Psychological testing and recruitment
I was once asked whether psychological testing (cognitive/aptitude/intelligence/personality tests) is of any use for recruitment purposes. Seeing the popularity of these measures, the easy answer is yes, psychological testing or evaluation has its merits. But it depends on the purpose behind its use.
In general I would say
- The more candidates the more cost effective it becomes to use psychometric measures.
- Measures of GMA (general mental ability) will indicate the ability to learn. This is very important in today’s rapid developing and changing world, where the abilities to change and relearn are one of the greatest assets for any employee and business. There are however other indicators of ability to learn, thus one could argue whether the precision of psychometric tools are cost effective
- There are functions where certain cognitive skills are very important, e.g. spatial reasoning, numerical skills etc… in these situations, the use of psychometric testing is very cost effective.
- Measures of personality will give you a good indication of typical behaviours. That is, it will give you a good indication of how the person typically would react in different situations. However, you could argue that there not just one ideal personality profile, and therefore start questioning the cost effectiveness of using these.
- The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. This is not so easily captured in psychometric tools.
Thus I would argue that psychometric tools certainly add precision to any recruitment process, but that there are questions regarding their cost effectiveness, which is higher the more candidates you have. I certainly would not rely on them alone. That being said, if used properly they add value in other areas as well – they can help a persons development, becoming an even better employee…
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Good blog post!