Employers endorse screen test for candidates

Filling a job vacancy or selecting a member of staff for promotion is an important part of the HR or personnel management function.

Getting it wrong can cost a company money, but get it right and both company and employee benefit.

Recruitment, HR and training consultancy Eden Brown is offering clients Psychometric Testing of job candidates or staff being considered for promotion to aid their decisions.

Leading the Eden Brown team of qualified occupational psychometric testers is Alison Austen who is licensed to administer and interpret this method of assessing the personality and ability of candidates. Four colleagues who have also been trained to administer psychometric tests as well as conduct on-line testing support Alison.

Alison Austen said: “Psychometric testing is an additional assessment tool to help managers make their selection decisions. Candidates value the feedback which they receive from the process and feel that they have been given the same opportunity as other candidates when applying for a specific vacancy. Several of our clients are finding it invaluable. LE Group (London Electricity) introduced it to their graduate intake selection process, where candidate Greg Richardson had this to say about the Psychometric test undertaken at Eden Brown.

“I undertook two psychometric tests as part of an overall testing programme, one mathematical and one verbal reasoning. While the two tests were narrow in scope, when added to structured interviews I could demonstrate additional skills of communication, leadership, conflict and decision making. When combined with a presentation, an essay and another interview within LE Group I was able to demonstrate my skills in information gathering, compiling information and discuss ideas of interest to LE Group. Such an all-embracing series of tests gave me an insight into LE Group and they had a better assessment of candidate capabilities.”

Psychometric testing is now routinely used by 90 of the FTSE 100 companies and there is growing interest from others who see such testing as a means to help managers understand their own strengths and weaknesses.

Eden Brown warned that growth of psychometric testing is evidenced by the increase on the internet of unregulated recruitment tests, many of which are ill-considered, over-simplified and give little useful information.

In any growth market there are always the doubtful offerings so it pays to deal with qualified, reputable testing authorities.

(SP)