As most business leaders, recruitment and HR professionals know, hiring talent is not an inexpensive exercise. Not to mention the additional risk of hiring someone who doesn't perform, meet expectations or ends up being a complete cultural mismatch.
Determining whether a candidate has the appropriate natural abilities or personality to be successful in the role they are applying for by looking at their CV and conducting an interview surely cannot be sufficient to make an informed decision. Now add the additional dimension of a video interview - how many valuable cues are missed?
A psychometric assessment is a scientifically developed test that measures the extent to which a candidate's ability and personality match those required to perform the given position. 'Ability' looks to assess a specific or general set of skills required to perform the role (numerical, verbal, abstract) and 'personality' explores behaviour, attitudes, preferences, motives and values.
There are no hard and fast rules about when to assess, except to say that assessment results cannot be the only criteria for making a decision; they need to form part of an holistic process.
The majority of companies use psychometric assessments as part of the final hiring process, often as an objective way to size up the final shortlisted candidates.
Making hiring decisions solely on CVs, reference checks and interviews is outdated. Today's business owners are looking beyond the hard skills. They are wanting to know "who" they are hiring, their soft skills, their interests, their personal story and most importantly how they "fit" the environment, culture, working conditions and values of the business.
There are many uncertainties facing business leaders today and traditional hiring methods have been compromised. Fortunately, using psychometric assessments, hiring great-fit talent is possible.