Use tests wisely, cautions leading psychometric test publisher

Following our article on skills testing in online recruitment, Wendy Lord, Chief Psychologist at independent psychometric test publisher, Hogrefe, speaks out against those use online tests badly.

Imagine if a pharmacist asked you to stick your hand in a lucky dip of pills for your treatment, with no explanation of what pill you got, the correct dosage and what the side effects might be. Taking an online psychometric test without proper guidelines is just like that lucky dip. If we donít let a pharmacist adopt the approach for their patients, why do it for candidates and jobs?

Online recruitment means applicant pools are growing, in some cases almost to the extent of being unmanageable. Adding in objective assessment via psychometric testing earlier on in the procedure is a huge advantage in terms of culling the applicant poolÖ.as long as the choice of online test is wisely made.

The problem is that many companies who use online psychometric tests as part of volume recruitment are doing it badly and are in danger of giving psychometrics a bad name as well as putting off valuable candidates.

There are now so many tests online that users are spoilt for choice. More dangerously, potential users who are untrained and have no understanding of what makes a robust test, can access well-marketed tools which in actual fact have little or no value.

Despite the admirable efforts of the British Psychological Society, many test users are unaware of good practice guidelines. This is because of the proliferation of well-written websites advertising tests that have no scientific validity at all but which are available without any need for training or qualification before deploying them.

Moreover, lured by the efficiency and flexibility that on-line testing provides, some important aspects of good practice can get forgotten even by trained users. Online tests are often sent out without any thought about how the receiver might worry about them. Test-takers are asked to complete tests without any explanation of the context; why the test is being used, how the results will be interpreted or how to approach test completion in the right mental set. These things are important. Anxiety on the part of the test-taker can skew results and dramatically affect a candidateís perception of an organisation. If tests are shrouded in secrecy, an organisation will appear to be uncommunicative and closed ñ not a good advert if you want to attract the best candidates.

With online testing, the output is often just a profile of scores and a report.. With many online systems, the test user has no way of knowing how the test taker approached the test. This contextual information is important to interpretation. For example, how long a test-taker spent considering his or her responses? In the case of personality tests, was the test-taker in the right mental state to be open and honest in responding? For ability testing, was the test-taker in the right mental state to perform at his or her absolute best?

Test users and test-takers alike will often have reasonable concerns about test security and data protection. What happens when test results are stored on the internet? Who can access them and how secure are they? The Hogrefe Test System (HTS) has been developed specifically to address these issues.

For a start, it stores test data locally on the Test Administratorís computer, rather than on the web. This provides enhanced security and peace of mind for all parties. Test users should communicate this fact to those taking the tests.

What is more, HTS allows test users access to the the kind of information that face to face, paper and pencil testing allows. It reasserts the importance of qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of test responses; the way the test taker has approached completion of the instrument; how long it took to respond to each item; the proportion of times particular response categories have been used.

When it comes to guidelines, there are a number of basics that we recommend you put into place if you use online tests, which are in line with the British Psychological Societyís guidelines. Hogrefe uses them and whichever test or test publisher you work with, find out what their guidelines are and follow them. Three of the most basic are:

Make sure that your choice of online test is linked to role-related competencies.

Ensure that test results are properly weighted with other information about the applicant, such as the candidateís past experience, training and qualifications.

Properly brief test-taking candidates. This can be done in a standard covering e-mail before the test is sent and give test-takers the option of a number to call or email to reply to if they have any questions.

Used wisely, online testing can be a powerful and cost-efficient way of making your online recruitment more effective than ever. However, if you donít get the right test, use the best online system and if you ignore best practice, then you run the risk of reducing the efficiency of online recruitment, turning away the best candidates and damaging your reputation.