In reality, smaller businesses offer many advantages big businesses cannot, and there are some great articles describing how they can capitalise on these to become more attractive for talented candidates. We collected experts’ advice on small businesses’ specific hiring challenges, and looked at how using psychometric testing can help small firms put this advice into practice and become more effective not only in attracting but also in identifying top talent.

You could ask how psychometric testing is a new tool. It is not. What’s new, is that nowadays valid, quality tests running on online platforms are both easily accessible and affordable without the need for a large budget.

Whom to hire?

Small companies on the rise often face the dilemma of deciding which positions are most critical to fill first. Bob Marshall in the Wall Street Journal recommends small firms should first select candidates who are flexible enough to accomplish different kinds of tasks: “In a start-up, there are no set jobs. Everyone does everything.” But, how are you going to find out if someone can cover tasks across different fields? It is already a challenge using interviews to learn if a candidate will perform well in roles that are more specific, but in these cases checking previous projects or having the candidate to complete a work sample task can give some insights. However, what sample tasks are you going to give if you are looking for someone with an “all-rounder” profile?

Psychometric reasoning tests appear to be an appropriate tool for assessing the kind of mental ability and speed of thought you are looking for and can complement interviews and CV checks effectively. Different reasoning tests can give objective insights into how a candidate deals with numerical data or written information, and whether they can evaluate information quickly and apply logic to solve tasks in novel situations. Alongside this, amongst other traits personality tests can assess if someone is ready to work independently or to take on responsibility with little supervision. These are all vital assets in a small company.

High stakes hiring decisions

Decreasing the risk of bad hires is the strongest claim for using psychometrics in any organisation independent of its size. A company of 1000 employees would also want the best performing candidates to boost profits and strive for low staff turnover rates to keep replacement related costs low. However, for a 5-person business one or two bad hires can literally bring the company down.

At a 5 person business every hiring decision is of high stakes

Psychometric tests are not behavioural crystal balls telling a candidate’s future with 100% certainty, but research shows that they are much better predictors of future work performance than traditional selection methods.

Scarce HR resources

Without dedicated HR departments, or lacking many people working on recruitment full time, small companies often lack the time and resources to sort through a high volume of resumes, run dozens of reference checks and conduct telephone interviews to pre-select suitable candidates. One way of getting around the issue is finding a way to reduce the number of CVs you receive. Experts at the WSJ advise small businesses to avoid big job boards and focus on niche boards or LinkedIn groups in their area or industry where fewer, but only relevant job seekers will find their job postings.

While it is always a good idea to target your message, if you narrow down your audience too much you are risking not having a big enough candidate pool to choose from and not reaching the talent you are looking for. Psychometrics can be applied as a complementary and less time-consuming method to solve the problem of sifting out unsuitable candidates. One common way of using psychometric testing is to set a benchmark score for each test type and have only candidates scoring above the benchmark qualify for the next round. Using an online test platform, sending out the test invitations and having a quick look at the results takes no more than 5 minutes per candidate. When set properly, these benchmarks provide a clear, relevant standard that candidates need to reach to be considered.

You may be surprised how much resource spent on CV sifting, reference checks and other pre-screening methods, such as phone interviews, can be saved by omitting low performing candidates. To spare significant resources, your benchmark score does not have to be very high. Once you decide to go with psychometrics, your test provider will be able to give advice on best practices in order to get the most out of them.

Hiring freelancers and remote workers

One of the biggest advantages small businesses have over large businesses is their flexibility. This is highly appreciated by people who want to escape the corporate culture of rules and regulations and an asset small companies can capitalise on when competing for talent. Flexibility comes in many forms from no dress codes to flexible working conditions.

Fabio Rosati, Elance CEO and president, on the American Express Open Forum argues that an innovative way for small businesses to level the playing field is to embrace the ever expanding workforce of freelancers and people who prefer working from home or from remote locations: a talent pool rarely accessible for corporations due to their more rigid processes and organisational structure.
Having access to a large and unexploited candidate pool is a great thing, but still here, you do not just want to attract candidates – you want to identify real talent. With some freelance specialists, online reviews and trial projects work well, but if you want to hire permanent off site staff, you are practically back to square one. You have to deal with the CV sifting and reference checks again, only this time, in some cases, you do not even have the option of a personal interview.

Online psychometric tests work the same way in this case as they work with hiring on-location staff. They can be completed from home, and given that less information is available, the extra insights they provide on candidates are even more valuable in these special cases.

It can be challenging to compete for top talent with the bigger players, but small businesses are definitely not in a losing positon. With many advantages over large corporations, they need to find the ways they can rely on them to attract, identify and retain top talent. Implementing psychometric testing into their recruitment process is one way for them to pick up the gauntlet, and a potential solution to some of the HR challenges they are facing.

Talentsift offers psychometric ability and personality tests and the best online assessment centre solution on the market. If you would like to know more about psychometric testing, read our introductory guide on psychometrics, or get in touch and our occupational psychologist experts will readily answer your questions.

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The study walks the reader through the process how a medium-sized tech company effectively implemented psychometric testing in their selection method for the first time. It describes the different aspects of the cooperation between an external psychometric tests provider and a client from the SME sector from the first steps of selecting the ideal test suit, till the final reporting phase and the follow up of the successful candidate’s later work performance.

This study is intended to be an introductory material, an example case for enterprises using psychometric testing for the first time.

If you would like to dig deeper in the subject matter, you might also want to read about the financial aspects of introducing psychometric testing into your recruitment process, or our experts’ tips on what to consider when choosing your test provider.

Click to get the study in pdf!

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As it transpires, there is no universal “startupper profile” that founders would need to live up to or otherwise be doomed to failure. Each project and each team is different, therefore so are the competencies/ personalities required by them.

So how can investors and project owners decide who they need on the team?

First, you need to define the challenges the members of the team are likely to face. You can start off this exercise by looking at the various roles the members of the team will take and define the requirements against each of these profiles. You then need to match these requirements against a competency framework (like Talentsift’s) and pinpoint the personality traits you deem most relevant.

These competency scales are likely to differ for each position. For example, when assessing a member of the software design team, one would probably place emphasis on their logical/abstract and numerical reasoning skills, while verbal reasoning abilities are probably less important. On the personality side; analytical thinking, quality focus and resilience are all personality traits desirable for someone in such a role. Following the same logic, the company’s CEO will need very different competencies; including skills in directing others, negotiation & influencing, setting vision & strategy, etc. Being an intensive early stage venture, probably all members of a startup team need to bear competencies like drive & determination, adaptability, or developing skills & knowledge.

Once you have defined the individual profiles you would like to see on your team, you need to double-check whether these cover all competencies you would expect from the team as a whole. If not, you may wish to consider filling those competency gaps by adding new roles to the team.

The final step is running an individual level appraisal for each of the team members, matching the individual against the “ideal” personality profile. Based on the results you can then consider each candidate’s distance from the “ideal profile” and assess where development or support is needed. You can also consider how the group matches against your ideal mix by plotting on a grid where the team is on the scales that have been deemed relevant. This will help you identify the scales where none of the group members are strong and pinpoint where the biggest clashes are likely to be between individuals who are very different.

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These are the things HR professional expect from a modern sifting tool:

Relevant norm groups: who wants to compare today’s candidates to graduates of the eighties or nineties?

Clean and modern interface for taking the test: too many of today’s sifting tools are built on legacy systems whose design is laughable to candidates ‘trained’ by the products of companies such as Apple that consider design crucial in everything they do.

Flexible and easy-to-follow pricing for easy planning of that recruitment budget: you shouldn’t have to rely on Excel formulas based on test types, time limits and a bunch of other factors just to estimate a campaign budget?

A comprehensive solution that can measure a range of skills used in various industries and for selecting people into diverse positions

#1 – Comprehensive Solution

When we developed Talentsift’s psychometric tests, we thought long and hard about a balance between keeping things simple and being able to measure everything important: this led us to develop three test types:

- abstract reasoning, measuring candidate’s ability to perform in unfamiliar situations and to connect the dots

- numerical reasoning, to measure basic mathematical logic, which is increasingly a requirement in even non-technical jobs due to the all-encompassing presence of technology in everything we do

- and verbal reasoning, measuring the ability to comprehend written information and make logical conclusions

Since using any or all of these test types comes at no extra cost, you have the freedom to use them in any combination and give them any weight you feel is suitable without having to worry about the budget. If you’re not sure about which ones to use, a trained occupational psychologist can help you decide.

#2 – Norm Groups

It sounds like the mother of all common places, but it’s true: technological advances have changed and will repeatedly change the workplace to such an extent that we all have to re-learn the use of the tools of the trade multiple times in our lifetimes. This is why it is important to find employees that really perform above average when compared to their true peers, and this is why an up-to-date norm group is so important. Talentsift’s tests were trialled using a 2013 norm group that was representative of the UK recent graduate population by age, gender, place of residence and ethnicity.

#3 – Clean and modern interface

What many HR providers forget is that the candidates that will use their testing platforms are technologically savvy and use and expect beautifully and cleanly designed tech products and web applications from the likes of Apple and Google. They expect to see the same when they are invited to a job test, and they are often sorely disappointed. We decided to change that and have the most beautifully designed testing platform on the market. In addition to helping candidates concentrate on the test and give their best performance, this is one of the most effective ways for an employer to make a good first impression.

#4 – Flexible Pricing

We know how frustrating it is to get lost in  a multi-page proposal and desperately try to figure out how much it will even cost to use the given service. This is especially true for HR services where industry customs call for pricing models based on the number and types of tests used, the number of candidates tested and the duration of the campaign: in other words, on factors that are next to impossible to predict when evaluating a potential supplier.

We decided to radically simplify things for the busy professional we know you all are: if you know how many positions you need to fill, you immediately know how much it will cost.

Interested in how this works or more details? Get in touch – we have case studies and examples of how this would work in your organisation.

The post Four Things That Set Apart Talentsift’s Psychometric Tests appeared first on Talentsift.

These tests allow accurate measurement of the applicants’ abilities in areas such as verbal, numerical and conceptual thinking and thus help to match people’s skills to role requirements. Assessing whether a candidate fits the organisation is not only beneficial for the business in terms of higher productivity, long term retention and reduced rates of employee turnover, but is also important in relation to job satisfaction and well-being of the employees.

Key features of psychometric tests

Standardised: everyone completes equivalent (but not the same) tests under the same conditions

Objective: reduced degree of bias and subjectivity

Reliable: results are consistent over time and are fairly resistant to outside factors

Valid: psychometric tests measure job relevant factors that can predict future job performance

Ability tests are standardised meaning that every applicant is required to complete items of the same difficulty under the same conditions ensuring a fair assessment. This is a distinct advantage over interviews, which are subject to bias. Psychometric tests are reliable, which means that a person’s scores are unlikely to vary over time. Thus, we can be sufficiently certain that differences in candidates’ scores reflect real differences and are not artefacts of the testing situation.

Candidates’ scores can be easily compared to one another by using comparison group data (which detail how well people have done who have taken the test previously). Furthermore, online tests allow candidates to complete the tests at any location and at a convenient time. If they are invited to the next face-to-face stage, a second testing session can occur to ensure they were the ones who filled out the original test.

Online testing is also beneficial to the organisation, as there are no associated costs with administration such as supervision, hiring a venue or compensation for the applicants’ travel expenses. Having a comprehensive selection process that relies on information drawn from multiple sources (e.g. interview, references, tests) demonstrates an organisation’s commitment to fair and professional testing processes and will pay dividends in terms of the quality of people they hire.

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