Psychometric assessments are a standardised and scientific method used to measure individuals' aptitude, personality and behavioural style. They are conducted to evaluate an individual’s skills and knowledge, cognitive abilities, personality traits, attitudes, values and motivations in order to assess career suitability and role potential.
Personality Questionnaires
Personality questionnaires measure your behavioural style, opinions and motivators and personal attributes such as temperament, career interests and personal values. For example, whether you prefer working in a group or independently, whether you tend to keep to yourself in social situations or you’re the centre of attention at a party, whether you get more satisfaction from designing and creating stuff or taking care of others. There are no right or wrong answers in Personality Questionnaires!
Aptitude Tests
Aptitude tests are designed to measure your
cognitive capabilities across various aspects of intelligence. Abstract
reasoning tests measure what is called your fluid intelligence i.e. your
ability to think, assimilate new information, reason abstractly and solve
problems. It is generally your ability to ‘think on your feet’. Crystallised
intelligence is the ability to
learn from past experiences and applying this learning to a situation. It is measured using a variety of tests such as numerical, verbal,
spatial and abstract reasoning tests.
Psychometric assessments in Career Coaching
In Career Coaching, Psychometric assessments are designed to provide an in-depth understanding of your interests, motivation and personality. The results and feedback can provide great insight into who you are, what you like and what drives you which can be invaluable information when it comes to choosing the right career for you.
Coaching is a journey of self-discovery & awareness leading to self-empowerment and goal attainment; the career assessments act as a tool to help you gain a greater level of understanding of yourself and guide you in the right direction, towards your ultimate goal of attaining what it is you want from this life.
Psychometric assessments in Recruitment
In recruitment, Psychometric assessments are designed to measure the candidates' suitability for a role based on the extent to which their personality and cognitive abilities match those identified as being required to perform well in the job.
When recruiting for new employees, assessing candidates based on limited information such as CV's & one interview and making judgments in a short space of time with opinion and natural subjective bias in play can be a dangerous game when filling important positions. Psychometric tests are based on scientific research and statistical significance and they are designed to be objective and unbiased, creating an extra dimension to the recruitment process and additional information to base important decisions upon.
I am a qualified psychometric test user, accredited by the British Psychological Society to administer and evaluate both ability and personality psychometric tests. They form part of my 1:1 career assessments and are used by organisations as part of the recruitment process.