When should you use psychometric assessments in your recruitment process?

Posted on 15 Sep

Psychometric testing provides valuable additional information to support thorough and objective recruitment processes and minimise the chances of making a bad hire. It can also be used at different stages of your recruitment process, depending on how many candidates you have, the role level, the information you want to get out of it, and how you want it to help you with your selection decisions.

 

What information can psychometric testing provide?

Psychometric testing helps employers reveal unique information about their applicants to supplement other information gathered through traditional methods. This includes:

  • Comparisons to peers on cognitive abilities
  • Indication of fit for role and against key competencies
  • Insight into preferred working style and behaviours
  • Areas of strength and development for particular roles
  • Suggested interview or reference check questions
  • Guidance on how to onboard, manage, and support candidates

 

How psychometric testing can fit into your recruitment process

Here is a high-level guide on how psychometric testing can fit into different stages of your recruitment process

 

  1. Pre-screening

Psychometric assessments can be useful for helping to pre-screen applicants and reduce a large number down to something more manageable, by screening out those who are unsuitable or by helping you to identify top talent to move to the next stage. This is particularly useful if you are conducting volume recruitment or hiring for entry level roles.

 

  1. Between the first and subsequent interviews

Conducting assessments at this stage can provide an indication of candidates’ fit for the role, as well as interview questions to explore potential development areas further in subsequent interviews.

 

  1. Between final interview and reference checking

This is another opportunity to obtain an indication of candidates’ fit for the role, as well as reference check questions to explore potential development areas further during reference checking.

 

  1. Between reference checking and offer

Once you have narrowed your choices down to your top two or three candidates, psychometric testing can provide valuable additional information to help you decide between them. Having a debrief with a psychologist or accredited consultant to really understand and talk through results can be particularly useful at this stage.

 

  1. After making an offer and before onboarding

Psychometric assessment can even be useful once you have made your selection decisions, by providing information about candidate’s strengths and development areas as they step into the role and guidance for onboarding, supporting, and managing them, given their preferences.

 

Considerations

When deciding which stage of your recruitment process would best benefit from psychometric assessments, it is useful to consider the following questions:

  • How many applicants do you have?

If you have a large number of applicants, some psychometric assessments could help you to narrow this down at an early stage of recruitment. On the flipside (and depending on your budget), you may also wish to wait until you have shortlisted, rather than conducting assessments with everyone.

  • What is the role level?

For more entry level roles, you may wish to utilise testing earlier in the process to help identify top talent for shortlisting. For higher level roles, you may wish to wait and conduct a more comprehensive suite of assessments on your top candidates closer to the end of the process.

  • What budget do you have for testing?

If you have a large budget, you can likely afford to roll out psychometric assessments earlier with a large number of candidates. If your budget for testing is more limited, you may wish to wait until you have identified the top two or three candidates to maximise the cost benefit of testing.

  • What is it that you are wanting to assess?

The more assessments you conduct, the more the testing will cost. If you are wanting to obtain comprehensive information about personality, cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, behavioural safety, and other capabilities, you may wish to wait until you have narrowed down your candidate pool to a select few candidates. If you only want to assess one or two factors, you can likely afford to do this with a larger candidate pool earlier in the process.

  • What information do you want to obtain from the testing and how do you intend to use this?

If you just want to directly compare a large number of candidates and shortlist, this is best done earlier in the process. If you want to use the testing to really dig down into work preferences and style, and look at someone’s fit for a role, this may be better done between or after interviews, so that you can follow up on any development areas in subsequent interviews or with reference checks. If you mainly want to use the testing to support the new hire as they step into the role, through tailored onboarding and development, then the testing may be best done during the final stages of recruitment.

To download a 1-page guide for when to use psychometric testing in your recruitment process, click here.

If you would like to speak with one of our consultants about psychometric assessment and what we would recommend for your recruitment process, please get in touch with us today.

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