Psychometric Assessment – It’s not so daunting!

Have you ever experienced a psychometric assessment, be it for selection purposes for a new role or for career/professional development? The chances are that you undertook the assessments and waited in dread to find out whether you were an axe-murderer or otherwise.

Every time I speak with a candidate and/or employee doing a psychometric assessment, they are always so surprised when I give them the feedback. Why? Because, in the main, I am not telling them anything they don’t know already.

Think of it this way, you know yourself better than anyone (assuming that you do have a level of self-awareness), so when hearing feedback about your personality, it should make sense that if you are an accommodating, conscientious individual, who loves to cross your ‘I’s’ and dot your ‘t’s, that the feedback should say just that. If on the other hand, you are loud, dominant and love being the centre of attention – the feedback should say just that.

So when it comes to psychometric assessment, the chances are if an employer is seeking someone for a sales role or a PA role – they will have an understanding of the type of personality and ability level that may suit that specific role.

If you are a job-seeker, you will find that you self-select yourself for roles that sound like they might suit your personality. One of the things I have always found amusing is employers who say they want – bubbly, enthusiastic people on their reception and then describe the work environment. They say it is rarely visited by anyone and the receptionist’s sole purpose is to answer the phone. Employers then wonder why their new employee leaves after a month. They are bored!! Bubbly, enthusiastic people want to integrate, be involved and to grasp at every opportunity available, they suit back office roles with lots of people and/or they want to be out meeting people constantly. If you want someone to work in isolation all day… you are seeking a different personality type.

Ability assessments are often a concern for people – these are the ‘tests’ which tend to focus on your verbal, numeric and abstract ability (the latter is useful for determining your ability to respond to training, guidance and learning outside of work/interests that are familiar to you). If you aren’t a mathematician don’t necessarily expect a high numerical score, but rather than worry about these results, think about their relevance to the role you will be doing… you may not need to excel in numerical reasoning if the role does not require you to do any calculation or money handling.

Whether you are recruiting someone to join your team or looking to develop yourself personally – psychometric assessments can tell so much about someone’s ‘fit’ to the role and highlight ‘areas for development’. Finding a job or recruiting someone in to your business isn’t a pass or fail when it comes to personalities or even abilities – it is about finding the right fit.