6 Myths about psychometric assessments

Psychometric myths

• Candidates can fake it

• Psychometrics can’t beat my intuition

• Assessments will put my candidates off

• Psychometric assessments don’t deliver tangible ROI

• Psychometrics don’t work

• Psychometric assessments are going to steal my job

1) Candidates can fake it

We hear this one a LOT. Often people are referring to the extent to which a candidate could potentially try and skew the assessment results to try and create a false or favourable impression.

We use a variety of psychometrically rigorous checks (such as an impression management scale, verification of test scores, randomised item banks and clear instructions with warnings to candidates) that are built into the Clevry algorithm.

This helps to promote honest and realistic responses from your candidates, giving you a more holistic view of your applicants their work-place drivers, motivations and abilities.

2) Assessments can’t beat my intuition

Unconscious bias influences ALL human decision making. Therefore even the most skilled and experienced of interviewers will be influenced by unconscious bias towards their candidates at some level. As a species, humans just aren’t as objective or impartial as we like to think we are.

• Confirmation bias:
  We form an early hypothesis about someone and subconsciously seek to confirm it.

• In group / Out group:
  We tend to prefer people who we identify with or belong to the same group as us.

• Halo effect:
  We exaggerate a positive attribute about a person and assume other good things.

A valid and reliable psychometric assessment provider (like us!) will always provide assessments that are as objective as possible.

3) Assessments will put my candidates off

Research from real candidates has strongly indicated that they value and encourage a fair recruitment process – psychometric assessments go a long way in helping recruiters to deliver this.

Recruiters can help candidates by making sure they’ve explained why they have been asked to complete an assessment and how they relate to the job on offer. This helps recruiters to gain their buy-in by providing candidates with a modern and engaging recruitment experience.

4) Psychometric assessments don’t deliver tangible ROI

We know seeing the tangible benefits of implementing psychometric assessments is becoming more and more key for recruiters and staffing teams.

When looking at ROI it is just as important to look at money saved as well as money earned.

We work with our clients to help measure the impact of implementing assessmentson their recruiting, meaning recruiters can easily prove the ROI of our online assessments platform with ease.

As the global workforce becomes more and more digitally savvy, proving ROI will become more important for recruiters as time goes on.

Of course we’ve done this for a range of organisations of different sizes, below are some key results we’ve found (visit our case studies page for more details):

• 50% reduction in number of costly Assessment Centres needed

• Attrition rate reduced from 43% to 9%

• Double amount of successful applicants at second round interviews

• Reduced end-to-end recruitment time by 84%

• 60% reduction in recruiter administrative workload (saving £30,000 annually)

• 30% increase in successful hires

5) Psychometrics don’t work

In order to pass strict guidelines imposed by the BPS (British Psychological Society) we need to prove that our assessments measure what we say they do and accurately indicate future job performance.

The above example shows that cognitive ability tests combined with a well structured interview is one of the simplest, fastest and most cost effective ways of predicting how a candidate will perform in a role.

(Image from Hamilton Resourcing)

6) Psychometric assessments are going to steal my job

Simply not true (at least until we reach the singularity anyway). Our online assessment tools are designed to help you, not do your job for you (bittersweet we know).

All of our psychometric assessments are designed to provide you with an honest and holistic view of your people. It’s up to you to decide how to use that information in your recruitment decisions.

Whether you’re looking at psychometrics for better recruitment & selection, to develop strategic interview questions to ask candidates or to just help develop your people, we can help.

Get in touch with the team here and we’d be happy to answer any questions you might have.