Changes to UK employment law under the Employment Rights Bill have expanded 'day one working rights,' granting employees immediate protections and benefits. Notably, employees now have the right to challenge dismissals from their first day, removing the previous two-year qualifying period.
For employers, this change makes it more challenging to let a new hire go if things don’t work out. As a result, many of our clients are feeling increased pressure to ensure they hire the right people from the outset. To support employers in making informed hiring decisions, we have now added psychometric testing to our range of services as an added tool to better assess candidates at interviews.
What is Psychometric Testing?
Psychometric testing is a scientific method used to measure an individual’s cognitive abilities, personality traits, and behavioural tendencies. These tests are commonly used in recruitment to assess whether a candidate is a good fit for a role beyond their qualifications and experience, such as how they might react to different situations and how well they will work alongside other personalities.
Types of Psychometric Tests can be as follows:
- Cognitive Ability Tests to assess a candidate’s problem-solving, numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, and logical thinking.
- Personality Tests evaluate traits like extroversion, conscientiousness, and emotional stability and help to understand how a candidate might fit in to the team.
- Aptitude Tests measure specific skills relevant to the role, such as mechanical reasoning or abstract thinking and assess a candidate’s ability to do the job.
- Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) present work-related scenarios to assess decision-making and problem-solving skills in a candidate during a real life scenario.
Introducing Psychometric Testing will give hiring managers more knowledge to ensure that candidates align with the job role and company culture. With more information about the candidate, they will have better tools to make a decision and less likely to make the wrong hire which could have costly implications.
In summary, Psychometric testing offers the following several key benefits to any hiring process:
- Improved Hiring Decisions Insights into a candidate’s cognitive abilities help you to make data-driven decisions rather than relying solely on CVs/interviews
- Reduces Hiring Bias Standardised assessments minimise unconscious biases and ensure all candidates are evaluated fairly based on their abilities
- Predicts Job Performance Assess skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and resilience
- Enhances Employee Retention Matching candidates to roles more effectively can reduce turnover, as employees are more likely to be satisfied and engaged
- Saves Time and Resources Help filter out unsuitable candidates early in the recruitment process, reducing the time and costs of a lengthier hiring process
- Identifies Leadership Potential Recognise high-potential employees who demonstrate strong leadership, decision-making, and strategic thinking skills
- Improves Team Dynamics Understanding personalities and working styles helps you to build well-balanced teams where members complement each other's strengths and collaborate effectively
- Supports Employee Development Beyond hiring, psychometric testing can be used for employee training and succession planning by identifying areas where employees can grow and improve
Companies such as Unilever and KPMG have reported significant improvements in diversity, hiring efficiency, and employee retention after integrating psychometric assessments into their recruitment strategies.
Additionally, the adoption of psychometric testing in the UK is increasing, with reports indicating that around 70% of UK companies with over 50 employees employ these assessments within their hiring.
Given the rigorous and analytical nature of roles within science companies, implementing psychometric testing could aid in objectively evaluating candidates' cognitive abilities, problem-solving skills, and personality traits, thereby enhancing the precision and effectiveness of recruitment decisions.
How does Psychometric Testing fit into our offering to clients?
Carrot Recruitment have partnered with Clevry, a psychometric testing platform whose mission is to accelerate the world's transition to skills-first hiring. They help companies around the globe find, assess and hire candidates easier. Through Clevry, Carrot offer a fully adaptable suite of personality and psychometric profiling options.
As a thank you to our exclusive partners, we’re currently offering free psychometric profiling for up to 3 final-stage candidates on any roles we’re supporting exclusively.
It’s a great way to gain more insights and added confidence in your hiring decisions — on us! We can also offer this service as an additional extra for clients working with us contingently.
Are you ready to introduce Psychometric Testing into your hiring process to assist you in data-driven decisions, leading to reduced staff turnover and improved retention?
All our assessments are fully adaptable to match specific job requirements and value and a full report is provided to our client upon the completion of each assessment. To find out more about our personality/psychometric profiling, reach out to Martin directly via martin@carrotrecruitment.com
