So What’s Your Aptitude? by
Stephen Cook. Management Today, April 2004.
Themes
Are psychometric tests the best
tool for recruitment or about as useful as phrenology?
Psychometrics assessment first
got under way in 4,000 BC when Hippocrates posited four basic personality
types.
Nowadays there are a range of
tests, as well as the familiar OPQ and Myers Briggs™ questionnaires there are
such instruments as the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, the Fundamental
Interpersonal Orientations-Behaviour Instrument and the Kiersey Temperament
Sorter.
Psychometrics can save money in
recruitment, but do they bring a better recruit?
Research shows that the best
techniques are structured interviews and work samples, and psychometrics are
useful as a tool to prepare for these.
Messages
Psychometric
tests should not be used on their own (which seems to challenge their use as a
screening tool in online recruitment).
If
you do a test take it seriously, be methodical, be honest, don’t take the
results as the final word and get a good night’s sleep before doing it.
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