Psychometric tests typically fall under two categories; aptitude tests and personality tests.

• Aptitude tests assess one’s mental reasoning ability, numerical knowledge, verbal acquisitions, text comprehension and spatial reasoning skills. These are often timed.
• Personality inventories allow us to match one’s profile with that of the job in question.  They typically have no right or wrong answers and are assessed along various dimensions.

Assessment centres are later used to stimulate the work environment and generate more information about the potential applicants. Here, work-sample exercises, role plays and group discussions are typically employed.  Notably, research has proved assessment centres to be ideal in predicting successful on-the-job performance as they provide objective and observable information on recruits.

Common Usefulness for Psychometric Testing by small, medium and large firms.

• When advertising a vacancy, employers typically receive a substantial number of applications from which they need to identify that one candidate who will be an asset to their company or the companies they form part of. Short-listing is best performed on solid grounds provided by psychometric tests.

• If the company is planning to send its employees on training, it cannot possibly financially support all the employees so it must identify and choose those who will best benefit from the course. A diversity of psychometric tests in the context of an assessment centre can be most fruitful for your decision.

• You are about to promote an employee but would like to be certain that he will fit in his new position.

• When you have decided to invest in providing further training for your employees but are not sure what they specifically need? Conducting a Training Needs Analysis can be the answer.