How to succeed at psychometric tests

Psychometric testing is controversial – yet it's popular with human resource managers and recruiters. They see it as a quick and efficient way of sorting people.

From their point of view the issue is simple; a recruit’s CV, interviews and references tell managers about a person’s skills, experience and functional ability. It is harder to get important objective information about personality – in particular a candidate's ability to mesh with a corporate culture.

That's the sales pitch. In reality stressed recruiters use a barrage of different tests, including psychometrics, to speed up hiring.

Some tests are automated. Candidates sit at computers – perhaps in a recruitment company’s offices – and work through on-screen tests. In other cases the tests are paper based and professionals supervise the testing.

At a senior level these tests are a waste of time without a qualified and experienced professional taking charge. The results are complex to interpret and sensible analysis is beyond the scope of a layperson.

It might be fine to hire a cleaner on the basis of an automated test, but not a knowledge worker.

My psychometric test experience

I experienced psychometric testing in the 1990s. After a series of intense interviews for a senior position I took the tests. The session lasted for around four hours, almost without a break. In my case I warmed up with what looked like IQ tests and moved on to logical reasoning exercises.

Next was a long and vaguely baffling exercise where I had to choose from seemingly random pairs of job titles in order of preference. For example, the test might pair 'janitor' and 'rocket scientist'.

Picking one of those two isn’t hard. In fact, the test was obviously designed for an American audience and included job descriptions that, while not incomprehensible, certainly were not familiar.

Finally there were the real psychometric tests – I suspect the job-ranking test might be a form of psychometric exercise too. Answering the questions isn’t difficult; the tester asked me not to think too hard but to go with my first response to any question.

By the end of the four-hour test session I was emotionally drained, physically exhausted, thirsty and hungry. After a 30-minute lunch break I returned for a task-specific question and answer session.

A few days later an industrial psychiatrist called me to discuss the tests. He discussed my longer-term career prospects and plans and made suggestions that I hadn’t otherwise considered.

I worried the tests might show me as an employment basket case – or worse. In fact the news was positive and insightful. It turns out I'm better at certain things that I previously thought. I got the job, but that’s another story.

Going on my experience, I see merit in this kind of testing. Personality is the most important factor when hiring an executive. It's more important than skills and experience and as important as aptitude. It is good to set up objective benchmarks that go beyond the kind of human prejudices we can all be, even unwittingly, guilty of.

The downside of psychometric testing

However, I have two concerns. First, despite what the professionals say, it is possible for people to learn how to answer psychometric tests in a way that portrays them in a favourable light. You can succeed at psychometric tests.

I once interviewed John Wareham a New Zealand-born recruitment guru who helped develop these tests, he said the trick people quickly learn is to avoid the extremes. Most tests ask you to rate things on a scale of 1 to 5 – if you want to get a good job make sure the bulk of your answers cluster around the centre of this range.

On the other hand minor alarm bells ring if you fail to tick any extreme answers. Wareham also said the tests quickly detect any dishonesty by cross-referencing, so answer truthfully or you’ll be exposed as a phony.

My second fear is that managers use it as a way of offloading decision-making responsibility. External objective measures are good, but they can’t make decisions. There’s a temptation to just look at printouts and test scores and not go beyond this to look at other, possibly more compelling, evidence.