May 16, 2011
Aptitude and Profile Tests
Nearly every week a company president or hiring executive asks us if we use any form of psychological or psychometric “evaluation test”.
Our answer: “Yes”.
When the company official then asks “Which brand test do you use?” they are usually surprised by our response: Our own.
Quite frankly, we don’t place much credence in any psychological, profile, or psychometric test where someone has to sit down and fill out either an online or paper based multiple choice type test.
Why? Because the very act of being aware they are being tested … which by default any online or paper test results in … can consciously or unconsciously skew responses leading to unreliable results.
For example, I know how to take a test and rank in the 99% for “sales ability”. Even clever questions that contain “double negatives” meant to cancel each other out are transparent to some test takers. That is assuming the sly question format doesn’t confound the test-taker first. If you want me to score high for “empathy”, “patience” or “good leadership skills” I can give you that result as well. Tell me what you want and I’ll give you the test score you desire (assuming we’re testing behavioral traits and not programming language skills).
Conversely, I’ve witnessed test-takers who knocked themselves out of contention by trying to “guess” the correct answer — which backfired resulting in incorrect results. Even though they were ideally suited for the positions they were applying for.
Then there’s the nagging issue of the well documented, psychological phenomenon that stipulates when someone is aware of being “tested” the outcome is affected by the very awareness itself. For those of you that took a psych 101 or 202 course (All your HR managers should be in this group) this is known as the “Hawthorne Effect”.
When it comes to “fill-in-the-choice” tests I believe we have at least three conditions stacked against us, a) A savvy test taker can goose the desired outcome, b) Someone who thinks they’re savvy inadvertently harms their test score by their incorrect attempt to goose (or guess), and c) The psychological phenomenon known as the Hawthorne Effect.
I should mention there’s also d) External distractions (such as hallway noise, ticking clocks) and e) Environmental variables (slept only 3 hours the night before due to a snow storm delaying the flight, was racing through a thunderstorm to make the interview and is now soaking wet, etc. etc).
There are so many variables potentially at play during a sit down test its not even funny.
So what kind of “test” do we use at IRES? The kind where the
candidates are
not even aware of the test. If we’re looking for a Sales Manager who can “remain composed” under stress or rejection, there’s nothing better than putting that individual through a real life “Stress Test” during the interview process itself. This is far more effective and leads to more reliable results than a paper based test.
We can’t reveal our testing methods as that would give candidates reading this article an unfair advantage. So it will have to remain a proprietary intellectual secret of IRES for our
clients only.
Over the years IRES developed a 21 point system of such “real life” situations that are inter-woven into the interview process itself. While this may stretch the interview process by 7-10 days (a fact we make client officials well aware of), we feel results lead to more reliable behavioral feedback than any essay or “fill-in-the-circle” type of test.
This doesn’t mean all fill-in-the-blank or online profile tests are useless. No, they do have merit. We simply feel real life interactive situations are more reliable than a test taken in locked room for one hour.
Contributed to by Frank G. Risalvato, CPC
President, IRES, Inc.
