An Introduction to Psychometric Assessments

Psychometric and Intelligence Profiling provides the ability to go beyond the standard recruitment process. It is a useful tool in the recruitment arsenal to help find the right individual for the role. MRG have had great success implementing assessments at various stages of the recruitment process. Not only has it aided in successful placements, but long-term benefits for the hiring companies also; this type of profiling helps improve self-awareness for individuals which in turn creates a more cohesive team, providing benefits beyond the interview process.

Here at MRG, we utilise Thomas International for all our Psychometric and Intelligence Assessments. Thomas International are the global champions of the people assessments and development industry, having been at the forefront of assessment innovation for over 30 years. Their assessments have been written by qualified psychologists, and are therefore constantly developed and updated, ensuring relevancy and accuracy.

 

What are Psychometric and Intelligence Assessments?

Combining technology, psychology and data, these assessments help turn people’s diverse characteristics into easy to understand, quantifiable results that allow informed decisions to be made throughout the recruitment process, and throughout their career. There are four different types of assessment, allowing you to assess Behaviour, Workplace Personality, Aptitude and Emotional Intelligence.

The tool we implement most regularly is the Behavioural Assessment, or PPA. This 8-minute exercise will provide information on how that assessment taker behaves at work; by looking at their fears, motivators, values and behaviours. This can then be compared to the requirements of the role in hand to provide a more valuable recruitment process as you ‘dig deeper’ into the compatibility of the candidates for that position.

All Thomas assessments have been subjected to rigorous scientific testing to determine their reliability and validity as a psychological assessment, meaning you can be confident in their results.

 

So, what are some of the benefits of utilising Psychometric Assessments?

Better understand the role you are hiring for

When used during the recruitment process, these assessments are most effective when there is a full understanding of what the role is. Thinking about the role you are hiring for in new and different ways provides you with the opportunity to discover qualities in the role you maybe hadn’t thought of before. A common mistake is basing the assessment on the framework of your ideal candidate, when in fact you should be using an objective job description to define the assessment.

Uncover something new about your candidates

We offer the full range of assessments; however, we usually recommend the Personal Profile Analysis (PPA). This is a Psychometric Assessment which allows you to better understand the candidates’ working behaviours, their strengths, limitations, communication & leadership style. It can be difficult to get this insight during the interview process alone. The PPA can help you shape your interview questions to go beyond the surface and discover what they behavioural styles and motivators are.

There is a tangible Return-On-Investment

Psychometric and Intelligence Assessments have been proven to deliver results. These assessments provide increased confidence in hiring the right-fit for the role, team and company, as well as reducing the risk of mis-hires and increasing job satisfaction as the right match can be made – not just on a roles and responsibilities level, but culturally also.

Reduce unconscious bias

During every recruitment process you must consider the impact on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Taking an objective approach to the recruitment process can help you beat your biases, no matter how unconscious they are. Thomas have undertaken studies that prove that behavioural assessments are not shown to adversely impact any group. They looked at gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality and disability – no group was any more or less likely to have any particular profile.¹

 

Where do Psychometric and Intelligence Assessments fit in your recruitment process?

One of the great benefits of a Psychometric Assessment is that it can fit in several different places within the recruitment process. You can use it at the very beginning of the process by conducting PPA’s on your existing team to create an accurate job profile for the role, that is relevant for your team. You can then follow this up with PPA’s for all shortlisted candidates to see how they compare to the job profile and use this information to help personalise your interviews. Or on the other end of the scale, you could use the assessment to distinguish between a final few candidates, in order to help you identify key differences between candidates that perhaps weren’t evident during the interview process.

 

MRG have in excess of 10 trained team members who are qualified to deliver PPA Assessments. Director, Matthew Evans, also sits on the Advisory Board of Thomas International, ensuring the business is at the forefront of new developments.

If you are an existing client, get in touch with your consultant to discuss how you can incorporate Psychometric Assessments in to your recruitment campaign.

Want to discuss further how we can help you hire the right people for your business? Email us today and one of our consultants will get in touch for an informal discussion.

 

¹ www.thomas.co/resources/type/whitepapers/thomas-knows/types-unconscious-bias

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