How Important Are Aptitude Assessments Among Job Applicants?

Not all qualified candidates are fit for the job. People are different from each other, after all. Some fit in better and faster than others, while others take the time or do not even fit at all. Similarly, maintaining positive relations with each other is almost as good as getting all the work done when it comes to the workplace.

This is why the recruitment process must be stringent, careful, and meticulous right from the get-go. Since the recruitment team serves as the company’s gatekeeper, processing whom to let in is extremely important.

With this, the recruitment process involves several steps that consider not only the qualifications of the applicant but their compatibility as well with the company’s values and its work environment. 

In the hiring process, recruiters use aptitude assessments and other psychometric tests to understand the candidates better. Or, more appropriately, to understand and predict whether or not they’re fit for the job. 

But, aside from these, below are some reasons how aptitude assessments among job applicants are important.

1. Personality

It’s always been said that each individual’s personality is different from one another, which may or may not be accurate, depending on who asks the question. Regardless, personality is the framework or the blueprint on how humans think and behave.

So, the person’s way of thinking and behaving is considered in terms of personality. The question is: how important is knowing the personality in the hiring process?

Imagine working in the food industry, where customers are most often hostile and are always on the go. For someone who’s socially inept, the likelihood of survival in a setup like this is extremely low. It might even lead to dissatisfaction in service quality, thereby harming the business itself.

In this case, this employee is not exactly wrong. It just so happened that their personality doesn’t match the job’s demands. Despite being perfectly qualified, this person just doesn’t have the ‘personality’ for working in the service industry.

This is why knowing a candidate’s personality beforehand is crucial. Administrators can use certain personality profiling tests, such as the Myer-Briggs type indicator. Not only is it efficient in bringing self-awareness, but it’s also preventive of issues that could potentially bring harm to the business.

2. Learning Curve And Style

For new hires, understanding how everything works are vital. It boosts confidence, thereby decreasing the likelihood of losing motivation at work. Recruiters can ease this process by knowing first how the person learns.

Just like personality, applicants have different learning patterns that get them through the day. Some learn visually, some kinesthetically, and others through other means of learning. Moreover, understanding this and putting it into action will only be possible through psychometric tests that measure such. For instance, verbal reasoning assessment can evaluate how the applicant addresses a given situation.

In addition, by knowing the learning patterns of the new hires, the recruitment team can help the onboarding become seamless by introducing the work depending on the learning pace of the person. This can also give the impression that the company cares for its employees, which benefits productivity.

3. Decision Making

Aside from their personality types and learning patterns, the recruiters will have a glimpse of the thought process of the job applicants through aptitude tests. Knowing their thought process—decision-making in particular—is necessary for the management to know whether or not the person will become an asset to the company.

A person’s likable personality and propensity for learning quickly do not guarantee ‘smart’ decision-making. Decision-making involves looking at the bigger picture instead of tidying over the tiny components that make it up.

This means that the factors involved in a person’s decision-making go beyond being well-liked. And just like with all work environments, problems always happen one way or another. That’s why knowing how a person decides on things is also just as important.

4. Strengths And Weaknesses

The recruitment team will also get a gist of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses through aptitude assessments. In the context of professional growth and progress, capitalizing on the employee’s potential and addressing the learning opportunities can benefit the person and the entire company.

Learning about the person’s competencies will be a value-added service to the existing business units, thereby reinforcing productivity in the workplace. Filling in the gaps within the current workforce can only be done by hiring qualified individuals with matching competencies. 

Moreover, the management can better predict the performance of the new hires by inferring their strengths in a specific timeframe. Business-wise, this is effective and cost-effective since the recruitment process is costly. 

5. Controlled Attrition Rate

Nothing beats working in a company that knows how to take care of its employees. However, ‘care’ is subjective because people give and perceive it differently. A person may already be taken care of without their knowledge because their perception of care differs from how it was provided.

Similarly, the employer-employee relationship must understand how both parties perceive care. In line with this, an employee’s perception of care can be understood as early as the recruitment stage through aptitude assessments.

There may be no exact scale for ‘care perception,’ but inter-scale interpretation may give light to such a factor.

Aside from this, employers can give unique and tailored events that suit everyone’s personality to motivate everyone. In a company dominated by introverted people, gatherings held in an outdoor event with constant socialization will just do more harm than good.

Moreover, assessment tools, such as Dominance, Inducement, Submission, Compliance (DISC), can help evaluate and categorize employees according to interpersonal relationships.

Thinking of ways to maintain positive relations with everyone in the workplace can be tedious and overwhelming. Especially that psychometric assessments are not a one-off thing. 

However, understanding people down to a personal level coupled with a fair and equitable pay grade can make work less stressful, decreasing the likelihood of their resignation. Check out this post to know more. 

Conclusion:

The human mind is highly complex. True enough, psychometric assessments can only do so much, but taking that extra step to streamline a standardized and more insightful hiring procedure goes a long way.

Besides, with the consistent progress of science, the psychometric assessments of today may provide a better glimpse into the personality of applicants of tomorrow.