Learn how AI has revolutionised psychometric talent assessment

COVID-19 has reduced the headcount of many businesses, resulting in skeleton staff. With resources low, but stakes the highest they’ve ever been, it’s important to use the tools available to you to achieve maximum efficiency and productivity. 

This is where AI resources can make a world of difference.

The term ‘talent assessment’ is extremely versatile.

Depending on your business, your industry and your people, the talent assessment activities you participate in will vary.

Forms of talent assessment include work simulation, problem solving tests, intensive interviews, personality tests and psychometric assessments. 

Psychometric talent assessment is used to objectively assess communication style, work style, soft skills and personality traits. 

This form of talent assessment became popular amongst HR professionals in the recruitment industry as they reveal objective insights of the candidate, thereby resulting in a greater chance of making the right hiring decision and heavily reducing the risk involved in growing a business’ workforce.

Psychometric talent assessments can have negative connotations, but this shouldn’t be the case. 

These assessments are not to criticise candidates but are used to understand the personality traits and behaviours a candidate possesses to determine if they are a suitable fit for the position. 

Take AI talent assessment for a test run, create a free account with MyRecruitment+ today.

Scientific framework 

These assessments are based on scientific frameworks and behavioural science, such as the Big Five framework (commonly known as OCEAN).

The assessment covers these five personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness). These assessments are used to determine the type of employee your candidate is, how they would react to the operations and environment of the business and understands the personality traits and behaviour based on biological frameworks and criteria. 

This is incredibly useful when screening multiple candidates for a single position, and for legal purposes to prevent prejudice present in the hiring process. 

Psychometric talent assessment methods

Historically, there are three main methods used in recruitment. 

Online questionnaires

Online questionnaires are completed by the candidate and request they rate themselves against a statement according to “strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree”. The statement can look similar to: “I feel overwhelmed in loud environments”. 

This method is the most commonly used due to its affordability and availability — you can find many websites that offer this assessment for free.

Open-ended tests

The second method is a test, which is very similar to the questionnaire however it includes open ended questions with no prompting to allow the candidate to respond freely. 

The issue with these methods is they rely on self-rating. 

The person chooses the appropriate answer as a reflection of themselves, without any external insights. This is unreliable as to critically analyse oneself is difficult, especially when applying for a job. 

Reactor channel

For this reason, using a reactor channel is common amongst many businesses that are hiring for specific roles or can’t risk mis-hiring. In this method, a candidate attends a meeting in front of 2-3 expert psychologists (the more psychologists on the panel the more objective the findings are) and answers questions. 

This method offers the most valid and reliable results however they are timely and expensive. The validity of their results can also be questioned because, let’s be real, how would you feel if you were answering questions about yourself in front of three strangers assessing you? 

Fear not — AI has revolutionised psychometric talent assessment.

AI psychometric talent assessment

AI psychometric talent assessment is consistent, objective and unbiased as it is an algorithm based on science and years of expert research. 

The algorithm analyses a video recorded by the candidate in a comfortable environment, and generates a report based on visual cues and audio cues (such as eye contact tone of voice). 

AI removes the negative experience associated with psychometric talent assessment as the individual doesn’t feel immense pressure or as though they’re being psychoanalysed. 

The technology is limitless in terms of volume of assessments, which is beneficial to businesses who receive huge amounts of applicants and have to manually process them to determine the most suitable. 

This is incredibly useful at the current point in time as businesses are seeing huge influx in applicants due to COVID-19 heightening the global unemployment rate.

This technology also reduces the manual labour input required by HR for recruitment. 

This technology allows skeleton staff to operate efficiently and effectively, improving productivity, collaboration, whilst also resulting in quality candidates that are most suitable for the company and workplace culture. 

I know I know- you must be thinking this technology is going to cost you your house, car and puppy. On the contrary, it’s actually quite cost effective. 

Remember, recruitment is an investment, the same way you’d invest in a pair of hiking boots or shares, you do so with the long-term vision in mind. If you have the budget for it, don’t be afraid to test tools that will benefit the company in the long run.

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