By Mashum Mollah
The workforce is the most important part and parcel of any organization. This essentially means that better is the state of working people in an organization, more is the proportional productivity. However, one of the more troublesome area in this regard has been the weakened mental state pertaining to the candidates appointed into the company and then the inability to adjust and gear up to the levels required in a high-pressure environment. Here comes the requirement of psychometric assessment tests in judging the extent to which these candidates, who are otherwise quite good in accordance to their academic and professional qualifications, really perform in the face of adverse conditions. These tests are held via a series of evaluation parameters which typically aim at driving the candidates into unfamiliar grounds and then assess them by their actions in those unfamiliar waters. Henceforth, the scores generated help the assessment team to have a good in-depth knowledge on how the candidate would perform in the real world, under severe stress and challenges.
Metrics involved :
These tests generally use a number of different metrics for the evaluation process. These metrics can be tailor-made in accordance with the nature of the company the interview would be held for. Thus, the benchmark for the interview is already set before the candidate starts. Once the tests begin, a series of cognitive as well as personality-based tests are being carried out to judge the candidate’s mental strength. The parameters for the test are mapped in accordance to the specific needs of the role for which the interview is held. On commencement of the interview, a clear picture is obtained for the candidate’s performance when performing the set of activities which he would be needed to work on when hired. One of the most utilized parameters is the Semantic Differential Scale to judge how the candidate behaves and responds in face of two very extreme situations. The situations the candidates are exposed would, therefore, be completely contradictory and extremist in nature.
Nature of competencies :
So based on the performance of the candidate on the face of such a scale of mental status, the interview board can decide on the core competencies of that candidate in the better fashion. Often, by virtue of these tests, the candidates are being categorized into different pre-set realms. The most common ones are socially acceptable, extremism in response, deviation to neutral, careless response and genuinely responsive. Each of the afore-mentioned criterions is adjusted via a potent scale against which the board reviews the candidate and verifies whether the candidate has been completely truthful with the nature of response he has given through the test course. An individual must be valued and judged in accordance with the levels he can raise his mind to and the judgment should also bear the levels to which the particular individual is ready to accept and embrace pressure and challenges. These two qualities are the most important attributed which really affect one candidate in the long run after being completely exposed to the ever demanding grinds of the corporate life.
Sections covered via the testing procedure :
Often, a candidate would try to deviate a course via incorrect responses, mostly trying to deviate into a neutral edge. The scale and the overall score henceforth differentiate the genuine nature of the candidate and highlight the flaws which he has tried to mask. This again results in extreme differentiation amongst the true mental status of the different candidates coming in for the interview. Quite often the tests are comprised of distinct sections for testing all the portions pertaining to a human being. These sections comprise Traits, Motives, Knowledge, Skill, and Values. These five form the basis of any human conscience which can be methodologically treated and tested by the psychometric assessment tests. By virtue of the test results, which are based on these five incremental parameters, the tests are then based on the core competencies of the candidates in question. Threshold-based competency and the differentiation competencies are the two major groups which are utilized in this regard. The threshold based competencies are essentially the ones which would not distinguish between a great performer and an average one. However, the Differentiating one makes it a strong point to distinguish between the pool of candidates on the virtue of the traits which makes one stand out in a crowd and can be marked as a deciding factor in the employment policy.
Results obtainable through the tests :
These competency-based tests are set up in accordance to the specific nature of role for which the candidate is interviewed for. This directly results in the increment in performance. In addition, this results in the identification of the necessary training modules required for the development of the candidate. This leads to the gradual ramification of the business modules with the inherent corporate environment. The smoothening out of the recruitment procedure results in the overall consistency of the employee pool of the company and result in better development and growth of each individual employee in the overall organization. Thus the tests can actually help in the unification of the entire process, accentuated by the incremental approach of the hiring process and henceforth resulting in the granular level uplift of the revenue system. Core competency increment, better resource manipulation as well as overall revenue increment marks the involvement of psychometric assessment tests in the corporate environment globally.
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