Psychometrics, personality profiling, personality questionnaires. What are they and why are they used by employers in a sales recruitment process. What psychometrics look for and why you shouldn’t fear them.

Don’t Fear of Psychometric Profiling - A guide for Candidates

According to recent statistics 75% of employers now use psychometric testing in some way shape or form in their business. As employees going to interviews we can sometimes find ourselves a little unsure about the benefits of carrying out these tests, often finding them inconvenient and time consuming and let's face it a little un-nerving. However, the biggest concern amongst interviewees has been their real panic over what personality secrets the employers will "find out" about them.

Naturally we don't want our employers (future or present) to know EVERYTHING about us and in most cases the employer would probably really rather not know. However it is a misconception that undertaking these tests will uncover your darkest, deepest, most well hidden aspects of your personality, in fact the only thing it does uncover is your 'work mask.'

For candidates it's important to know what exactly psychometric tests actually test - what is a 'Work Mask?'

We all possess a 'work mask' that we create based on our own beliefs about 'correct' behaviour at work. If we all behaved in the same way that we behave when with our friends and family (and vice versa!) we'd probably not get much done and get on each other's nerves all the time!

Depending on your natural personality most of us try to create a mask that enables us to work in a manner that we see fit depending on our job type- this can include employing behaviour (that we might not usually express in day to day life) such as dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance (using DiSC as an example) or openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Carl Jung's Big 5). Most psychometrics tests simply test us on what extent we possess each of these traits when at work, therefore giving the employer a good idea about how you might fit in with their company and how likely it is that you will be successful in that specific role.

The tests do not indicate whether the candidate is a good Mother, Father, Citizen or Cook neither can it tell us that you like dressing up in Star Wars outfits at weekends or cavorting round the town in your underwear on a Saturday night, don't worry! They won't uncover more than is absolutely necessary for the company and role you are applying for.

What type of tests the interviewer chooses will very much depend on the nature of their business and what tools they find most useful or have most experience in using but they do tend to have similar themes running through them.

So what's so good about Personality Profiling?!

HR Success Dynamics revealed in a survey recently that 78% of recruitment practices benefitted from the use of psychometric profiling this appears to also fall in line with the fact that 82% of respondents cited staff as the single most valuable asset to a company. ...When good people are so valuable so are great recruitment tools too!

Undertaking psychometric testing can really help both employers and employees get an excellent idea of the candidate's suitability for the role and for the company. The testing ultimately benefits the both of you. As an employer it takes some of the risk out of employing someone as it takes a lot of the guess work out of hiring. For the candidate it will enable you to have frank discussions with the employer about what YOU are looking for. Let's be honest! This is a two way thing- it's not just the interviewer that needs convincing! From both sides understanding how the candidate works will lead to better decisions being made on both parts.

How do I prepare for a psychometric test?

As a candidate looking for a role, when it comes to undertaking psychometric tests it is unlikely that there is much 'revision' you can do, however it is certainly worth understanding how they work and what you should expect so that when you come to do them they don't look too foreign to you.

If you would like further information on psychometric testing and what you can do to prepare to undertake a test, please visit our Testing Tools guide.

So don't let psychometric testing become daunting- they really can be the candidate and employers best friend!

Interesting fact to finish:

The word 'personality' actually originates from the Latin ‘persona’ meaning 'mask'!

Another interesting fact!: Aaron Wallis offer psychometric testing to all of their clients as part of their standard recruitment service!

We do not advertise many of our top positions as often we will already have the candidates on our database required to fill the role or our employer client may wish to make their recruiting process highly confidential. We therefore recommend submitting your CV to Aaron Wallis and one of our consultants will contact you to discuss your current situation and see if we can help progress your career forwards.

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