Psychometric Testing

Most career coaching organisations will offer 'psychometric testing' as part of your Coaching or Outplacement programme. If you are thinking of any sort of career transition (or part of a 'forced' one,) then you need to check whether you are getting 'psychometrics' as part of your support programme.

Employers are becoming increasingly risk averse and at the last count 83% of companies were thinking of using them in the screening process to recruit or promote staff. (I personally would never recruit, retain or promote someone without)

They are useful in the career analysis process not only because can they give you an insight on 'You' and how you appear to others, but because as any good salesman will tell you before you can sell into any market "You have to know your product.

There are two sorts of psychometric in general use. The Aptitude/Ability test is characterised by a series of verbal, numerical or non- verbal reasoning questions and is usually timed. (It is nothing like the joke above - that is a 'bar' game!)

The personality assessment routinely contains a series of multiple-choice questions, the answers to which reflect your scores against those of the 'normal' population on a variety of scales or profiles, providing an 'outline' of your personality. (Personality assessments have no 'right' or 'wrong' answers (well, usually) and are rarely timed)

Once your Aptitude/Ability/test has been scored, you should receive 'feedback' from the tester as to how well you did against a comparable population. In 'psychological' terms these tests are supposed to have 'a high correlation' with IQ ('Smarts') but as you know, that does not necessarily reflect 'effectiveness.' I've met some of the brightest people in the world and frankly, you wonder sometimes how they get through the day.

If you imagine the personality assessment as a picture of you drawn with a pencil, then the feedback you obtain, attempts to 'colour' it in. The feedback you get has to be the 'right' feedback and is only as good as the person who is giving it.

This may sound dead obvious, but you would not believe how many people routinely photocopy old tests and dish them out as if they 'know,' what they are doing and a bad feedback session could do you more harm than good.

According to the Code of Practice in Psychological Testing of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Institute of Personnel Development and Training, (IPD) feedback should always be offered to assessment participants. The tester or person giving the feedback should be qualified to BPS Statement of Competence, Level A (Ability tests) and Statement of Competence, Level B (Personality Assessments) and 'qualified,' by the respective test agency to give that particular test/assessment.

So if you are invited to take a 'series of psychometric tests/assessments,' first ask if they are timed or not. If they are timed, ask the contact if there are any 'sample' tests you can try. (Again this is a 'only sometimes followed' BPS recommendation - there is a large 'practice' effect with ability tests - so practice1) then ask the contact (gently) if they know whom the tests are by. (If you are using our services, or likely to use our services in the future we may need to know this) If they don't know or are struggling to respond, ask them to look at the bottom of any score sheet for a copyright statement.

If by this time, you still have their attention, then ask them if there will be any feedback provided. Tightwad departments may squirm at this. So try not to threaten them and quickly add - "Perhaps some telephone feedback from the scorer?" This approach often yields results.

At 'careers international', our network of qualified test - givers and business psychologists are all 'qualified to the teeth' on these and other testing issues. Perhaps more importantly, however we find that it is important to be very careful and very sensitive in giving our feedback, particularly in relation to an individual's long-term career prospects.

Many of us have experienced inexpert or downright 'psychopathic' feedback from colleagues, the results of which can 'hurt' for a long time. So we follow the codes of practice, supervise each other's work, keep up to date with the latest best practice and listen carefully to our customer's needs.

If you would like to have yourself 'assessed' and be provided with 'professionally qualified feedback' then please do not hesitate to book yourself in with us, call Kathryn or myself for an appointment on 0845 2020 244 or email develop@career snet.com Alternatively you might be thinking or recruiting or promoting someone - don't do it without getting this 'second' opinion.