Use of Psychometric Testing
Companies’ Use of Psychometric Tests for Recruitment: A Review of the Literature
Word count: 2995
PART 1 PART 1
Introduction
This paper surveys the literature on the use of psychometric testing by employers as part of the recruitment process and considers the general usage by different types of businesses. Companies spend high amount of money each year on psychometric test which measures personality type, learning styles and personal preferences of individuals. Since the 1980’s business in the UK have been making the use of psychometric test as part of the selection process for job vacancies. Over the years the usage has increased to a level where 80% of the Fortune 500 companies in the USA and by over 75% of the Times Top 100 companies in the UK are using some kind of psychometric testing (PSYCHOMETRIC-SUCCESS, 2009). However the benefits and drawbacks of using psychometric testing vary from business to business and sometimes even according to the demographics of the location where the test are conducted.
Types of psychometric testing
A good psychometric test features reliability, validity, discriminating and NORMs. (Kline, 1992). The significance of Psychometric Testing is able to indicate a reason why Psychometric Testing is widely used, as Kline (1992) suggests that, the efficiency of personnel selection and appraisal will go up as the efficiency of Psychometric test goes up, the necessity of appraisal may disappear as the testing is improved. It could be argued that psychometric testing can be broadly defined into two main category’s including intelligence (aptitude) test and personality test.
General intelligence tests include information processing and organisation of knowledge. The intelligence test is a way to assist employers to identify individual capacity, such as verbal, numerical and spatial etc. However Ceci and Williams (2000) note that intelligence test is determined by the context and can’t reflect capacity of
Word count: 2995
PART 1 PART 1
Introduction
This paper surveys the literature on the use of psychometric testing by employers as part of the recruitment process and considers the general usage by different types of businesses. Companies spend high amount of money each year on psychometric test which measures personality type, learning styles and personal preferences of individuals. Since the 1980’s business in the UK have been making the use of psychometric test as part of the selection process for job vacancies. Over the years the usage has increased to a level where 80% of the Fortune 500 companies in the USA and by over 75% of the Times Top 100 companies in the UK are using some kind of psychometric testing (PSYCHOMETRIC-SUCCESS, 2009). However the benefits and drawbacks of using psychometric testing vary from business to business and sometimes even according to the demographics of the location where the test are conducted.
Types of psychometric testing
A good psychometric test features reliability, validity, discriminating and NORMs. (Kline, 1992). The significance of Psychometric Testing is able to indicate a reason why Psychometric Testing is widely used, as Kline (1992) suggests that, the efficiency of personnel selection and appraisal will go up as the efficiency of Psychometric test goes up, the necessity of appraisal may disappear as the testing is improved. It could be argued that psychometric testing can be broadly defined into two main category’s including intelligence (aptitude) test and personality test.
General intelligence tests include information processing and organisation of knowledge. The intelligence test is a way to assist employers to identify individual capacity, such as verbal, numerical and spatial etc. However Ceci and Williams (2000) note that intelligence test is determined by the context and can’t reflect capacity of