact of Psychometric Assessment on HR Practices

1.  Role of Psychometric Testing. Human Resource department plays a pivotal role in overall performance of any organization and to remain competitive it is necessary to have competent human resource employed at every department. In wake of such challenging environment, where, HR personnel are continuously trying to identify skills and potential of people to develop a talent pool. Psychometric testing has proved to play an important role in assisting HR personnel in this endeavor.Psychometric testing is an effective tool in assessing human behaviors, which as a result helps in ascertaining the chances of a person to succeed in a particular role.

2.  Effectiveness of Psychometric Testing. A psychometric test provides HR personnel with cost effective, scientific and objective method to assess people’s attitudes, beliefs, values, competencies and personalities. It follows a statistical approach to provide objective assessments. These assessments are derived from different inputs taken from the candidate in the form of questionnaires, verbal, non-verbal tests, scales and IQ/ EQ tests.

3.     Reliability and Validity of Psychometric Testing. According to past studies and experience of many organizations in human resource management it has been proven that psychometric tests are more reliable and valid as compared with other techniques. Moreover, studies indicate that psychometric tests are about four times more effective than interviews. The reason why this method of individual assessment has become popular and widespread is because it uncovers valuable information which was earlier not possible and mostly HR personnel used to rely on gut feeling, which sometimes proved to be fatal.

4.      Selecting Best-fit Candidate for a Particular Role.   Psychometric tests are designed to measure the suitability of a candidate specific to a role in presence of given requirements. The task of HR personnel is to determine actual cognitive abilities and personality profile of a prospect with those essentially required by the organization to carry out the task. This challenging taskof identifying important attributes like team work abilities, leadership qualities, interpersonal skills, analytical and decision making skills are very important to increase effectiveness of an organization is best attained by psychometric testing. As per the statistics it has been reported that about 80% of US Fortune 500 organizations and 75% of UK’s top 100 organizations make use of psychometric testing.

5. Opponents and Proponents of Psychometric Testing. There have been a debate on the effectiveness of psychometric testing and opponents argue that gut feeling of an interviewer and other conventional methods of testing cannot be set aside, and question the reliability and validity of psychometric testing methods and tools. But on the other hand the proponents of psychometric testing argue that it’s an unbiased, objective and fair method of testing, where all candidates get equal opportunity, with similar method of testing, like standardized questionnaires conducted in a controlled environment. These psychological assessments are not subjective and are not affected by tester’s personal beliefs.

6.    Conclusion.    To conclude above discussion we may reach a consensus that there are no quick fixes, when it comes to dealing with human resource, it is not wise to stick to any one type of method but an array of tools both psychometric and traditional approaches customized, to fulfill a given situation is a perfect remedy.

Overview Of Psychometric Testing Patterns

This article is specially written to list down the different sections of a psychometric test and their important tips which will help you in learning more efficiently than what you are doing till now.

Verbal reasoning as a psychometric test area-

This part has many ways to assess your verbal skills, related to the use of language and your understanding about their associations with specific rules to follow. As many of you might have knowledge that grammar is very complex and contains a set of rules to remember. Here are the different patterns of questions you would find in a psychometric test.

1. Two lists of three words each will be given to you to find two words from each list, the words must have very strong bond of meanings. Example is given below-

Pond	Fish
Frog	Flower
Tree	Mud

The exercise is called word link. Almost 5 to 10 similar questions are presented in a test from each section. Another exercise is word link with synonyms. The set of examples are here-

“Genre is to class as:

obsolete is to

A. modern

B. outmoded

C. watchful

Deceit is to fraud as:

decision is to

A. conclusion

B. solve

C. indecision”

The objective is to pull out the same meaning of answers. The word link exercise can be printed for you in a test to pull out opposite meanings word or referred to as word link antonyms. See the examples-

“Respect

A. Admire

B. Despise Answer

C. Exalt

Disgrace is to honour

as alarmist is to

A. optimist Answer

B. scaremonger

C. outright”

Next exercise is finding new word; you will see a list of three words written separately in a row. The work is to make a new word using last letter of a word and starting letters of the word next to it in a row list. This really needs mental approach to answer.

“result motivation lyric”

Answer

Then word swapping is another technique of the verbal psychometric testing pattern. You will be given sentences in which word switching is required, the exchange of words is asked in the sentence to allow yourself to modify it and make it sensible. The sentence will look like-

“Breaking up to hard is do.”

So, is needs to be shuffle with hard in the given sentence to make it sensible. The use of common sense is not difficult for native English learners and candidates.

You can see the parts are a mix of easy and hard sections. Sometimes, a lengthy statement will also printed to test you like this one:

“Book publishing is big business, the industry is worth £4 billion and more than 12,000 books are published in the UK a year and each third of which are exported.”

In the same way, sentence sequencing can be asked, where you need to reorganize styles of paragraph to read it in flow with all accurate series, example include-

“A. Pluto is the ninth and the most distant from the sun.

B. It is tiny compared with the giants Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus which have massive, dense, gaseous atmospheres.

C. Our solar system has nine planets formed from gas and dust left over after the sun was formed.”

Complete sentence with best words, this section contains sentences as a question with more than one words or pair of words to decide from. Only one word can be adjusted into the sentence for better reading and comprehension. You need to place an answer below the question in a box.

“A rescue plan for Village Leisure, the failing/falling media company, was

agreed by shareholders at an extraordinary meeting/moratorium”

Recall fill in the blanks, this time with more brainy side, the use of English will be measured by this exercise where you need to choose the word which provides clarity in sentence, there may be more than one to fix in a sentence and list might contain more than one correct answers, look for the words which provides clarity.

“Which of the following words can be a preposition?

A. location

B. no Answer

C. in

D. position

Children please don’t make so much noise. __A__.

1. I am concentrating.

2. I concentrate. Answer

3. While I concentrate”

Choosing the correct language answer is the task here, you need to think extra smartly to win this one.

“Which sentence if any contains an error?

A. Before the meeting he greeted both the Company Secretary and

the Finance Director.

B. Before the meeting he greeted the Company Secretary and Finance

Director.

C. Neither is correct.”

With the mix of above given sections, passages are given to read and then five questions need to be answered, they are same as comprehensions given in grammar books but definitely demands your maximum focus and briefing skills. This activity takes time to become a master.

You took a look upon a part of the tests, hopefully other parts including numerical and logical reasoning will be given to help your preparation in the coming days.

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 — 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.

What is Psychometric Testing

Psychometric is a Greek word where psycho means ‘mental’ and metric means ‘measurement’. Therefore psychometric tests can be defined as an attempt to objectively measure the mental ability of an individual. These tests aim to measure different aspects of personality such as aptitude, skills as individual has, capabilities he attained, potential, etc. Psychometric tests are recognized as the most quick and efficient method to assess individual and to obtain in-depth psychological profile to obtain personality and intellectual level of an individual.

The British Psychological Society definition of a psychometric test:

“A psychological test is any procedure on the basis of which inferences are made concerning a person's capacity, propensity or liability to act, react, experience, or to structure or order thought or behavior in particular ways’’.

Psychometric Test is a means to assess candidate’s relevant skills and abilities corresponding to organizational needs. It is a tool that enables HR personnel dealing with the recruitment process to assess potentials and weaknesses in personality and professional abilities required in the candidate to perform the desired organizational tasks. Psychometric tests deal with measurement of knowledge, skills abilities and personality traits of an applicant in relation with the desired skill set. The two important facets of evaluation are cognitive and personality tests. Both of these tests in totality provide correct assessment. It is pertinent to note that this test reveals important information about personality traits of the candidates that are difficult to extract from other methods i.e. face-to-face interviews.

Psychometric Testing is a very extensive approach to comprehend the obligatory skills or traits of a particular individual.

What are the sections of Psychometric tests

They can be in any form as following

1.      Case studies

2.      Group activities

3.      In-Tray exercises

4.      Oral presentations

5.      Battery of tests

6.      Discussions and role plays

7.      Networking and social functions

8.      Online assessments

Number of psychometric tests

There are large numbers of tests available to analyze and interpret. Some common types of tests used are

1.      Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)

2.      Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test

3.      Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

4.      Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory (MMPI)

5.      Rorschach Ink Blot Test

6.      Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

7.      Sentence Completion

8.      Goodenough Draw-A-Person Test

9.      House-Tree-Person-Test (HTP)

10.  Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

Assessment areas of psychometric testing

The key skills that are assessed during psychometric testing are

1.      Communication skills

2.      Organizing ability

3.      Problem solving

4.      Working in a team

5.      Drive and initiative

6.      Taking responsibility

7.      Working under pressure

8.      Analytical skills

9.      Creativity

10.  Leadership

11.  Motivation

12.  Planning

13.  Numeracy

Things to look after during/before/after psychometric testing

1.      Prepare for success

2.      Practice, practice and practice

3.      Don’t underestimate the importance of first impressions

4.      Don’t panic

5.      Leave a good impression

6.      Believe in yourself

7.      Be positive, enthusiastic and natural

Who can administer psychometric test

1.      Clinical psychologist

2.      Organizational psychologist

3.      Specialists

4.      Demographers

5.      Statistical analysts

6.      Behaviorists

7.      Specialists in testing and recruitment

8.      Human resource persons

Myths about Psychometric testing

1.      Psychologist can read your mind therefore these tests provide all type of information that is required which cannot be possible through any type of testing

2.      Psychometric tests which are used for selection, development or assessment purposes determines how ‘crazy’ a candidate is- these tests are only used to see if person is capable of doing individual task

3.      Psychometric tests are perfect and they give 100% true picture which cannot be possible as these tests are man-made and there is a chance of error

4.      Good  quality psychometric tools must be expensive and cheap tests do not give original picture-it is not true as now a day’s large number of tests are available in large variety and in different prices

5.      Candidates who undertake unsupervised testing will cheat-this cannot be possible as there are no right or wrong answers.

6.      Psychometric assessments allow us to discriminate between candidates-it is not true as one individual test assessments is compared with standard norms to see the results.

Limitations of using psychometric tests

•         Candidates can fake a good profile because mostly candidates do not know what a “good” profile looks like and in trying of making it perfect or good they give fake information.

•         Candidates can cheat when they do unsupervised testing just to make themselves look perfect however if examiner gains personal trust and clearly describes candidates that what are they are how cheating can make poor impression they might can understand.

•         These tests are based on self report i.e. they are based on individual own perception about themselves rather someone else’s information therefore it might hurdles in finding true results

•         Before testing individual should be cleared that with whom their information will be shared and what the test actually involves therefore any bad experience can put candidates off psych testing.

•         Sometimes data is not recorded that is being reported therefore it should be insured that data should be recorded as it is taken.