What to consider when choosing psychometrics: The five questions you need to ask yourself

Following on from Part 1 covering ‘Why use them in the first place?’ this week’s article is all about what do you need to know before putting your money where your mouth is and purchasing your psychometric tools.

There are lots of different types of psychometrics out there, including:  ability tests, personality questionnaires, situational judgement tests (SJTs), as well as Interest Inventories, measures of emotional intelligence, etc. 

So how do you figure out which one will be right for you? 

My advice would always be to draw on the expertise of the test publishers you are speaking to.  However, to aid that conversation and to make sure you get the right tool for the job, there are a few key questions to be asking yourself before making contact:

1. How many candidates do we need assess every year?

The volume of candidates you want to assess is an important question to ask as it can influence other factors such as the type of tool you actually use, whether you go online, the level of usability required, etc.

In addition, if you are looking at assessing thousands (rather than hundreds) of applicants a year it will be well worth your while considering having a bespoke test created.

Ultimately, asking this question puts you on the path towards working out the utility of the tool(s) you are looking to use.  Remember, in comparison to interviews and assessment centres, psychometrics are a very affordable way of identifying candidates with the best fit or greatest potential.  In addition, they consistently prove to be a very effective sifting tool when working with high volumes of applicants.

2. What do I want to use the information for?

This might sound like an obvious one, but the reasons for carrying out the assessments can (and should) influence your decisions about which tools will be most appropriate.  As a quick, basic guide:

Selection: Make sure you use a normative tool as this means you can compare your candidates’ performance against an established benchmark.  All ability tests are normative; however this is not the case with personality questionnaires. 

Normative personality questionnaires, measure a person’s strength of preference or tendency compared to others (i.e. a norm group), enabling you to evaluate whether, for example, someone has a strong preference for being creative, tenacious, motivated by money, etc compared to others. 

Ipsative questionnaires, such as the MBTI make comparisons ‘within the person’.  Therefore, you can’t evaluate whether one candidate compared to another has a stronger or weaker preference for behaving in a particular way.  For this reason, it is typically advised that ipsative measures should not be used for selection purposes.

Development:  When it comes to normative vs. ipsative for development there aren’t any rules.  In fact, sometimes ipsative personality measures are preferred in a developmental context because the output they provide is simpler/more manageable with regards to the number of scales they report against.  However, a normative tool will provide you with more information to work with because they are measuring a greater number of distinct dimensions.

As for ability tests being used for development purposes, the key question here is the appropriateness of using this kind of tool, i.e. as part of a leadership development programme vs. as part of a team building activity.

Finally, a third use we are seeing as occurring more often in these current economic times is to support redundancy activities.  This is something that should be given careful consideration and though.  I’ll be covering this in more detail in a future article, however, my advice at this point would be to discuss is with your potential test publishers.

3. What assessments do we need: For what roles? At what level?

This might sound like I am stating the obvious, however I’ve come across too many organisations that use the same combination of verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning test for every job without giving any real thought as to whether abilities in these areas are actually required for the role. 

So, step one is make sure you have a well written job profile/person specification and use that to identify the tools you need to measure the key success criteria you have outlined.  If you are not sure ask your test publisher, they will be able to provide you with advice on this.

Secondly, consider the level of the role you are assessing – this is particularly relevant with ability tests as different ones are designed to reflect varying levels of difficulty.  Typically, these are high-level reasoning: graduate/managerial, mid-level: customer service, admin roles, team leaders, etc, and blue collar level reasoning: manufacturing and production roles, etc.

If you are not sure about either of these contact your test publisher as they will be able to provide you with advice on this.

4.  What are our priorities?

I.e. cost, usability, candidate experience, etc.

There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers to this question; it’s about figuring out for your organisation where your priorities lie with these things.  For example, you could get hold a of a very affordable ability test, but the chances are it won’t have the same level of usability for you or your candidates, or the same range or reporting options compared to something that costs a little more.  When investing corporate money on something new, there are usually some compromises somewhere, therefore by pinning down your priorities upfront it will be easier for you to stay focused on what you really need further down the line.

5.  What training have you (or your colleagues) had in psychometrics?

The majority of test publishers will ask for evidence that at least one person within your organisation has received training in the use of psychometrics.  At the moment, this typically refers to a person having a Test User Training (formerly, Level A (ability tests) and Level B certificate (personality)) from the British Psychological Society (BPS).  It is helpful to have this information to hand when speaking to your test publishers as you will be able to more quickly identify whether any additional training will be required.  Note, this may include ‘conversion’ training – to develop your interpretation skills for their particular instrument (even if you have previously received training on using psychometrics).

If no one in your organisation has training, be aware that this may add to your initial set up costs for whatever tools you choose. 

Summary

So, there are five key questions to ask yourself – and your primary stakeholders – before making contact with your potential suppliers.  By asking these questions you are putting yourself on the right track to ensuring you get the right tools: ones which will improve the effectiveness and impact of your selection and development activities.

Look out for Part 3, where I will be covering key questions to ask your test publishers.  What you need to know from them to make sure you will get the products and service you need.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about how Psychology Works use psychometrics as part of our work in the areas of assessment, leadership development, or talent, please do get in touch.

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If you would like to know more about talent and the services Psychology Works offer in this area, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed Maria’s ramblings why not check out some of our other blogs and thought pieces.  For real time updates and insights you can also find us on LinkedIn, our social media platform of choice: @PsychologyWorks and @mariagardner