Psychometric testing hit the headlines recently – and it is not often you can report that – with the UK’s Department for Work and Pension (DWP) under fire for obliging jobseekers to com-plete “bogus” psychometric tests.
The test, named My Strengths, apparently devised by Downing Street’s behavioural insight unit, was exposed according to The Guardian as a “sham” with results having no relation to the answers.
Some of the statements on the My Strengths test include: “I never go out of my way to visit museums,” and: “I have not created anything of beauty in the last year.” People are asked to grade their answers from “very much like me” to “very much unlike me.” Respondents were assigned a set of five positives including “love of learning” and “curiosity” and “originality.”
The DWP reportedly claimed the test is “scientifically shown to find people’s strengths.” However, those taking the psychological survey found that by clicking on the same answer repeatedly, users will get the same set of personality results as those entering a completely opposite set of answers.
In general, many are highly scep-tical about the value of psycho-metric assessment and episodes such as the My Strengths kerfuff le do little to help its reputation. Many more, frankly, know very little about it. But psychometric testing is now used by over 80% of the Fortune 500 companies in the US and by over 75% of the Times Top 100 compa-nies in the UK. Banks, management consultancies, local authorities, the civil service, police forces, fire services and the armed forces – to name but a few – all make extensive use of psychometric testing, both for selecting candidates and devel-oping talent internally.
According to The Association of Graduate Recruiters, blue chip com-panies are using psychometric per-sonality tests, as well as verbal and numerical reasoning tests, to select graduate employees because they no longer trust degrees. They blame grade inf lation (well over half of students now graduate with a first or 2:1) and the wide variation in standards between universities.
“There is less faith in the ability of degree classes to accurately mirror the graduate competencies that matter,” says Carl Gilleard, the chief executive of the Association. “Research has shown there is little consistency not only between the standard of degree awarded between universities but between subjects at the same university.’’
But, aside from pure academic ability, employers – including family offices - are increasingly trying to identify ‘soft skills’ such as communication, leadership, time management and emotional intelli-gence. “In this increasingly compet-itive global economy,” says Gilleard, “they want individuals who are going to grow within the organisa-tion and make a difference and that is not always ref lected in the class of degree.” Some 90% of employers who responded to the Associa-tion’s survey said they believed psychometric testing of attributes such as logical thinking and ability under pressure was a useful way of assessing candidates.
Not surprisingly, psychometric assessment is big business. For instance, the UK-based global leader in such testing, SHL, which supplies assessments for 80% of the FTSE 100 and boasts Barclays, Coca-Cola and Vodafone among its clients, was sold last year to Virginia-based human capital firm Corporate Executive Board for $660m.
Historical use
Rober t Kapla n, a n Austra lia n forensic psychiatrist and author on the subject of psychometric assessment, claims the Chinese had a relat ively sophist icated civil service testing programme more than 4000 years ago. Over time, the Chinese evolved testing to diverse topics such as civil law, military affairs, agriculture, rev-enue, and geography, even run-ning for public office. The Western world lea rned about Chi nese testing programs through British missionaries and diplomats who encouraged the East India Com-pany in 1832 to copy the Chinese testing system as a method for selecting employees for overseas duty. When this proved successful, the British government adopted a similar system of testing for its civil service in 1855, with France and Germany following suit.
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, discussed how individual members in a species differ and how they possess characteristics that are more or less adaptive and suc-cessful. Those who are adaptive and successful are the ones that survive and give way to the next generation, who would be just as or more than adaptive and successful.
Dar win’s ideas inspired the ant hropologist (and his ha lf-cousin) Sir Francis Galton to study human beings and how they differ and more importantly, how to measure those differences.
During the 1880s, Galton, often described as the “father of psy-chometrics,” persuaded over 9,000 people to be personality-tested in his “laboratory” at the Science Museum in South Kensington.
But, according to the journalist Madeline Bunting, the first person-ality test – similar to those in use today – was developed by the US army in 1917. They wanted to weed out recruits who couldn’t stand the stress of battle. Faced with mil-lions of conscripts military chiefs yearned for a simple method to select one person for fighter-pilot training, another for the pay corps or another for the military police. Psychologists hurried to meet the demand, and two World Wars later, psychologist-designed testing was sweeping America.
A myriad of tests
As testing practices have become more refined, the ambitions of the testers have developed from merely detecting ‘positive’ personalities to probing the ‘dark side’: pathology and personality disorders. Increas-ingly, tests are used to try to detect high-f lyers who may subsequently derail, or to stop psychopaths get-ting recruited.
Today, psychometric assessment is divided into two broad categories: aptitude (or ability) tests and per-sonality assessments.
There are at least 5000 aptitude and ability tests on the market today. Common categories include verbal ability (assessing spelling, grammar, the ability to recog-nise analogies and follow instruc-tions), numeric ability (basic a rit hmet ic, mat hemat ics a nd numerical sequences) and abstract reasoning (patterns, logic). There are also aptitude tests that measure specific skills, such as spatial ability, mechanical reasoning, fault diagnosis and data checking.
Raven’s Progessive Matrices is an example of an abstract rea-soning test. Candidates are shown a sequence of shapes or patterns, and asked to identify the final part of the sequence.
Perhaps of the tests most useful to a family office are those that assess personality as they attempt to reveal certain traits or types, which are considered relevant to how a person will, for example, perform in their job or fit into a company cul-ture. Candidates respond to a series of statements by stating the degree to which they agree with the state-ment or by selecting the response, they feel is the truest. Unlike ability assessments, there are no right or wrong answers.
A statement may look like this:
1\. I enjoy parties and other social occasions.
A) strongly disagree
B) disagree
C) neutral
D) agree
E) strongly agree
These assessments can involve hun-dreds of multiple choice questions, the responses of which are used to create a personality profile. These assessments can be used to identify positive qualities, such as adapt-ability, leadership skills and ability to make tough decisions. But they can also investigate ‘negative’ quali-ties, such as carelessness, wasteful-ness and aggressiveness.
Globally, the most popular per-sonality assessment is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, used by the vast majority of Fortune 100 com-panies in assessing candidates. It is based on the work of psychologist Carl Jung, who proposed we expe-rience the world in four principal psychological ways: sensation, intu-ition, feeling, and thinking.
Via a series of multiple choice questions, the assessment attempts to identify ‘type preferences’ in the candidate: whether he has tenden-cies towards Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I), Sensing (S) or Intu-ition (I), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) – and finally Judging (J) or Per-ception (P).
These are built up into a person-ality ‘type’, for example ESTJ or INFP. In theory, your type will determine behaviours or preferences.
Its attraction arguably lies in its seductive simplicity: according to the MBTI, we all conform to one of 16 character types. But that sim-plicity is precisely what makes some people sceptical, and many experi-enced users of psychometrics prefer more nuanced personality ‘trait’ assessments, as opposed to some-thing that labels candidates as a cer-tain ‘type.’
Today most job applicants will have experienced at some point a psychometric test. How much value you as an employer place on such assessments and their usefulness is up to you and your company.
