Psychometric and ability testing

Psychometrics have a wide range of uses for businesses looking to explore individual and team dynamics in their workplace. Most commonly, our clients ask us for support in the following areas:

• Assessing teams or individuals already working in the organisation to understand behavioural strengths and potential derailers to success
• Exploring traits in individuals going through a recruitment process, to ascertain how they might fit into a team
• Personal development and coaching for individuals, either using 360 feedback or personality profiling
• Assessing leadership teams to understand potential hurdles to effectiveness, for example in an investment situation where a private equity/venture capital firm is looking to invest, but wants to explore potential risks from the existing team

Psychometrics for individual and team development

Understanding the dynamics in a team, and how these are driven by the preferences of individuals in it, can be hugely valuable. On an individual level, it can help someone who feels like they aren’t gelling, or be used as part of a coaching intervention to develop one’s ability to deal with situations of ambiguity.

For example, we often work with senior leaders who want to become more effective at dealing with complex or stressful situations – having a greater understanding of one’s personal tendencies and how they can help or hinder under certain circumstances can help leaders to be more effective. Or, should a coachee demonstrate a natural tendency to self-criticism, then the coaching conversation can focus on helping them to reflect on personal wins and successes. If the opposite is true, the coach can explore methods that help the individual to be more thoughtful and honest in their self-appraisal.

When permitted, we can also have conversations with the individual and their manager, so that personal preferences can be explored and the manager can work with their team more effectively through a greater degree of understanding.

In a team scenario, we use Hogan to bring out shared strengths and potential risk areas that stand in the way of high performance. Their customised tool uses individual profiles and draws collective themes together which can be really powerful for a team that is not quite hitting the mark, perhaps stagnating and looking to bring in new blood, or performing well and looking to replicate the dynamics in other teams.

360s can also be useful for individual and team development. We have significant experience in developing tools specific to clients, using their competency frameworks to build something completely customised to them. Additionally, we have developed our own solution which is available for immediate deployment. You can find out more about People Business’s tool, 360 Feedback here.

Psychometrics for hiring

The use of psychometrics in the hiring process as part of a holistic assessment battery offers several valuable benefits for both employers and candidates. At People Business, we support numerous clients with their assessment needs as part of a recruitment process or leadership development programme.

Whether your organisation is looking to demonstrate objective assessment, improve the quality of hire, increase efficiency or improve team dynamics by closing gaps in aptitude or personality, psychometric assessment can help you to find the right people for your business. And, once your teams are formed, working with personality profiles and aptitude assessments can help a team to think more deeply about how they work together effectively.

Here are some of the key advantages:

1. Ensures you are objective when assessing candidates, and mitigates unconscious biases
Psychometric tests provide a standardised and objective way to assess candidates, reducing biases that may occur in traditional interview processes, leading to more diverse and inclusive hiring outcomes. This ensures a fair evaluation based on measurable criteria.

2. Helps you to find the right people, with greater efficiency
By providing clear insights into candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, psychometric tests streamline the hiring process. They help identify candidates who are most likely to succeed in a given role based on their cognitive abilities, personality traits, and skills. Employers can quickly identify the most suitable candidates who fit the job requirements and the company culture, leading to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates while reducing the time and resources spent on extensive interview rounds.

3. Assists the individual with developing their self-awareness
Candidates who undergo psychometric testing often gain insights into their own abilities, personality traits and areas for development. This can help them better understand their fit for the role and the organisation. For those already in role, the data from psychometric tests can inform the development and training needs of employees, helping to create personalised development plans that enhance individual and team performance.

4. Demonstrates your business’ desire to conduct fair, consistent and impartial processes
When used properly, psychometric tests can add to the legal defensibility of hiring decisions. They provide a documented, standardised method of evaluating candidates, which can be valuable if hiring decisions are ever questioned or challenged. It also ensures that larger companies have a consistent approach to hiring and developing people.

By design, psychometrics are hard to ‘kid’ – people can practise certain tools, but it’s very difficult to fool the system. And personality profiles in particular are very good at identifying our trends, but might not show up where we have coping mechanisms or mitigation strategies.

When working with our clients, we therefore insist that we conduct a one-hour interview with candidates to question the themes that we identify in our assessment. We then feed back to our clients using not only the assessment report, but our gleanings and suggestions on what they might like to probe in further interview stages.

Psychometrics for assessment

We support a number of private equity firms to assess existing leadership teams, as part of the investment due diligence process.

As part of a robust interview process, we stress-test investment prospects and help organisations to evaluate where potential risks might exist. For example, we often hear that the incumbent CEO wants to ‘step back’ following an investment round, but if they are the lynchpin of the business, their reduced involvement with the firm could lead to investment risk. What is the succession plan for the platform?

We use a combination of interview and psychometrics to probe these questions and help organisations make educated investment decisions.

Why us?

One of the things that differentiates People Business is our insistence that anyone completing a psychometric profile should have a debrief with us

We have extensive experience in many tools, including all the main Five-Factor personality assessments and we can help clients choose the relevant tool for them:

We’ve also developed our own proprietary psychometric, called Good Boss Questionnaire (GBQ), which specifically looks at first line management and the impact of management style on organisational effectiveness. You can find out more about GBQ here.

If you think we can help you, or if you have any questions, please do get in touch.