Psychometrics in Hiring

How psychometric testing

aids recruitment decisions
 TABLE OF CONTENT

01 Introduction
02 Types of Psychometric Assessments
03 The nuances of behavioural tests
04 The nuances of motivational tests
05 Sample Tests
06 Conclusion
TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION
It doesn't take a lot to realize that the “HR strategy”
mentioned above is as disastrous as making decisions
by flipping a coin. And yet, sadly, this is how most
“
Hiring for an open position?
Go by gut feel. Wondering
who to promote? Go by gut
feel. Want to build better
teams? Well, go by the

”
organizations operate. As a result, productivity goes manager's gut feel.
low and precious dollars are lost in training programs
and new hirings that yield very little.
But fear not. 

With the use of psychometric data, you

can do better.
Psychometrics, or the study of psychological measurement,
has become indispensable for HR managers today.
Whether in the form of interview questions or
assessments, psychometric assessments generate a huge
amount of data for HR departments every year.

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This data can be used to reveal invaluable insights such as:

Better hiring: Predicting  attrition:

Want to hire better? Then psychometrics is Psychometric data can reveal the levels
the sure way, revealing precisely what skills of satisfaction among your workforce. In
and mindset an individual should possess in turn, this helps you identify early which
order to be a right fit for a particular position employees are not happy and provide
in your organization. them a more relevant role (we’re talking
culture fit here). As a result, you are
Efficient teams: able to predict attrition accurately and
How do you get to know whether your sales take corrective steps before it's too late.
team is aggressive enough and what training
it needs? With the help of psychometric data, Leadership development:
you can quantitatively define and measure Leadership works best when cultivated in-house.
effectiveness, as well as work out the right But how do you identify potential leaders and
training needs for your team. perform an effective SWOT analysis on their
skills? Here again, psychometric data helps you
identify the right people and how their careers
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TYPES OF PSYCHOMETRIC ASSESSMENTS

The two main components of psychometrics hinges on
cognitive and personality tests. Certain assessment
technology firms are known to include a combination of
one or more tests in addition to the same to either
standardize their solution or offer customization to
specific use cases. Review the following to gain some
insight:

Personality Tests:
Personality tests gather information about an individual to
make inferences about personal characteristics - include
feelings, behaviours or thoughts. They are designed to
measure aspects of personality that determine - or are
predictive of - successful performance at work, thinking
style, workplace relationships, task management, feelings
and motivation.

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Cognitive Tests:
Cognitive tests are all about measuring your competence and
intellectual capabilities. It also works into understanding your
logical and analytical reasoning abilities in a very specific
area. This translates to a reasonably accurate assessment of
your abilities to use specific job-related skills and to predict
consequent job performance.

Domain or Skill Tests:

This is one of the most widely practiced testing technique. It
plays a critical role in testing domain specific work or technical
knowledge to establish a baseline to acquiring a job.

Other segments we haven’t already explored will follow in

the subsections to come. These would include an overview
in behavioral tests and motivation tests.

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THE NUANCES OF BEHAVIOURAL TESTS

Over time, people have come to use personality and
behavioral tests interchangeably. Suffice to say, it’s
incorrect usage. In the segment that covers -
Understanding the Iceberg Model, there’s mention
of discernible and indiscernible traits. Behavioral
tests tend to assess the more discernible traits,
meaning employee behavior in a particular
situation or environment.
If personality is one half of the equation, the other is
representative of how said personality responds to a
particular situation. This is why it makes more sense
to compare this assessment to situational judgment
tests (SJTs). Here, applicants are expected to face
job-related situations and possible responses to the
same.

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Job Analysis:
Critical incidents of work situations are collected from industry
and subject matter experts or archival sources. Developers
often aim to acquire information that deal with specific content
domains or constructs related to the job. After all, behavior on
exposure to situations often vary from one job to the other.

Inexperienced Employees:
This is something performed in tandem with the subject
matter experts, where people are asked to generate one or
The development more responses to each situation. The experts are able to
of SJTs covers identify the best responses, and the less optimal responses
three stages: also. Inexperienced employees, on the other hand, offer
responses with a wide range of effectiveness.

Scoring Key:
When questions are rationally scored, the experts are asked to
make judgments with respect to the effectiveness of the
responses - both the best and worst options. Those identified as
the best are scored as correct, while those determined the
worst are deemed incorrect.
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Situational Judgment Tests are a variant of assessment centres, where people

are put into real-time situations based on roleplay. This is an observational
understanding of the subject, but is limited in terms of attendance. SJTs offer a
platform for a large number of candidates to simultaneously test, even more so
on a digital solution.
The quality of these tests are often determined via reliability, validity, fakability
and adverse impact.The quality of these tests are often determined via reliability,
validity, fakability and adverse impact.

Another important factor about Situational Judgment Tests is - fidelity and

generalization. You may review this in the table below:

Situational Judgment Tests Assessment Centers

Simulation Type Low-Fidelity High Fidelity

Standardized Written, Digital or
Stimulus Contextualised and job-related
Video-Based
Written Response, Self-Reported, Behavioral Response,
Response
Multiple Choice Assessor-Reported, Open Ended
Live Observation Rating
Scoring Expert Based or Empirically Derived by Trainers

Use Large Groups (Internet) Small Groups

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The table communicates a comparison between SJTs and Assessment Centres, both of which
measure discernible traits or behavior triggered during particular situations. These are
methodologies derivative of behavioral consistencies and psychological fidelity principles.
The fidelity of the task stimulus refers to the extent to which the test realistically identifies
with a situation that would be encountered in the workplace. But this isn’t the only measure to
the test’s effectiveness. Fidelity is often required to find balance with generalizability - the
extent to which scores from a test can be generalized to varying contexts.

Why is Generalizability Important?

To hire a mechanic, an SJT for it would encompass either an assessment or a
simulation task with a broken car. Here, the test-taker is required to identify the issue
and plan an appropriate course of action - a high-fidelity simulation that resembles
what a mechanic would do on the job. At the same time, this is a highly specific
context, as the ability to fix a car may not generalize to repairing a fridge or
troubleshooting hardware issues with a computer.
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On the flipside, medicinal practices cover multiple specialities - research, surgery,
diagnostic radiology or pathology. They vary in terms of patient interaction, peer
collaboration, and time spent on independent effort. It’s why medicine urges the
creation of an admission tool that equally applies to every speciality over one that
is overly specific.[93]

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THE NUANCES OF MOTIVATIONAL TESTS

Employee motivation is a critical part of the workplace, in terms of performance development in
a given department and the company even. Industry leaders and experts argue that employee
motivation is something of a regular mandate. Despite the knowhow however, merely studies
average a mere 13% as employees engaged at work.

It’s easy to say that without a motivated workplace, companies could trigger to a fairly risky
position. In opposition, motivated employees lead to increased productivity and a more efficient
throughput. There are benefits to improving employee motivation in the ecosystem:

Employee Employee Employee

Employee Efficiency
Commitment Satisfaction Development

Employees This is important for A good balance Enablement of

motivated to work every company, and between the ability personal goals; a clear
usually put their facilitates to perform tasks link between effort and
best effort in the progressive growth. and willingness to results motivates high
tasks assigned. want to perform the performance
task increases
productivity and
efficiency
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Organizations are committed to turning this around, into an advantageous situation. The
key to making this a successful manoeuvre however, is to identify these employees both
by the number and degree. Motivational Inventories surfaced with the intention to
achieve the same on an organizational level.
These inventories stand important for the purpose it helps the organization with
individual members across teams. Although the factors to motivation stand
common, the pattern and combination of the same along with the relative weight
placed provides valuable insight. After all, this is required considering we are all
uniquely different.

Motivation Inventories tend to provide

an understanding of what motivates
and drives an individual to effectively
excel at work, and even establish high
performance. It’s a proportional factor
to an organization’s potential for
success.

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Sample Tests
We have curated a sample test/report library for you to have a look at
the tests and make your decisions more efficient based on validated
assessments:

Learning Agility
Aptitude Test For Bankers

Aptitude Test for Company Secretary

Aptitude Test For Designers

Aptitude Test For Sales Jobs

Aptitude Test - Senior Manager and Business
Head Roles
Aptitude Test - Leadership and Strategic Roles
Assessment for Abstract Reasoning
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Assessment for Content Writers
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CONCLUSION
Are organizations really seeing the benefits of psychometric data? Well, the likes of Best Buy
are. The company has succeeded in tying employee engagement to revenue, estimating that
every 0.1% increase in employee engagement at stores results in $100,000 in sales. How's
that for ROI

Psychometric data is a powerful tool in the

hands of the HR department. If you're not
using it already, we suggest you either hire
a consultant or even get started yourself –
the transformation will be right before
your eyes!

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 What is Mettl?
Mettl is a Saas based assessment platform that enables organizations to create
customized assessments for use across the entire employee lifecycle, beginning with
pre-hiring screening and candidate skills assessment, training and development
programs for employees/students, certification exams, contests and more.

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