The psychometric tests are a tool widely used in human resources for selection, promotion, and personnel management processes.
These evaluations measure and reveal aspects of a person that help predict their behavior or performance within a company. These aspects can include
- Aptitudes
- Personality
- Motivations
- Values
Other elements can also be included depending on the particular needs of each company or trends in the labor market, such as commitment to social responsibility principles or awareness of workplace safety, among others.
That said, it's worth evaluating whether those additional elements truly qualify as psychometric measures or are better classified as competency assessments.
Beyond explaining the theory behind what a psychometric test is, how it's applied, and what it consists of, this article aims to help you use these tests more effectively and complement them with other elements that give you a fuller picture of the people you want to evaluate.
It also aims to help you understand how these tests relate to a company's job profiles, positions, and open roles.
Work-Related Aptitudes
Aptitudes refer to those abilities — whether cognitive, logical-mathematical reasoning, interpersonal, verbal expression, listening skills, or mechanical skills — that have to do with how a person acts when facing a given situation.
- Cognitive aptitudes
- These are the abilities a person develops in a work setting through experience or theoretical knowledge — that is, knowledge they've absorbed over time and that helps them carry out a work process or meet a job objective.
- For example, listening skills don't develop the same way for a sales manager as they do for a production line operator. The former likely needs to read between the lines to interpret a customer's needs from what they hear, while the latter depends on clear, explicit instructions to carry out a task.
- Attention to detail, self-criticism, adherence to process, and autonomy can all be considered cognitive aptitudes.
- Logical-mathematical aptitudes
- Another type of aptitude has to do with a person's ability to solve problems through logical reasoning that allows them not just to solve the problem, but to do so as efficiently and effectively as possible.
- While this refers to mathematical reasoning, it really has more to do with how people think, reason, and apply logic to solve problems that come up in their day-to-day work — and the approach they take will be shaped by other aptitudes, values, or knowledge.
- As mentioned, logical-mathematical processes prioritize not just solving the problem but also how it's solved, and ethical considerations can come into play here.
- A salesperson might hit their targets by misleading customers, but that doesn't mean their reasoning model — even if it achieves the goal — is compatible with what the company is looking for.
- Interpersonal aptitudes
- Here, the goal is to observe and understand how a person relates to others: how capable they are of communicating, and how well they can understand what other people need based on what they perceive from them.
- Also known as social aptitudes, these tend to be very important in roles closely tied to customer service or that depend constantly on contact with internal customers or coworkers.
- Mechanical or practical aptitudes
- Here, the goal is to understand what a team member is physically capable of doing in a work process — for example, whether they can build or manufacture a metal part, fill out a report correctly, use certain software, and so on.
- It's not always possible to know how skilled someone is until you see them working, but we can get a preview of what that would look like.
- Abstract reasoning
- Among the different psychometric aptitude tests, you'll find ones that measure abstract reasoning — the kind of reasoning that allows someone to conceptualize ideas, values, purposes, or objectives that need to be translated into work.
- These are extremely important because they speak to a current or potential employee's ability to understand the elements that define a company's organizational culture and its standards of performance and quality.
- A well-understood vision and mission can translate into specific objectives within a job role and into a sustained effort to meet them.
Professional psychometric testing
Apply validated psychometric assessments across your hiring processes.
Personality Tests
Another type of psychometric test helps measure or understand the personality of candidates or employees. These evaluate the behavioral styles or emotional patterns that people show or express.
When it comes to carrying out a work process, relating to other people, or meeting certain objectives, personality shapes how it's done — and it can even determine a large part of a person's performance.
- Temperament
- Some people have a more dominant temperament and may be well suited for certain types of leadership or negotiation roles. Others are more easygoing and fit perfectly into a customer service role where the goal is customer satisfaction.
- Behavior
- Anticipating how people will behave becomes essential if we want to know how they'll act — not just while doing their job, but also in their day-to-day interactions with the rest of the people in the company.
- Emotions
- Knowing how much control a person has over their own emotions gives us a preview of how they would act under stress or when preventing or resolving conflicts. Strong emotional intelligence enables better decision-making.
The combination of these personality and aptitude traits produces a profile that we need to compare against what the role requires.
Among the different psychometric personality tests, you'll find various inventories or questionnaires designed to measure the most relevant personality traits. Some models measure different aspects of personality, such as:
- temperament
- extraversion
- openness
- agreeableness
- conscientiousness
- anxiety
- dominance
- sensitivity
- imagination
- emotional adjustment
- social involvement
- achievement orientation
These are just a few examples, though it all depends on the job profile in question — that's where you'll find what you actually need to evaluate.
These models help build a general picture of personality, but they're not the only ones out there, and they can be complemented with other types of tests.
Motivational Tests
Knowing what drives a person to do their job, and how strongly, helps us understand their drive toward achieving objectives. That's why there are tests designed to measure or understand people's motivations.
When you have someone with strong capabilities for a role — advanced skills and experience — you may realize that person lacks the motivation to actually perform it, whether because of a bad past experience or simply because they're aiming for a more specialized or higher-level role. That creates a bottleneck, and their capability ends up limited by their own motivation.
At this point, it's worth remembering that motivators can be both intrinsic and extrinsic:
- Intrinsic motivators
- These depend on the employee themselves — their own aspirations, family factors, values, and needs. This type of motivator originates in the employee's own worldview, as well as their personality and emotions.
- Extrinsic motivators
- These don't depend on the employee, but they do affect them. For example, being recognized for good work depends more on a leader's ability to give that recognition, though doing so creates a boost of motivation for the employee.
- Another example is having a healthy work environment, workplace flexibility, and similar factors.
Why understand people's motivation?
Being able to understand people's motivation helps determine the right incentives to keep someone in their role over the short, medium, and long term — and also to help employees reach ever-higher standards of performance and meet increasingly ambitious objectives.
A very common mistake in human capital management is failing to understand what motivates employees. As a result, companies design bonus or compensation schemes that aren't always a good fit for the type of motivations that predominate among their people.
Some people are motivated more by stability, and they likely want a steady, well-paid salary and a long-term career within the company. Others — more common on sales teams — likely want a more variable salary based on commissions that lets them reach higher compensation in line with their growing effort.
Obviously, the first type of person won't be a good fit for a commission-based scheme, while the second is likely to feel capped by a fixed compensation structure.
Among the different psychometric motivation tests, you'll find various scales or questionnaires that help measure the most relevant motivational factors, such as:
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs (which includes physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization needs).
- McClelland's needs model (which includes the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power).
- Herzberg's two-factor model (which includes hygiene factors and motivator factors).
These models help build a general picture of motivation, but they're not the only ones out there, and they can be complemented with other types of tests that measure more specific aspects, such as interest in the work, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and more.
Values Tests
Values tests help us understand the values and principles held by our employees.
This is a highly relevant aspect for making sure that both future talent and talent already being developed within the company adapt to the organizational culture, its values, and its principles.
Even where values and principles are commonly accepted within a social group, some will be a priority for the company and tied directly to its identity — including its employees.
If a person is unable to adapt to them, conflicts of understanding or differences in perspective are likely to arise as they work within the company.
It's worth noting that it's important not to judge, and to always try to understand why employees think the way they do, or under what context they're answering the test.
It's possible that employees' principles are interpreted differently than we interpret them ourselves. That's why job interviews and subsequent evaluations can help complement and validate those results, to find out whether their understanding of those principles matches what we're looking for in our company.
It's even possible that they do apply the principles and values we're looking for — they just express them differently.
Types of values tests
Among the different psychometric values tests, you'll find various scales or questionnaires designed to measure the most relevant value factors.
Below are some common types of psychometric tests related to values:
Allport Test
- This test measures the moral principles and professional values that guide an individual's conduct.
- It provides information about the person — their knowledge, aptitudes, goals, and personal and professional development.
- The Allport test has two parts: a series of statements scored based on agreement or disagreement, and a ranking of options.
- Some example statements on the Allport test touch on the importance of science, religion, career preferences, and attitudes toward artists.
- The answers help reveal the candidate's values and ethics.
Zavic Test:
- The Zavic test evaluates both values and interests.
- It consists of 20 items — 10 that assess values and 10 that assess interests.
- It's useful for learning more about the candidate and how well they align with the company's values.
When it comes to tests that evaluate values, we should always take into account the socio-cultural context in which they're applied — or at least the context the candidates are immersed in.
Moral questions differ widely from one society to another, between countries, or even between organizational cultures. That's why it's important to consider these differences and, whenever possible, apply tests adapted to our own social contexts.
Intelligence
Finally, there are intelligence tests, which help identify or evaluate a person's potential for solving complex problems. The difference between this type of test and those that evaluate logical-mathematical aptitudes lies precisely in the complexity of the problems presented.
Intelligence and work processes
To measure intelligence, you need to consider the work processes tied to the role you're trying to fill. Not everyone expresses and develops their intelligence in the same way.
Among the different psychometric intelligence tests, you'll find various types of tests or questionnaires designed to measure the most relevant intelligence factors, such as:
- Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (which includes linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligence)
- Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence (which includes analytical, creative, and practical intelligence)
- Spearman's general intelligence model (which includes the g factor — general reasoning ability — and s factors, which refer to abilities specific to each domain).
These models help build a general picture of intelligence, but they're not the only ones out there, and they can be complemented with other types of tests that measure more specific aspects, such as IQ, memory, attention, perception, and more.
Points to Consider
As mentioned, psychometric tests aren't decisive on their own, but they are a contributing factor. That means they're not recommended as the sole basis for a hiring decision — they should be complemented with other types of evaluations, such as interviews, document reviews, and references.
In that sense, calling them a contributing factor means they are necessary in the process as long as they're validated alongside other tests and by a professional in personnel selection.
Later on, we'll cover some elements to consider when applying psychometric tests.
