Top Psychometric and Personality Screening Tests Used in the Hiring Process

As an employer, your goal is to find and hire the most qualified individuals to fill open positions. Given the large pool of candidates, finding the right person for the job could prove difficult. But what if you were to incorporate psychometric and personality screening tests into your employment procedures?

Interestingly, explore how useful these can be in the hiring process. So, keep reading as we will go over a few different types of psychometric tests as well as the benefits of examining personality traits by screening in the recruiting process.

How Do Psychometric and Personality Screening Help?

Personality screening tests are essentially aptitude tests which screens and examines the personality traits of potential employees. These tests help employers and/or recruiters identify the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, beliefs and attitudes, work ethic, behavioral patterns, the overall potential for success in a certain role, and everything else that is related to how they will perform in a certain position.

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They are free from personal bias and are thus a more objective way of evaluating candidates’ suitability for the position at hand. But that’s not to say that recruiters should base their decisions on these tests alone. In fact, the best course of action is to combine these tests with traditional recruitment methods such as interviewing.

Some recruiters may opt for these kinds of assessments early in the hiring process. This way, they can filter out the pool of candidates in a more effective manner. There are also those who prefer to narrow down the list of candidates themselves and use psychometric and personality screening tests to gain more information about each one before making a final hiring decision.

Whatever the case may be, personality screening tests are an invaluable tool for recruiters since they allow them to discover even more about the prospective employee, which ultimately benefits the company and everyone involved in the hiring process.

Benefits of Using Personality screening and Psychometric Assessments:

As was previously noted, there are many upsides to including personality screening and psychometric assessments in the employment procedure. Some of the most notable are as follows:

1. Reduced screening time. Employers can shorten the time it takes to screen candidates by using psychometric tests. These tests can be useful for eliminating applicants whose abilities and qualities aren’t a good fit for the position like variety of personality traits by screening and examining.
2. Making informed decisions. Employers can get useful information about potential hires from psychometric tests. Candidates’ abilities, attitudes, and preferences can be better understood through these assessments, allowing hiring managers to select individuals who will thrive in the organization’s unique environment.
3. Improved job performance. Recruiters can tell which individuals are qualified for a position without further training by looking at their skill sets, abilities, talents, expertise, and previous experience. Therefore, with the help of personality screening, recruiters will have a clearer idea of how to proceed to boost productivity and boost the company’s bottom line.

Types of Psychometric and Personality Screening Tests

Now that you better understand the benefits of using psychometric and personality screening test throughout the hiring process, let’s take a look at some of the most popular tests in this domain.

Psychometric Test: Unveiling Personality Dimensions:

As previously stated, psychometric test can be used to objectively determine whether or not a candidate possesses the necessary cognitive skills and character attributes for a given position. The tests can demonstrate, for instance, that the candidate possesses desired attributes for management jobs, such as mastery in problem-solving, leadership, and communication. Several dimensions of an individual’s can be measured via psychometric and personality screening tests. The big five are:

1. Openness. This trait is associated with a person’s willingness to try new things. Those that perform well on this dimension are adaptable and can deal with uncertainty. People with low scores are more likely to resist changes.
2. Conscientiousness. Reliability and executive function are among the main facets of this dimension. Those who score higher on this factor are more likely to be well-organized and focused, while those who score lower tend to be more adaptable but less careful.
3. Extraversion. The main focus of this dimension is how comfortable someone is in social settings. Those who excel in this area tend to be more confident in themselves and their abilities. Those with lower scores are more likely to keep to themselves.
4. Agreeableness. This dimension measures how well one chooses to get along with other people. People who score highly on this trait are kind and more selfless, whereas those who score poorly can be standoffish and are more prone to getting into conflicts with others.
5. Neuroticism. This one is primarily related to emotional control and stability. If you have a high neuroticism score, you tend to be reactive and self-conscious, while a low score indicates that you are calm and confident.

There are many types of psychometric test; however, we will focus on the three most common types:

1. Emotional Ability Test. This test evaluates a candidate’s capacity to identify, interpret, control, display, and otherwise make use of emotional states in order to gain insight into oneself and others.
2. Situational Judgment Test (SJT). SJT evaluates a candidate’s problem-solving skills, strategic reasoning, honesty, and integrity. It essentially focuses on the candidate’s potential as a leader. 
3. Psychometric Analysis Test. This particular psychometric test evaluates an individual’s intelligence, character, and potential in the workplace. An example of a test that uses psychometric analysis is the Enneagram.

MyPersonality Test:

During the employment process, many companies and agencies rely on the results of the 16 Personality Type Test. To gain insight into oneself and others and to improve performance at work, this test provides a questionnaire to evaluate an individual’s personality traits, distinctive abilities, and weaknesses. This test are for free on the My Personality website linked in the paragraph above. 

In this test results, one of the personality types will be assigned to you based on your responses to the questionnaire. There are four main categories into which these 16 personality types fall. The four categories are analysts, diplomats, sentinels, and explorers. Hence, this psychometric test can serve as a great hiring resource. If you know a candidate’s personality type, you’ll have a better idea of whether or not they’re a good fit for the position, how easily they’ll fit in with the team, how much training they’ll need, and so on.

Cognitive Ability Test: Assessing Mental Aptitude:

The capacity to reason abstractly, grasp novel ideas rapidly, learn swiftly, and so on is known as cognitive ability or general intelligence.

Hiring managers use cognitive ability tests to evaluate candidates’ cognitive talents and guarantee the best possible performance in a position. These tests assess a variety of cognitive skills, and they fall into one of three broad categories:

1. Verbal. Verbal cognitive ability relates to learning as well as reasoning through language. This encompassed the abilities to read, speak, and write.
2. Nonverbal. The ability to think critically and solve problems are examples of nonverbal intelligence. Pattern recognition, sequence identification, concept measurement, and similar techniques may fall into this category as well.
3. Numerical. Mathematical reasoning is at the heart of numeracy. This includes the ability to work with numbers, analyze numerical data, and so on.

A person’s chances of success on the job are largely affected by their type and level of cognitive ability. 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI):

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-reporting tool for gauging personality traits and their associated strengths and weaknesses. Hence, this resource allows hiring managers to have a deeper understanding of a candidate’s skills and experience. The MBTI analyzes four pairs of opposites:

1. Extraversion/introversion. The difference between the two is how they react to their environment. Introverts tend to be more introspective and cherish close relationships with people than their more extroverted counterparts.
2. Sensing/intuition. This comparison takes into account the various methods by which people acquire knowledge. Those who are particularly perceptive intuitively tend to focus on patterns and overall impressions rather than the little details.
3. Thinking/feeling. The dichotomy rests on people’s approach to making choices. Individuals who are more “feeling” than “thinking” are more likely to rely on their gut instincts and the opinions of those close to them when making decisions.
4. Judging/perceiving. This one deals with how people approach and interact with their surroundings. Those who score higher on the judging scale are well good at organizing tasks. On the other hand, those on the perceiving end tend to be more flexible and adaptable.

Better recruiting decisions are often a result of businesses knowing where candidates stand on these dichotomies. For instance, a person who is extroverted is more likely to succeed in a position that calls for taking the initiative and interacting with a large group of people than an introverted one.

Keeping these four contrasts in mind can also improve communication within and between departments at work. For instance, when communicating with an intuitive person, it is important to lay out the big picture first before getting into the nitty-gritty details.

DiSC Assessment:

Government organizations, Fortune 500 companies, and other businesses all use DiSC, a psychometric evaluation tool, to improve their workplaces. The acronym DiSC refers to the following four types of people:

1. Dominance (D). Dominance kind are the people who put emphasis on things and make it happen. Also, demonstrating their competence.
2. Influence (I). People who have the “I” personality trait are excellent communicators and leaders in personal and professional relationships.
3. Steadiness (S). People who are steady are reliable and work well in collaborative environments.
4. Conscientiousness (C). People who identify with the “C” personality type place emphasis on analytics, precision, and approaching tasks with caution.

Assessments based on the DiSC model improves team dynamics. For instance, companies can use the data to determine whether or not the candidate needs more training in conflict management. Hence, with this knowledge, employers can welcome all new employees into the most hospitable and productive setting possible.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, by using the above-mentioned several different types of psychometric tests in this post recruiters can improve their hiring a lot. For example, the Emotional Ability Test, the SJT, the Psychometric Analysis Test, the Cognitive Ability Test will give you strategic understanding. On the other hand the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and the DiSC assessment will give you insights into personality traits or team performance and workplace outcomes.

All of these assessments are seeing widespread use in the hiring process due to their many advantages. In addition to saving time and eliminating bias, these methods provide hiring managers with a more complete picture of each candidate’s qualifications, allowing them to pick the best person for the job.

Author bio: Lisa Sparrow is a psychology expert who specializes in the 16 personality types. Her years of research experience make her an authority on this topic, and she shares her insights through engaging blog articles. Her deep understanding of the human mind allows her to provide readers with valuable insights into their own personalities.