Voodoo recruitment techniques

Shonky psychometric tests kill careers stone dead

I wrote this article seven years ago for HR Director magazine and I’ve updated it. University graduates know all about facile psychometric tests.

While Republic Resumes is good at getting people short-listed for jobs, there’s not much we can do when employers force candidates to sit these ‘voodoo’ tests.

They are proof that sections of modern organisational life are drifting back in to the Dark Ages.

In Australia, about 45 percent of recruiters ask job applicants to sit psychometric tests. The tests are insulting, invalid, unreliable and a waste of time and money.

Applicants are made to tick boxes and manipulate three dimensional objects in space, to divine their ability to perform X, Y or Z or to assert their ‘cultural fit’ within an organisation.

Recruiters promise much with expensive tests that involve verbal reasoning, numerical skills, spatial reasoning, information processing, problem solving and IQ.

Of the 5000 aptitude and ability tests currently on the market, only a handful have been shown to have any internal validity. That is, the questions are logically framed so they elicit the right sort of information.

There are myriad problems with the aptitude and reasoning tests but one of the most serious is the highly tenuous link between the test and the competency being assessed.

It’s like going to a supermarket and asking for a specific aptitude test in ‘clerical administration’ and being given the ‘one size fits all’ supervisor’s test.

You’ll get some sort of test result but it won’t measure what you want.

In many cases, the tests are marked by the recruiters themselves, who have little or no training in the assessment of psychological tests. It’s like sitting a university exam and having the administration officer grade your paper, rather than a professor.

HR people insist on ‘cultural fit’ – whatever that is – because they want people who will stick to the company line. They don’t want employees asking awkward questions such as, ‘what’s the efficacy of using personality profiles and psychometric tests in recruitment?’

Put your best foot forward

Malcolm builds expert resumes, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles, which unleash an unbeatable business case to promote you as a ‘must have’ asset to an employer.