Recruit with Rigour – Is Psych testing helpful?

 

Is Psych testing helpful when hiring someone? Are you recruiting with Rigour? 

Despite my qualifications in Psychology, I am still sceptical about using psych testing as the hiring tool to decide whether to hire someone. In my 25-year executive search career, hiring over 2700 people and interviewing over 120,000 people, I would have to say that psych testing is helpful as an additional tool for identifying good reference check questions to ask and as guidance for future management of the person.

Rigorous recruiting requires a full assessment of the candidate’s skills, behaviours, motivations, including consideration of their upbringing and life attitudes.

Are your recruitment processes giving you great talent who fit your culture? It is important to note that the success of the company and the success of employees are intrinsically linked. Do not confuse high performance with future potential;  staff turnover kills revenue growth.

Low performers often displayed the following traits:

  • Extraversion (become too emotionally involved and unable to tone down)
  • Team focused (too group focused and lacking self-direction)
  • Integrated networks – do too much business with themselves
  • Highly emotional (taking things too personally)
  • Highly conscientious (too much focus on detail and process and less agile and solution-focused in their approach)
  • Highly social (too much talk, not enough action)

High performers are more balanced in introversion & extroversion scores; have high abstract reasoning; are mentally agile and have networks outside of the workplace. They are outcome-focused; self-reliant; demonstrate critical thinking skills and are diplomatic and engage well in team communication.

What this information goes to show is that a psychological test, in isolation, is not enough when benching talent for your organisation.  You need to be really holistic in your assessment process, include 360-degree references, do group simulations, ask the candidates to do case studies, behavioural-based questionnaires and ideally a myriad of both formal interviews with some of your existing team and casual meet ups. You need a rigorous approach, with many recruiting tools to ensure that you recruit with rigour!

For more information contact Simone Allan, Director at Mondo Search on 1300 737 917 or email simone@mondosearch.com.au.