How To Recruit Online with Psychometric Tests

If you are doing a job search for graduate jobs, part time jobs or in fact any job you will more than likely have a CV. You may even have employed someone to write your CV or teach you how to write a CV but the question is, how useful is a CV in the 21^st century?

I spoke to Nik Plevan, founder and Managing Director of e-Talent, an Edinburgh based software company that produces online recruitment screening systems for companies and online recruitment agencies. In Nik’s opinion the way employers have gone about recruiting for the last 50 years is no longer relevant. The use of the internet in the recruitment process and meant that it’s all change for the way companies choose their shortlisted candidates.

Nik told me, “You should really stop taking paper applications because those invariably lead to huge amounts of work and effort which is ultimately fruitless because you’re working with data which is not particularly helpful. Whereas if you asked people to apply online you can make the application an interactive process. The candidate can go through a series of tests to try and identify characteristics that you can use to base your decisions on. In traditional recruitment what usually happens is the HR Manager spends most of their time rejecting people. Whereas with the recruitment that I’m suggesting you would spend all of your time selecting the best people from the good people.”

So the online screening systems that Nik’s company produces will incorporate a psychometric test that ultimately generates for the recruiter that is much more useful in the selection process than traditional techniques.

Ultimately in traditional recruitment you are at the mercy of the candidate and how good they were at presenting themselves and convincing you without really knowing whether they have the necessary soft skills or not. By using some psychometrics you can ensure everyone on your shortlist is likely to be suitable for the job and identify warning signs early on in the process thereby preventing you recruiting the wrong people.

So is the CV dead? 

Well not exactly. Nik agrees CVs still have a place but in his opinion it is not at the start of the recruitment process. “Once you’ve actually got the people with right soft skills then the CV comes into play and you can drill down in their experience. But the critical aspect is that by then you already know they have the right soft skills. So you’re really identifying the best people out of the good people.”

For more information about the term psychometric test see this article on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_testing

For details about online recruitment agencies and business visit the government website https://www.gov.uk/employment-agencies-and-businesses/overview

If you are applying for a job and want some great tips on how to to do a successful job interview see my blog post and video with Magda Tomaszewska from CV World by clicking here.  

To see the video: Online Recruitment with a Psychometric Test – The new way for employers and recruitment agencies follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfE1izd5sWU