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Do you think psychometric tests should be made mandatory in the recruitment process?

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Business Standard
Last Updated : Mar 05 2014 | 8:52 PM IST
Dear Students,
 
LAST WEEK WE ASKED:  Do you think psychometric tests should be made mandatory in the recruitment process?

 
BEST RESPONSE

Psychometric tests should be made an integral part of the recruitment process since it is impossible to get the full picture of applicants’ skills and personality. A person’s resume and qualifications may say very little about them if their strengths lie in areas which are not covered by conventional qualifications. Certain skills are, in fact, better measured using carefully constructed psychometric tests such as problem-solving and spatial ability. Psychometric tests provide an objective way of assessing candidates’ strengths and weaknesses. These tests measure their abilities, aptitudes, skills, interests or aspects of their personality in an unbiased & standardised manner.
- Sourabh Jamer, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Mumbai.

OTHER RESPONSES

Recruitment of a candidate highly depends on his/her skills, attitude and emotional connect of the candidate to the job. If corporates assess the candidates based on psychometric test, it will be a very helpful way to determine if the candidate is really fit in terms of skills and abilities for the job. Also this test will help the company to avoid hiring candidates who have the mentality of switching jobs in a year and this will also avoid spending time and money in training such candidates.
- Anand Wadadekar, Samvit School of Infrastructure Business, Pune.


The attitude and not aptitude determines the altitude. Psychometric tests test the attitude and personality of the candidate. It provides all-round view of a candidate’s suitability and thus complements the validity of the assessment process. It is a more concrete measure than just relying on the instincts. Ultimately what matters is the perfect fit of the employees with the culture and values of the organization. Psychometric tests provide the best and the most objective way to select the best candidate. Thus psychometric tests should be made a mandatory component of the recruitment process.
- Kanchan Agrawal, IMNU, Ahmedabad.


Proliferation in the number of companies shifting from just measuring technical skills to also including psychometrics in recruitment process vindicates the need of behaviour and objective analysis. By measuring individual’s attitude and traits these tests play a pivotal role in maintaining consistency across HR managers’ decision during recruitment. With 79% of organizations already using psychometrics and fetching benefits in terms of ensuring culture, role fit, predicting successful high performance, building effective teams (leveraging their collective synergy) and leadership development, psychometric tests should definitely be a part of the recruitment and selection process.
- Rakshit Maheshwari, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.


Psychometric tests will helpful for the company to know about desired candidate attitude and behaviour thereby they can assess whether applicant is suitable for the job position or not. By following other eliminating methods might make difficult for an interviewer in evaluating the candidate profile and one wrong decision may impact loss to the company as well as individual.  By implementing psychometric tests will help the company to avoid wrong decisions to some certain extent in their selection process.
- Dinesh Kumar, Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Hyderabad.


The future of organization depends on decisions made at present where good candidate can create a matter of difference while wrong one could drag the efforts of organization to rock-bottom. In such a situation, psychometric tests can be very useful tool to substantiate judgement of employers thereby playing a vital role in the most crucial process of recruitment. It will not only give an overview of student's overall character but also help determine future perspective of each student. Psychometric tests help assessing intelligence, reasoning skills to gauge candidate's suitability. Thus, there is absolutely no harm in making such tests mandatory.
- Shivam Chhabra, Integral University, Lucknow.


Psychometric tests are partly an answer to a solution which often most of the talent hunters do, but 'mandatory' is a word like caging one definition and not moving beyond. Often recruiters should look at a candidate's ability through application of various tools mix like competency mapping & behavioural based questions, but the pursuit of these tests leave with limited biases as there is no right or wrong answer just depends on the context. The performance of a person in the real job matched with these tests shows a null correlation in the long run as humans evolve & change.
- Tania Rauth, Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Ahmedabad.


Psychometric tests provide a good framework for conducting effective & efficient interview and selection process. The questionnaire format is standardized thus everyone is treated equally and fairly. The judgments make upon the test give the opportunity to understand and realize an employee’s skills & personality skills before they join an organisation. Besides, test is cost effective. Thus, the test help to understand employee-organisation job fit.
- Nilaya Mitash Shanker, IIT Roorkee.


Psychometric test are generally taken to judge the personality and honesty of candidate. Here only important thing is about being yourself. Hence to pass this test there is nothing like right or wrong answer but one needs to be honest about themselves. It is because if person tries to be artificial to impress interviewers then his answers will be contradicting to each other and they'll know his real personality and level of honesty. Thus it should be made mandatory to judge real personality and honesty.
- Arpita S. Desai, Government Engineering College, Gandhinagar.


Psychometric tests are used as filtering mechanism to compare candidate's own personal style to respond to a given particular situation regardless of educational background and thus it improves the efficiency of the recruitment process by identifying the most suitable candidates early on in the recruitment process thereby reducing the time and money spent on unsuitable candidates. This results in more informed recruitment decisions being made by providing additional objective information about a candidate and serves to work better than interview alone meaning less emphasis is placed on the skill of the interviewer (who may not be a recruitment specialist).
- Pratik Bairagi, Regional College of Management, Bhubaneswar.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do you think higher education institutes in India need to improve their global repute?

Your responses should reach us at edu@business-standard.com by Monday evening every week. Please ensure that your responses do not exceed 100 words. Avoid attachments and email your full name, institute's name, batch and complete mailing address. The student who gives the 'Best Response' will be awarded Rs 500.

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First Published: Mar 05 2014 | 8:52 PM IST

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