Psychometric tests are in use since early part of 20^th century and were utilized originally in the field of educational psychology. Nowadays, apart from education, psychometrics tests are widely in use in the arena of employee selection and recruitment.

Such tests are devised by occupational psychologists and their focus is to give employers a reliable tool of selecting the best candidates for jobs and promotions. Psychometric tests measure attributes like personality, intelligence and aptitude. They are a means to provide potential employer with an idea of how candidates will work with other team members, how they deal with stress and how they cope with the intellectual demands of work.

Majority of psychometric tests utilized in selection and recruitment do not attempt to analyse psychological or emotional stability and are not the same as tests used by clinical psychologists. But, in recent times, there has been rapid growth of tests that claim to measure your ability to deal with angry feelings, your honesty and integrity. These tests are also controversial because of doubts about their validity. Yet, their popularity is on the rise.

Psychometrics test is being used by more than 80% of Fortune 500 companies in the US and more than 75% of Times top 100 companies in UK. Such tests are used extensively by financial institutions, I.T. companies, local authorities, management consultancies, police force, civil services and even the armed forces.

Such tests can help employers to judge the personality, abilities and preferences of potential employees that suit the work environment. Being a selection and recruitment tool, such tests can be utilized in a straightforward manner. They can be used at the early stages of recruitment to screen-out applicants who are mostly unsuitable for the job. They can also guide management about career progression of existing staff.

Thanks to its importance for making decision about personnel, it is crucial that the tests are capable of producingaccurate results based on statistical principles and standardized methods.

Ideally, a psychometric test should be:

• Standardized: must be administered in controlled conditions
• Objective: the score must not be impacted by values and beliefs of tester.
• Reliable: It should quantify and minimize any intrinsic errors.
• Non-discriminatory: Must not cause disadvantage to any candidate based on ethnicity, culture, gender etc.
• Predictive: It must accurately predict performance.

Psychometric tests are of two main types:

• Personality questionnaires: measure nature of personality of candidates.
• Aptitude tests: evaluate reasoning and intellectual ability of candidates.

Personality Tests:

Today, it is widely recognized that personality of employee is vital for performance at work. Hence most psychometric tests include a small personality test. The theory behind such a test is that one can quantify personality of candidates by checking their behaviour, thoughts and feelings in situations at work or outside it.

Candidates will be presented with statements   describing different kinds of feelings and reactions and asked to evaluate their response on a scale, typically from 1 to 7. The numbers of such questions vary widely.

Aptitude Tests

Typical tests in the genre are verbal ability, abstract reasoning, numerical ability, spatial ability, mechanical reasoning, data checking, fault diagnosis and work sample.

Aptitude tests are so designed that they advance in complexity with each additional question. But what really matters is not number of questions answered but the number of right answers.

These are some tips about psychometric tests.