Manufacturing Jobs - The Use of Psychometric Testing Services in Executive Recruitment

Many Manufacturing and Engineering organisations still use psychometric testing as a way of assessing the abilities of candidates who apply for Executive and Senior Management positions. In some instances, the executive recruitment agency conducting the assignment may be asked to organise the testing and in other cases the recruitment business might administer the testing themselves.

Due to the evolution of psychometric testing and its increased use within industry, there are now a wide range of tests available which not only look at the technical abilities of the applicant, but also their ability to work well in a team, their leadership ability and their long term development potential. For applicants with no previous experience of testing procedures, psychometric tests can sometimes be daunting and can often lead to stress which can potentially affect their chances of performing well in other parts of the interview process.It is important to consider that quite often these tests are used merely as a means of backing up information picked up in other areas of the interview process and that the people who perform the best on the tests are not necessarily the right people to lead a team or develop a new product.

Executive Recruitment Firms will often offer their clients three types of Psychometric tests: ability tests, personality tests and aptitude tests.

Ability tests look at what the applicant is capable of doing rather than the knowledge and skills they have picked up in the past. They are used to identify an individual’s underlying capability to perform specific tasks.

Personality tests look at the ways a candidate would typically respond in certain situations and how they view the world at large. They are often used to analyse whether an individual would fit into the “culture” of the company and how they would gel with the other employees within the business.

Aptitude tests are designed to determine an individual’s aptitude for the specific role he or she is applying to. Unlike ability tests, this type of test focuses specifically on the job a candidate is applying for. These tests are often used in engineering and manufacturing jobs where a conventional interview might not highlight effectively how competent a person is on specific technical tasks such as mechanical design or plc programming.

Executive recruitment consultants and employers typically use these tests in conjunction with structured interviews to give more of a 3 dimensional view of potential candidates for important hires.

Manufacturing Jobs - The Use of Psychometric Testing Services in Executive Recruitment