How Psychometric Tests For Recruiters Help You Find The Ideal Candidate
Recruiters are under an extensive amount of pressure. According to the Office for National Statistics , “there were an estimated 35.6 million jobs in the UK, the highest level since March 2020”. Filling these vacancies takes time and resources, with the SHRM Benchmarking Talent Access Report 2022 reporting that it takes an average of 62 days to fill executive roles and 54 days to fill non-executive roles.
Finding ways to improve the recruitment process is important, especially with so many suitable candidates applying for roles. More businesses are opting to use tools like psychometric testing to enhance and support the recruitment process across industries.
The Cost Of Recruiting
Recruitment is a costly but vital business process. The SHRM Benchmarking report reveals that the average cost-per-hire is just over £4,000, which doesn't account for the turnover of new hires. According to HR News , “up to 20% of new hires [leave] within the first 45 days of their new role and 33% [leave] after just six months”.
Hiring the wrong candidate will cost your business a significant amount of money, with estimates suggesting that making a bad hire can cost up to 2.5x a candidate's salary. With the Office for National Statistics reporting that the average weekly earnings in the UK were £562, this could cost your business over £58,000 if you get it wrong.
Businesses eager to use their time and resources in a more effective way have found that psychometric testing can help to standardise the recruitment process and lead to more reliable hiring practices.
The Broad Reach Of Psychometric Testing
A psychometric test is one which assesses one or more aspects of human behaviour under standard conditions and expresses the result as a score in the form of a number or a category. While they are often referred to as a test, this word doesn't fit personality profiling well, as it implies that there is a single correct answer to each question. However, quantifying the results of the assessment can make them objective, removing the potential for unconscious bias and ensuring that the candidates' skills are better aligned with the job role.
Psychometric assessments can be used in a variety of industries to create a consistent and accurate recruitment process. In fact, the Open University states that “recent surveys suggest 75% of The Times Top 100 companies, plus around 70% of UK companies with over 50 employees, utilise these as part of their recruitment process”.
The biggest companies believe that psychometric testing can help not only reduce the time taken to recruit for roles but it can also reduce the risk of poor hiring decisions. With more businesses seeking to integrate psychometric assessments into the hiring process, it is important to understand the benefits of using these analytical tools.
The Benefits Of Using Psychometrics In Recruiting
Standardise The Recruitment Process
We are constantly told that first impressions are important, and this is often true during the recruitment process. This can sometimes lead to unconscious biases, where a recruiter may treat candidates more or less favourably based on those first impressions.
Psychometric assessments help to standardise the recruitment process, ensuring that all applicants go through the same process and that the focus is on those inherent abilities. This is ideal for giving an insight into the candidates' abilities to learn new skills. It can also provide a more comprehensive understanding of each potential employee.
Gain Predictive Insights Into The Performance Of Candidates
As we already know, 33% of new hires will leave a role within six months, which is not ideal when you have contributed so much time and effort to the recruitment process. For hiring managers and recruiters, knowing the likely success of an applicant in a role prior to making a job offer will ensure a good fit and improve employee retention.
Psychometric assessments, such as The Quest Profiler®, can highlight leadership styles, how a candidate handles conflict and the type of work environment best suited to them. By aligning aspects of your business culture with the potential employee, you can gain great insight into future job performance.
Make Recruitment Objective, Fair And Unbiased
One of the biggest challenges of the recruitment process is objectivity. By nature, recruiting is a very subjective process, where you get to know a person and, as humans, we become biased towards certain applicants. By implementing processes to ensure the recruitment process is fair, unbiased and non-discriminatory, you can focus on finding the right candidate.
This can then be used to enhance the recruitment process at the next stage of the interview, where recruiters can see if the potential employee's personality matches the assessment results. Another benefit of this is that the interview can be more focused, targeting the questions you need as the assessment will highlight significant areas.
How To Integrate A Psychometric Test Into The Recruitment Process
A good psychometric instrument should be reliable and valid, ensuring that the measurements are consistent, relevant, appropriate and useful. In the case of recruitment, this means that the job vacancy must be analysed thoroughly to ensure that recruiters have a clear idea of what success in this role would look like.
Some recruiters will ask candidates to complete a psychometric assessment when they come in to interview, or prior to it via an online link. This provides valuable information to businesses and gives them a greater insight into the potential employee. As many of the assessments are timed, it makes candidates more likely to respond with their first instinct, giving a more accurate impression.
As psychometric tests and questionnaires contribute significantly to our understanding of human behaviour, they can easily be integrated into the recruitment process. As specialists in the field of psychometric products and consultancy, we can help you introduce psychometrics in recruitment.