10 workplace problems psychometric tests solve in your company

Companies today want their employees to be multifaceted, besides having the ability to perform on their job. As a result of this, apart from looking into the resume, cover letter, transcripts, and even conducting a face-to-face interview, a number of firms in India use
psychometric assessment to determine the aptitude and personality traits to be able to choose potential candidates. While psychometric testing is becoming widespread, there is still a debate as to whether or not these tests help make an accurate judgement of a candidate’s
character and ability to complete a job. Psychometric testing assists to scale a candidate on future performance and employee retention by making successful hiring decisions to an organisation. The word psychometric basically refers to the measurement of the mindset,
unlike education, skills, experience and expertise, the behavioral & personality traits of an individual can be difficult to assess with typical hiring procedure by interview.

Psychometric tests are often designed to test two qualities of the applicants – ability and personality or behavior. The personality tests are standardized questionnaires while ability is measured with tests like logical reasoning, numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, mechanical reasoning and abstract reasoning

How psychometric testing aids recruitment decisions? The format and scientific outset of this test also strengthens the results from being ‘duped’ or ‘faked’.

Some key problems thatthese tests aid to solve are detailed below:

• Scientific, standardized and pocket-friendly - Personality and behavioral tests are standardized according to the international psychological testing standards. Cognitive tests have a different set of questionnaires with same difficulty level which allow every candidate to expose to different questions while maintaining equal opportunity to all. Testing in recruitment process give an equal opportunity to applicants a chance to present themselves that they can be valuable to the organisation. The tests are fairly cost beneficial and could save the company money in the long run.
• Timely and effective - The personality assessment examination helps to cut down this chain-long process of hiring. It improves the efficiency of the recruitment process by identifying the most suitable candidates early on in the recruitment process
  thereby reducing the time and money spent on unsuitable candidates.
• It helps shape HR strategy - Psychometric test results can produce lead indicators to help organisations with selection,talent management, assessing workforce capability, employee engagement, understanding organisational culture and succession planning with a high degree of confidence.
• Meeting deadlines - While most promising candidates are good with their job roles, itis seen that many a time they are unable to work under pressure of meeting deadlines. This method is used to give an indication of a candidate’s ability to process both verbal and numerical information while working on timelines. Behavior assessments give an insightinto important workplace behaviors such as being organised,time conscious and adaptability which go a long way in predicting on the job performance.
• Healthier workforce - Poor hiring decisions have a potentialto create a disturbed workplace environment. Psychological assessment helps employers form a productive workplace environment of like-minded people so as uphold the amity atthe workplace and increase productivity.
• It assesses more than just education - Formal education and experience will not always provide a clear, up-to date picture of a candidate. Talent assessment helps to provide a better, more realistic and current view of a candidate’s abilities than a formal certificate of education.
• It prevents candidates from camouflaging - In an interview, a candidate has a tendency to answer only what an interviewer wants to hear. Systematised selection process based on assessment of personality eliminates such factors
  from arising. Psychometric assessments also have the built — in questions to measure social desirability of a candidate. Social Desirability is to identify if a candidate has given responses to camouflage or had responded truthfully.
• It beats gut-feeling - Human instinct can often cost a bad hire having immense negative effect on the stakeholders. HR specialists therefore rely on a nonhuman intervening approach for the initial screening oftalents. Often the
  scores on psychometric tests are usefulto frame right questions in the personal interview.
• It reduces the risk of cheating - By use of new technology to “proctor”, an organisation can safeguard from the possibility to cheat by a candidate by actually recording the video of the candidate while taking the assessments online. Some organisation control by having the candidate take the assessments in their offices and some use monitoring candidates via video conference while testing in remote location. The online assessments also randomise the order in which the test items display different questions from a bank of questions which help to prevent from copying / cheating
• Training and development - Psychometric assessments are increasingly being used for recruitment, identifying training needs, development areas, also to identify key strengths and appraisals. Psychometric assessments are an integral part of assessment centre to identify managerial skills and leadership potential, where behavior is a key ingredient. Assessing and appraising people is a highly complex and subjective process and psychometric tests are a scientific method of objectively measuring people's “hidden” traits. Starting from fresh recruitment to long-term career expansion, these analytic tests can provide a prodigious deal of dependable information to make significant personnel decisions.

These tests ensure that there are appropriate values measured for your needs that have been rigorously evaluated