Most companies are looking to find the highest calibre of candidate to join their team, and therefore are constantly looking for new methods to help them source the best person for the job. It’s generally believed that the most anticipated stage of your job application process is ‘the interview.’ You’ve spent hours rehearsing answers to tons of possible questions, researched the companies background and gotten your head around any useful information you have at your disposal. What more could you possibly prepare for?
The interviewers are going to be looking at your experience and suitability to each particular role, but what else are they looking for? There are companies out there who provide expert online psychometric assessments for use in recruitment and training, and interview skills courses that teach new techniques and provide various types of ability tests to the people conducting these interviews.
So let’s talk about advancements in interview techniques, and why the man behind the desk is conducting just as much preparation for your interview as you are.
Psychometric Testing
Psychometric testing is a popular method of assessing a potential employee’s suitability to a role, whether it is through ability or personality based assessments. The idea behind this is that there are no biases or objective selections when it comes to the successful candidate as all applicants will go through the same selection process. It all sounds a bit daunting, but think about it like this; after all your preparation and research, would you expect the job to go to you, or the managers nephew? Psychometric assessments cut out personal feelings and give a more accurate representation of the applicant’s knowledge of and suitability to the job role.
Behavioural and Personality Assessments
Personality assessments are designed to showcase your abilities in areas such as teamwork, dealing with stressful problems, relationships with others and general people skills. Generally candidates must have a base set of skills and prior knowledge when going into a job role, but particular positions require a certain kind of personality. For example, the door host in a restaurant may have great organisational skills and be fantastic at managing their time efficiently, but without the ability to be calm and assertive when dealing with aggressive complaints then they will crumble within their first week of employment.
Cognitive Ability Tests
These assessments are more to determine a candidate’s general aptitude. They can measure numerical, verbal and reasoning abilities which in turn can reflect a candidate’s ability to attain, store and apply information. It helps to highlight those applicants who are likely to develop well within a company and blossom into a valuable employee. In this assessment the questions are likely to become progressively more difficult to give a comprehensive overall view of the candidate’s cognitive ability.
As you can see there are constant developments and advancements within methods to improving our performance in the workplace, whether it’s assessing your suitability to the role beforehand, analysing your personality traits or developing your skills and approach once you are part of the workforce.
