Why You Should Use Psychometric Profiling (And How to Do It)

Discover what psychometric profiling is, why it’s important and how to use it to improve your personal development.

Psychometric profiling is a valuable assessment tool for individuals and businesses.

People Management reports 81% of people using psychometric tools make more reliable decisions, while 57% believe psychometrics can help predict future performance.

Whether you’re looking for the perfect candidate or trying to further your career, psychometric profiling can provide all the answers.

What Is Psychometric Profiling?

Psychometric profiling is the process of trying to understand a person on a more rounded level. This holistic approach involves using a structured, objective and data-driven test to comprehend personality, skills, and behaviour.

Companies regularly use psychometric profiling for their recruitment and hiring practices to find the best possible fit for the role beyond previous experience. ?

Psychometric profiling is based on psychometrics, the scientific discipline of measurement practices used in psychology, education and the social sciences. Psychometrics was first established at the University of Cambridge by James McKeen Cattell in 1887.

Over 150 years on, psychometrics is still widely used across industries and organisations through test and screening practices.

As a psychometric tool for hiring, the test identifies various characteristics to distinguish one person from another.

These qualities include:

·????????Personality

·????????Aptitude

·????????Memory

·????????Happiness

·????????Intelligence

Psychometric measurements are scientifically validated and valuable tools for companies and individuals to utilise, whether it's for career planning, hiring or identifying work styles.?

Why Is Psychometric Profiling Important??

Psychometric profiling supplies an overarching assessment of an individual. For recruitment purposes, it provides invaluable information for employers to consider before investing in a candidate.

That’s why 75% of The Times “Best Companies to Work For” and 80% of Fortune 500 firms use psychometric testing in some capacity.

Skills such as problem-solving, data interpretation and communication are assessed in one psychometric report.

While psychometric profiling is used as a great tool for hiring candidates, it can also provide individuals with a thorough comprehension of their skills and personality traits.

Whether it's strengths or weaknesses, psychometrics provides a person with a knowledge of where they need to improve alongside an understanding of what motivates them.

Psychometric profiling is also beneficial for students when deciding what career path to take. The psychometric report after the test will show them what they enjoy as well as the industry where their skills will be best placed.?

Although psychometric profiling is still a recent tool being applied on a commercial scale, there’s a reason for its growing popularity with hiring managers and recruiters worldwide.?

How Is a Psychometric Test Evaluated?

Based on these various principles that define one person from another, intricate profiling techniques are used to accurately assess an individual.

Personality Tests

Evaluating someone’s personality enables organisations to see if the candidate will be a good fit in terms of the employee culture and values of the company. It's also very useful on an individual level, as a way of understanding yourself better. Whether that is motivations or weaknesses, it can help people develop and reach their potential.

The personality test for psychometric profiling aims to:

-?????????Help personal development

-?????????Understand individual characteristics

-?????????Distinguish the individual’s capacity to fit in a social dynamic/work environment

-?????????Improve self-awareness and social interaction

Personality tests have come on leaps and bounds over the last few years and are regularly sought by hiring managers, psychologists and even matchmakers. According to Forbes, the personality test industry is now worth over $2 billion.

There are many forms of tests used for measuring personality. Popular ones include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and The Big Five Personality test.??

Aptitude Tests

Aptitude tests in psychometric profiling are used to measure an individual’s abilities and overall skill set. Various skills range from:

-?????????Language skills

-?????????Data checking

-?????????Numeric reasoning

-?????????Verbal reasoning

-?????????Spatial reasoning

-?????????Mechanical reasoning

-?????????Work sampling ?

Aptitude tests are valuable in assessing an individual’s strengths and weaknesses. While beneficial to companies and individuals in the workplace, aptitude tests can also help students decide on appropriate career paths.

Common aptitude tests include verbal aptitude tests and numerical aptitude tests.?

Memory Tests

Understanding how a person’s memory works is another important feature of psychometric profiling. This skill reveals how well people store information and includes both short-term and long-term memory capabilities. Other benefits include:

-?????????Evaluating visual, auditory, delayed and memory retrieval

-?????????Improving memory overtime through memory activation

-?????????Checking for memory loss

-?????????Accessing memory to uncover issues like learning disorders or trauma

Popular memory tests include the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) or the California Verbal Learning Test. ?

Psychological Tests

Psychometric tests can also be used to evaluate psychological issues such as anxiety, depression and other forms of mental illness. Psychometric risk profiling is important to:

-?????????Diagnose a mental illness

-?????????Distinguish between neurological or physical disorder

-?????????Evaluating depression or violent behaviour

Psychometric risk profiling supplies a crucial measurement for the safety of individuals and the wider community. Courses such as First Aid for Mental Health provided by UKCPD or the Beck Depression Inventory can be utilised to support this essential need for psychological evaluation.

How to Pass a Psychometric Test

There’s no trick to psychometric profiling. The whole point of it is to find out an accurate assessment of a person. So, there’s no revision or cheat book required. The best thing to do is answer each question as honestly as possible.

Now, if you’re going for a job at a company, it’ll be beneficial to research the company values beforehand to see if you’ll be a good fit in terms of your personality. This is also something you can take into the interview process.

Ask yourself, do the company values match your own??

What Is the Ideal Psychometric Profile for Companies?

Every company will differ in values and culture. Some businesses operate in high-stake corporate environments where they’re looking for acute aptitude, fast decision making, and professionalism above personality.

Other companies might be looking for patience and creativity with a relaxed personality. Regardless of the business, the key is to test psychometrics as accurately as possible. The solution is adopting the best testing methods.

Now, we all know that our personalities switch between being at home and being at work. This might not apply to everyone. But overall, most people don’t show their true colours at work to remain professional or stay in what we call – ‘work mode’.

So, companies need to have a targeted method of psychometric profiling that shows personalities and behaviours at work. At UKCPD, we use the award-winning Inventory for Work Attitude & Motivation (iWAM).

iWAM is a unique psychometric tool that measures motivation within a work context. Awarded the “Best Psychometric Profiling UK” in 2016 by Acquisition International, our Psychometric profiling programme explains, predicts and influences performance at work for companies and individuals.

What makes iWAM so effective is it’s a targeted psychometric tool, focusing on?meta-programme filters?within context-specific environments to avoid the “broad brush” approach adopted by other tools.

Its so useful as part of professional development, we include it as part of our ILM Level 5 Certificate in Leadership & Management

If you’re interested in our targeted psychometric tools for recruitment or personal development, get in touch. With psychometric profiling, you can understand every essential detail required to reach your potential or hire the perfect candidate.???