Psychometric tests: A tool in the recruitment process
Every organization does every possible effort to recruit the best suitable candidate from the job position. Every job position is skill oriented; this means every job demands different skills in the candidate. Not everyone is suitable for every job, every person have some unique talent. The focus of the recruiter is to find that unique talent in the candidate relating to job position. The focus of human resource department is to put right person at the right job at the right time. The organization will go smoothly if the above criterion is followed. Before hiring a candidate as an employee in an organization, the recruiter should keep on extracting more and more information about the candidate. You cannot only appoint the candidate on the basis of its job skills. Many other factors like his behaviour, personality, attitude towards work, people, etc. should also be known. The psychometric test for recruitment is used to assess the various behaviour patterns and trends of the candidate under examination.
These tests will focus on finding answers about the questions of candidate’s behaviour, attitudes, preferences, values or culture etc. sometimes these tests also focus on knowing the employees’ ability in doing some tasks. While assessing the abilities or traits of candidates through psychometric tests you can put the right person on the right job. While choosing a candidate your focus should not only focus on checking the candidate’s job ability. For that it's better to conduct ability testing. You must try to find out the other personality and behaviour traits of the candidates. Psychometric tests try to measure the various abilities of the candidates. It focuses on the four key aspects of the candidate’s personality::
- Positive traits
- Dark traits
- Values and motivation
- Cognitive ability
- Positive traits: These are those positive traits which can help the candidate to influence its job performance in the organization etc. this tests aims to assess various traits like: extraversion, energy, agreeableness, confidence level etc. the presence of these traits will have positive impact on the performance of the candidate.
- Motivation and values: The various tests under this try to find out the various motivating factors which will motivate the candidate when provided. These various needs which can motivate the employee are driven by the various motivation theories. Various needs which motivate a person are: monetary incentives, recognition, power, achievement, advancement, affection, societal needs etc. the aim is to find out the best motivator for the employee.
- Dark personality traits: These personality traits can threaten the security or safety of the employee. The various dark traits are: self-obsession, impulsiveness, temperamental, opportunism etc.
- Cognitive ability: The cognitive ability of a candidate aims at measuring the thinking ability of a candidate. This will include assessing the reasoning in a candidate.This will involve testing the problem solving, visual reasoning, abstract reasoning etc.
These are the various key aspects which areto be judged while in the psychometric tests. This basically aims at measuring the behaviour, attitude and personality of the various candidates applying for the job. These behaviour and personality traits of the candidates affect the job performance of the candidate. There are so many benefits of conducting psychometric tests for assessing candidate’s ability. Some of the benefits of psychometric tests are discussed as follows:
- Identifying the various personality traits of the candidate: This assessment tests aims at identifying the various personality traits of the candidate. The assessment of these personality traits helps in checking the suitability of the candidate to fit in the organizational environment. The candidate should be at the job as per its behaviour or personality required at the job.
- Putting candidate on the work environment: These tests aims at putting the candidate on the job position and watching the job requirement of the candidate. This will see now the various traits or personality of the candidate affects his performance on job. These tests are basically are in the form of standard a unified test which aims at assessing similar trait of the candidates. The basic questions are asked in relation to the various demographic features of the candidate to check its suitability on the job position.
- These tests can’t be faked: In some assessments tests, employees try to give the unbiased answers by which they can act as fake. But in these standardized tests, a person cannot act fake for long. The false answers or misleading answers can be spotted on the spot.
- Adding value to the various recruitment tests: This assessment tests aim at adding value to the various recruitment processes. As these psychometric tests aims at finding the behaviour pattern, personality traits in the candidate. This helps in putting the candidate on the suitable job position. Either they will fit in the job position or not, this can be accessed from these tests.
- These tests are cost effective: Conducting these psychometric tests does not involve huge cost. It rather reduces the cost of hiring the candidate. Recruiters do not have to appoint any expert or a judge or the other material cost to carry out the recruitment process. So this modern method of conducting recruitment process is very cost effective. As the organization is trying to find out the most suitable and best candidate for the job position, they can do so by these assessment tests.
- Understanding the various competencies: These tests aim to find out the various competencies and potential of the candidate. It also helps in finding the best performer candidate on the particular job. This helps in examining the various traits of the candidate, like whether the candidate is extrovert or an introvert the job is assigned accordingly.
The purpose of conducting these psychometric tests is to find out the various behaviours, personality traits, ability, and reasoning of the candidate. Everyone is unique in the own way; the job of the recruiter is to find place those special people on the particular job positions. Conducting these assessments tests online will help the organization to saves a lot of money and time of the organization.
