Psychometric tests are designed to assess an individual’s reasoning abilities or to gauge their likely behavioral responses to a variety of situations. By testing a candidate in these areas, you can compare their score to accepted norms and the results can then support the decision-making process during recruitment. Generally, you will come across two main types of tests:
Ability Tests
Personality Inventories
Ability tests seek to measure a candidate’s skills in areas such as numeracy, verbal reasoning, analytical capabilities and so on. They are frequently conducted under time constraints, so they can also demonstrate how well an individual can cope under pressure. Personality questionnaires, on the other hand, can be used to evaluate a candidate’s likely behaviour and attitudes according to a variety of situations such as their ability to interact with other team members or how they might deal with a range of work based scenarios.