Pre Employment Testing for HR Candidates

If you're applying for a job in human resources and have been asked to take a pre employment test, chances are that test will include psychometric elements.

United Kingdom-based XpertHR recently completed a survey that found the use of psychometric testing in areas of human resources management has been growing during the past three years. The survey included 90 employers, accounting for about 420,000 people.

The survey found that a total of about 90 percent of employers in the human resources management space use some form of psychometric testing during the recruiting process.

Of the respondents, about 44 percent have increased their use of psychometric testing during the recruitment and selection process, 14 percent have introduced it, 19 percent have increased the use of it for training and development and 9 percent have started using it.

Those applying for managerial, graduate and professional positions are the most likely to undergo psychometric testing by employers. The most common tests focus on personality, attitudes and behaviors.

Employers have found that the ability to provide objective, consistent measures of workers' knowledge, skills and attitudes means the tests also can be used to improve other human resources-related activities, including training and performance assessment.

About 85 percent of employers say they use test results as one of several resources for recruiting and selecting workers, 57 percent use results to inform interview questions and 45 percent use results to provide a threshold or benchmark for shortlisting candidates.

However, only 16 percent of employers have developed a meaningful policy governing the administration of these tests, how the results should be used, the safe storage of completed tests and the provision of feedback to candidates. In addition, one in three employers do not actively investigate the test's potential impact on the company's equal opportunities status.

The survey further found that most employers would like to improve their use of psychometric testing, particularly by using results to better effect and investigating contribution to organizational effectiveness.