Why use psychometric testing in recruitment? The word psychometric basically refers to the measurement of the mind.

Unlike facets such as education, skills, experience, appearance and punctuality, the behavioural traits and personality of a candidate can be much more difficult to assess during an interview. Some employers choose to use psychometric testing during their recruitment process to help give a better overall evaluation of a candidate and hopefully secure the best fit for the role. Theres some debate over the value of psychometric testing, but those who use it believe that it can give a more objective overview of a candidates character, strengths, weaknesses and working style. Typically, a psychometric test will never be used in isolation, but as one component of a wider, integrated evaluation strategy. For employers, psychometric testing could help to gauge the future performance of a candidate and hopefully improve employee retention by making successful hiring decisions.

How psychometric testing aids recruitment decisions Psychometric testing can measure a number of attributes including intelligence, critical reasoning, motivation and personality profile. An interview process can be fairly subjective and although employers will normally assess skills and experience fairly accurately, much can still be left to gut instinct regarding aligned values. A psychometric test aims to provide measurable, objective data that can give you a better allround view of a candidates suitability. It could be argued that psychometric testing offers some scientific credibility and objectivity to the process of recruiting. It perhaps provides a more fair and accurate way of assessing a candidate, as all applicants will be given a standardised test. Traditionally, these tests have taken the form of pen and paper, multiple choice questionnaires, but increasingly theyre moving into a digital realm. This means they can be quick and easy to integrate into any stage of the process. Some organisations often favour psychometric testing as a way of screening (and subsequently eliminating) large amounts of candidates at the start of a recruitment drive. In this case, psychometric testing could help to drastically reduce the hiring managers workload, as it helps to swiftly identify a smaller pool of suitable applicants who have the potential to perform well in the later stages of interview.

Verbal and numerical testing This method is used to give an indication of a candidates ability to process both verbal and numerical information while working to a time limit. These tests are conducted either prior to or on the assessment day, on or offline. What do they measure? There are different types of tests, but generally theyll be used to measure how people differ in their motivation, values, priorities and opinions with regard to different tasks and situations. In terms of personality, the tests can give an indication of the working style favoured by a candidate and how they interact with both their environment and fellow workers. The tests are helpful at analysing the more hidden traits of an individual. Formal education and past experience will not always provide a clear, up-to-date assessment of these personal skills. Aptitude tests, for example, could help to provide a better, more realistic and current view of a candidates abilities than a formal certificate of education. Appropriate allowances would be applied for those candidates requiring reasonable adjustments or for whom English is not their first language.

Aptitude Tests Aptitude tests consist of multiple choice questions and are administered under exam conditions. They are strictly timed and a typical test might allow 30 minutes for 30 or so questions. The different types of aptitude tests can be classified as follows: Verbal Ability - Includes spelling, grammar, ability to understand analogies and follow detailed written instructions. These questions appear in most general aptitude tests because employers usually want to know how well you can communicate. Numeric Ability - Includes basic arithmetic, number sequences and simple mathematics. In management level tests you will often be presented with charts and graphs that need to be interpreted. These questions appear in most general aptitude tests because employers usually want some indication of your ability to use numbers even if this is not a major part of the job. Abstract Reasoning - Measures your ability to identify the underlying logic of a pattern and then determine the solution. Because abstract reasoning ability is believed to be the

best indicator of fluid intelligence and your ability to learn new things quickly these questions appear in most general aptitude tests. Spatial Ability - Measures your ability to manipulate shapes in two dimensions or to visualize three-dimensional objects presented as two-dimensional pictures. These questions not usually found in general aptitude tests unless the job specifically requires good spatial skills. Mechanical Reasoning - Designed to assess your knowledge of physical and mechanical principles. Mechanical reasoning questions are used to select for a wide range of jobs including the military (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery), police forces, fire services, as well as many craft, technical and engineering occupations. Fault Diagnosis - These tests are used to select technical personnel who need to be able to find and repair faults in electronic and mechanical systems. As modern equipment of all types becomes more dependent on electronic control systems (and arguably more complex) the ability to approach problems logically in order to find the cause of the fault is increasingly important. Data Checking - Measure how quickly and accurately errors can be detected in data and are used to select candidates for clerical and data input jobs. Work Sample Involves a sample of the work that you will be expected do. These types of test can be very broad ranging. They may involve exercises using a word processor or spreadsheet if the job is administrative or they may include giving a presentation or intray exercises if the job is management or supervisory level

Guidelines for Designing Valid and Reliable Exams Ideally, effective exams have four characteristics. They are: Valid, (providing useful information about the concepts they were designed to test), Reliable (allowing consistent measurement and discriminating between different levels of performance), Recognizable (instruction has prepared students for the assessment), and Realistic (concerning time and effort required to complete the assignment) (Svinicki, 1999).

Most importantly, exams and assignments should focus on the most important content and behaviors emphasized during the course (or particular section of the course). What are the

primary ideas, issues, and skills you hope students learn during a particular course/unit/module? These are the learning outcomes you wish to measure. For example, if your learning outcome involves memorization, then you should assess for memorization or classification; if you hope students will develop problem-solving capacities, your exams should focus on assessing students application and analysis skills. As a general rule, assessments that focus too heavily on details (e.g., isolated facts, figures, etc.) will probably lead to better student retention of the footnotes at the cost of the main points" (Halpern & Hakel, 2003, p. 40). As noted in Table 1, each type of exam item may be better suited to measuring some learning outcomes than others, and each has its advantages and disadvantages in terms of ease of design, implementation, and scoring.
Table 1: Advantages and Disadvantages of Commonly Used Types of Achievement Test Items

Type of Item True-False

Advantages
Many items can be administered in a relatively short time. Moderately easy to write; easily scored.

Disadvantages

Multiple-Choice

Matching

Short Answer or Completion Essay

Limited primarily to testing knowledge of information. Easy to guess correctly on many items, even if material has not been mastered. Can be used to assess broad range of Difficult and time consuming to write content in a brief period. Skillfully good items. Possible to assess higher written items can measure higher order order cognitive skills, but most items cognitive skills. Can be scored quickly. assess only knowledge. Some correct answers can be guesses. Items can be written quickly. A broad Higher order cognitive skills are difficult range of content can be assessed. to assess. Scoring can be done efficiently. Many can be administered in a brief Difficult to identify defensible criteria for amount of time. Relatively efficient to correct answers. Limited to questions score. Moderately easy to write. that can be answered or completed in very few words. Can be used to measure higher order Time consuming to administer and score. cognitive skills. Relatively easy to write Difficult to identify reliable criteria for questions. Difficult for respondent to scoring. Only a limited range of content get correct answer by guessing. can be sampled during any one testing period.

Adapted from Table 10.1 of Worthen, et al., 1993, p. 261.

Evaluation of Test Results in Psychometric Tests: In order to evaluate the results, it is categorized in two part exam. The first part where the examinee takes the exam whether it may be verbal, analytic, cognitive, spatial, etc and the second part is where he/she is evaluated based from time.

CORRECT SCORES TOTAL SCORES TIME FINISHED TIME REQUIRED

.75

100%

EXAM RESULT

.25

100%

TIME FACTOR TOTAL RANKING SCORE

How to score the examinee

Test score