Your Ultimate Guide To Psychometric Tests

Originally designed to screen for mental illness, psychometric tests have been modified for use in various contexts. Nowadays, such tests are frequently used to evaluate a person's personality, intelligence, and skills (kind of an upgrade, huh?). Although psychometric assessments have become more widespread, there is still some disagreement regarding their value. Some claim that psychometric tests can be biased against particular groups of individuals and are unreliable indicators of intellect or ability. Whether you think psychometric tests are effective or not, there's no denying that they can be enjoyable to take. So why not attempt one? Who knows—you might even catch yourself off guard!

What is a Psychometric test?

Nowadays, a psychometric exam sometimes referred to as an aptitude test or a psychometric assessment, is a common component of evaluations and interviews. The basic psychometric test meaning is that the test is the activity or evaluation used to examine a candidate's performance. Among other things, we may analyse a candidate's skills, knowledge, abilities, personality traits, attitude and the likelihood of employment or academic success. These days, they are more often administered online and consist of a series of questions you must answer in the specified time. Numerous skills, including knowledge, personality traits, and cognitive abilities, are examined using psychometric assessment. A psychometric assessment or tests may be asked of you as part of the first application step if you are looking for a job (particularly graduate courses), as they are a highly common approach in corporate recruitment.

How do they work?

Personality tests look at your goals, beliefs, and values while analysing how your personality matches the company and the position. They examine your feelings, behaviours, and interactions with people under various conditions. Success in work and test scores are closely related. If your test score is high, you probably won't have problems performing well at work. Psychometric tests are highly desirable to employers because of their capacity to anticipate future outcomes. Considering that psychometric tests can be quickly and successfully used on a large scale, they have become a common practice, especially for graduate recruiting.

Why are psychometric tests used in recruitment?

Psychometric tools analyse several components of an individual, including personality, values, motivations, and abilities that predict behaviour and outcomes (job performance) in various contexts (different jobs). Other tools include reference checks, case studies, work samples, group activities, and interviews.

Benefits of Psychometric tests

It is easy to understand why psychometric tests have become commonplace, particularly for graduate hiring, given their efficiency and usefulness in mass recruitment.

• Objectivity - Making hiring decisions based on interviews and CV reviews could lead to rash conclusions. Psychometric assessment reduces the arbitrary nature of decision-making and offers objectivity because each candidate must pass a consistent test.
• Accuracy - Employers can assess a candidate's aptitude for information analysis, problem-solving, and making well-informed judgements using psychometric exams, which also allow them to look at behavioural patterns. If the hiring organisation has access to this data on all applications, it may swiftly compare candidates to determine who is the most qualified.
• Speed - Even smaller organisations and companies receive hundreds to thousands of applications for open positions. The time it would take to filter through them fairly is far too great. Employers can use psychometric testing to reduce the applicant pool significantly.

Types of Psychometric testing

Let's talk about how many different types of psychometric tests there are now that we know the what, where, and why. The two main kinds are personality tests and aptitude tests. Generally Psychometric assessments are of the following two types:

• Personality tests: A type of psychometric evaluation known as personality testing identifies particular personality qualities needed to succeed in a work role or business. These assessments provide important information on a candidate's most important traits, motives, behavioural patterns, etc.
• Cognitive ability tests: Cognitive ability tests, also known as aptitude tests, assess people's mental faculties. They aid in gauging a person's capacity for critical thought, logical reasoning, language aptitude, and problem-solving. They evaluate how people apply prior knowledge to a novel situation.

What kind of questions are asked in a psychometric test?

The most frequent types of questions in these tests are logical, verbal, and numerical. You can determine the type of questions you will encounter from the test's name. Also, do you know that certain psychometric assessments also employ adaptive questioning? If you answered the previous question correctly, the difficulty of the following question might change. This will help us gauge the candidates' aptitude and motivate them to finish the test.

Psychometric Personality testing

Numerous aspects of human personality are evaluated via psychometric personality tests. Personality traits, behavioural tendencies, ideas, views, motives, and values are measured via psychometric personality tests. Numerous fields use psychometric personality testing, including criminology, education, business, and clinical settings. The psychometric assessment of personality is useful in predicting how people would act and react in various circumstances. For example - Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 for the following statements:

• I want every detail taken care of
• I am easily annoyed
• I enjoy taking charge in social situations

Psychometric personality tests gauge traits of the personality such as temperament, interests, values, and attitudes. To select the best candidate for a position, recruiters frequently use psychometric personality tests, both internally and outside.

Numerical Reasoning Test

The most frequent psychometric test is a numerical reasoning test. Thus, you must be proficient in handling them. Tests of numerical thinking are used to gauge a candidate's aptitude for grasping numerical information. These tests test your ability to deal with numbers quickly and precisely and your comprehension of graphs, charts, and other visual representations of data or statistics. A numerical reasoning test may assess your knowledge of rates, trends, ratios, percentages, and currency conversions.

Verbal Reasoning

This tests your ability to comprehend textual material, arguments and communicate ideas. Before responding to questions that test your understanding, you must first read a few brief text sections. The capacity to think critically and draw reliable conclusions from written data is tested in verbal psychometric tests. 

Abstract reasoning

The ability to quickly reason with information to solve new, unknown issues without existing knowledge is most closely related to fluid intelligence. It entails creative problem-solving, logic, and flexibility in thinking beyond the obvious. For example, understanding the last 15 patterns that are present on the screen and guessing what would be the next pattern 

Situational Judgement

This test analyses your propensity for acting in scenarios at work that are comparable to those you would experience on the job. Would your actions be in line with what the organisation expects? The appropriate responses to these situations are frequently not immediately apparent and are determined by what the organisation views as crucial behaviours, beliefs, and methodologies or by what is necessary for that specific function. You may be asked to rank many possibilities, list your top and bottom choices, or combine the two. This kind of test mainly puts you into different situations, and you have to choose how you would react to them.

Tips to practice for Psychometric test 

A great result on your psychometric test boosts your chances of getting the desired opportunity to impress in an interview, so you must prepare enough. For all psychometric tests, extensive practice is the best preparation strategy. Here are a few tips for how to do well in psychometric tests

• Study your invitation
• Learn about your psychometric test publisher
• Practice, practice, practice
• Plan your online test session

And keep these things in mind when D-day eventually comes and you are at the testing facility or business.

• Read the guidelines thoroughly.
• Recognise each query
• Most likely, you don't have enough time to verify the responses.
• Learn how to estimate with your best judgement.
• Learn how to use rough paper effectively.

So there you have it mate, everything you need to know about psychometric tests and how to prepare for them once you are out in the world looking for newer opportunities. Remember, like any test, this takes preparation, practice, and patience. So if you have a test lined up soon, use this as a foundation and ace the assessment. Also, go through these guides once if you are preparing for competitive exams like GMAT, GRE or PTE. You can also read our blog on career counselling.