This is not to say that psychometric tests are not useful. They are useful since they give an idea about a candidate's mental ability to perform a particular task for which he is being selected or to assess whether or not an existing employee has it in him to graduate to a bigger role. In any case, psychometric tests have been around for a long time since Alfred Binet devised the first psychological tests at the start of the 20th century, and they began to be used in selection not long after. The first version of the 16PF personality questionnaire dates back to the late 1940s. It would be too simplistic to dismiss something that has survived for so long.
What is a psychometric test? It includes personality profiles, reasoning tests, motivation questionnaires, and ability assessments. These tests try to provide objective data for otherwise subjective measurements. For example, if you want to determine someone's attitude, you can ask the person directly, observe the person in action, or even gather observations about the person from other people. However, all of these methods can be affected by personal bias and perspective. By using a psychometric test, the theory is that you make a more objective and impartial judgement.
Also Read
For candidates going through such tests, HR experts have an advice: the idea is that there are no right or wrong answers; just personal preferences, interests and motivations. The best way to complete personality assessments is by answering without too much thought, just go with your first instinct. Don't get tangled up with trying to second guess what the employer is seeking.
So far, so good. But the problem arises when wrong people behind the scenes are crunching the numbers and draw random conclusions from the test results. The problem being faced by many Indian companies is simple: apart from the lack of trained people who can conduct these tests skilfully and draw the right conclusions, some of the tests are becoming hopelessly outdated.
Also, attracted by its popularity, a psychological industry has sprung up around the test, resulting in many of those 10-minute quickies that claim to tell you everything you needed to know about such tests. As a result, many of these tests are open to charges of distortion, irrelevance and over-simplification.
A useful study by the Tata Strategic Management Group last month puts this in perspective. While predicting a significant increase in the number of organisations using psychometric instruments, the study said a large number of companies are not doing what is one of the most critical success factors, that is, having a clearly stated objective and understanding of how the outcome is going to be utilised.
Also, a competency framework is an essential requirement for the effective usage of psychometric tools. However, less than a third of companies have aligned the instruments to their talent strategy.
HR experts say as soon as the psychometric test results are out, there is often a tendency to label people as "depressed", "anxious", "unambitious" and so on, in a hurry and form an opinion on their suitability.
Most companies do that without realising that humans are essentially individuals and not susceptible to such random stereotyping. Many organisations, which see in test results what they want to see, read far more into the results achieved than is intended by the originators of the tests.
Most tests make the assumption that the characteristics to be measured are fixed and unchanging, both in relation to time and also in relation to the circumstance or situation. Many studies in psychology, especially social psychology, demonstrate that this is not so.
In any case, psychometric tests are only one of the many different types of assessments that you can use in recruitment and career development. The danger also is that in the future, executives and others will place greater emphasis on the data and forget to make sensible human assessments.
Here is an example. Paul Flowers, the former chairman of UK-based Co-operative Bank, had aced a set of psychometric tests before being handed over the job. But early this year, he was forced out of the organisation after serious allegations of buying illegal drugs, prompting many to criticise the bank management for appointing someone who was "psychologically unbalanced but psychometrically brilliant".
It later transpired that Flowers did not have much prior banking experience. Which means, the board was so taken in by his psyschometric performance that it forgot to ask one simple question: what would be the repercussions of appointing a man with a significant lack of prior banking experience as its head?
The moral is this: if used properly, some psychometric tests can be extremely helpful to both individuals and organisations. If used carelessly, they may be useless and possibly harmful.