A dynamic business environment needs people in key positions to be well equipped in terms of skills- functional, managerial as well as personal; to handle high pressure and deliver under any situation. While it is routine for HR professionals to utilize various tools from credential checks to skills assessments and interviews to identify potential performers, employee recruitment and career management decisions require a lot more. It is imperative that an individual’s personality is evaluated before critical decisions can be taken which can harshly impact productivity.

Organizations are now turning to psychometrics for evaluating candidates in terms of their personality characteristics, interpersonal style and job-specific aptitudes to maximize job success and minimize the chances of untoward hiring or promotion decisions. There has been a steady increase in the deployment of psychometric assessments, including various personality, aptitude and vocational interest tests, in addition to traditional screening procedures, to get a 360-degree picture of the individual that is being hired or promoted. Organizations that have integrated effective psychometric assessment procedures into their recruitment processes have come to regard this methodology as an indispensable guard against the potentially expensive outcomes of even a few erroneous hiring or promotion decisions.

Recruitment is not the only area where psychometric assessments are used, although it is the most common and almost certainly where a majority of people first come into contact with this kind of assessment. Other frequent uses are for:

>> Career and management development

>> Team building

>> Internal promotion

>> Training needs analysis

>> Counseling

For the success of any psychometric assessment the tool needs to adhere to certain best practices. Analysis of the score and its usage also form a key part in the success or failure of such a tool. The interpretation of the score has to be done by a certified psychologist and the report generated should be in a friendly format. The report from most personality tools acts as a great interview input which can be used to structure interviews and gauge candidates minutely through focused questioning. It is important to note that personality assessment tools Do Not provide select or reject answers as the measurement is only subjective. Personality assessments are evaluators of the inclination of subjects on defined parameters and select or reject decisions can be taken on the specific requirements of a job role and company.

So how do these psychometric assessments benefit an organisation? By allowing meaningful comparison between candidates on relevant competencies employers can make sure that different backgrounds or experience levels do not overly affect the selection process. Personality is one of the most important elements of individual role fitment and one of the hardest to judge - at an interview people will generally put forward the image that they want you to see. By using well-established measures, employers can gain an extra insight into an individual. These can also provide pertinent issues for conversation in subsequent interviews that are relevant to the specific candidate, rather than being general standard questions.

Undertaking meaningful decisions in most recruitment/promotion situations can be an onerous task and taking calls on the intrinsic personality can often be fraught with danger. But these are calls which managers necessarily have to take and any tool bringing a modicum of insights into the matter will be a huge help to companies.