Testing process could be simpler
Looking for your first job as a graduate can be daunting, but it’s also made more timeconsuming now psychometric testing is becoming standard in the recruitment process.
One recent graduate, Janelle Anderson, completed at least 10 psychometric tests during recruitment for internships and graduate places before landing a job at Staples Rodway, a New Zealand-wide network of accountancy and business advisory firms.
“It was quite time consuming,” Anderson says, “because they generally took 1-3 hours for each one.”
The firm’s Head of Human Resources, Chris Wright, believes the duplication of psychometric testing on graduates is “HR gone crazy”.
“There must be a way we can simplify the amount of psychometric testing students do, which also is usually in the first week of the academic year when they’re busy enough with assessment centres and recruiting processes,” says Wright says.
“All firms are looking at testing the same things — verbal, numeric and logical reasoning, and the tests should produce the same result,” he says, “so why not do it once and make that available with your CV?”
Staples Rodway trialled a similar approach by linking with other midtier accountancy firms to organise one hour-long test for graduates thinking of applying to the firms.
“We were all looking for the same things out of the testing and from a student-entry perspective it was fantastic, they could do one test and apply to four different firms, who couldn’t see which other ones they had applied to — it seemed a very sensible approach,” Wright says.
He believes universities have a role to play in teaching psychometric testing skills to students, alongside their CV preparation and career-centre guidance.
“It’s such an important part of the recruitment process now and they have experts in their psychology departments who could explain why it’s done,” he says. “Could it be the universities who decide on a standardised psychometric test to give students and then firms can access it during the recruitment process?”
A psychometric test can provide information about a candidate that a job interview couldn’t and usually includes a combination of aptitude and personality tests. They were initially developed to measure intelligence, but researchers began developing personality tests in the late 1930s to measure reactions to situations, personality traits and personal qualities.
Although graduates might fear the tests will show up character flaws, they can help cut through the subjective opinions of recruiters for someone who is perfect for a job but isn’t great at interviews, and vice versa.
“When you get 600 CVs, it’s another piece to help with creating a shortlist,” says Wright, who will send email links to psychometric tests when people initially apply for a job. “We can use it as another piece of information in the puzzle.”
He says the testing can give a sense of where a person might be in numeric and verbal reasoning, giving a more rounded look at the whole person. However, there may be a disadvantage in testing for people whose first language is not English and who may struggle with some of the vocabulary in the tests, adding a cultural bias.
Tutoring is available, with online psychometric testing sites offering you the chance to ace the tests and “get the job you want”. But, rather than working out how to cheat the tests, practising online will help show how questions will be phrased.
“It’s about being prepared, rather than gaming the tests,” Wright says. “It would be hard to cheat on the reasoning part of the tests, but universities could help by teaching students what the verbal and numeric reasoning is and to show them where their strengths lie.”
Alongside recruitment applications, psychometric testing is an important tool in leadership development, as well as helping teams work better together.
“It’s used quite positively in those situations,” says Wright. “As a tool, the tests allow a look at people from a range of different angles. For example, resilience to different environments can be measured, as well as a person’s attention to detail. It can also show what’s important to a candidate and what environment they would be most suited to.”
The change from high-level management to graduate applications for psychometric testing is seeing t an evolution in the design to make tests more like gaming.
“Gamified assessment takes the science of psychometric testing and applies gaming,” says Wright. “It’s a trend aimed at the generation we’re targeting for graduate recruitment and students are more likely to finish these kinds of tests because they’re student-centric, yet still give organisations the information they need.”
No matter what way the tests are delivered, the fact is they are becoming an important part of recruiting, and one Wright believes universities should be supporting their students through.