Boost your staffing process with psychometrics!

All managers and professionals in human resources know that it is currently a major challenge to find qualified personnel to fill available positions, or even vacant positions in many cases. Business growth is obviously only possible if the necessary resources are available, especially qualified personnel and in sufficient quantity of course! Although this seems almost annoyingly obvious, the current reality of the skills shortage in many sectors of activity has major impacts.

In such a context, does this mean that it is no longer worthwhile to select candidates that are so difficult to find?

Surely a good interview would be sufficient in such a context, right? Well, a study by Meyers and Houssemand on the validity and usefulness of various selection methods was conducted over a period of more than 85 years and reveals that a structured interview has a correlation (r) of 0.51 as a measure of predicting job performance (a correlation of 1 would be the ideal target and 0 would be undesirable).

Concretely, this means that you have half the chance of making the right choice! In addition, if you are fond of unstructured interviews and your intuition guides you, your chances of success are 0.38! Of course, there are ways to maximize the effectiveness of your interviews to get the best possible results. When it comes to the candidate’s professional experience alone, it seems that the chances of making a good choice are even slimmer since the correlation (r) observed for this is only 0.18.

So, what do we do?

The reality is that job performance is difficult to predict and that a gap between an individual’s skills and the requirements of the job leads to real difficulties. According to research reviewed by Michaud, Bernier and Ben Mansour, this gap for the worker can translate into lower wages, poorer satisfaction or demotivation. For the employer, it can mean poorer levels of competitiveness, higher turnover and higher labour costs.

However, there are practices that promote the adequacy of a person to their professional environment and allow for the appropriate use of the worker’s skills. The use of standardized selection tools, such as aptitude tests and personality tests, is a practice that allows for better use of the candidate’s resources. These tools generally have a high degree of standardization and are relatively simple to administer and use.

The winning combination

According to the research of Meyers and Houssemand, the combination of various psychometric tools would be a method to be favoured. In fact, the combination of an unstructured interview with a cognitive aptitude test increases the predictive validity of job performance from r = 0.38 to 0.55. Even better, with the use of a structured interview, the chances of success rise to r = 0.63.

Also according to this study, the assessment of personality dimensions would be equally relevant, notably because personality is not entirely correlated with cognitive skills and can therefore provide additional interesting information. The use of a personality test that assesses conscientiousness can also predict job performance. In fact, when combined with an intelligence test, this combination provides a predictive validity of r = 0.60.

By adding standardized tools to one’s staffing processes, it is therefore possible to considerably reduce the risk of costly errors and to prevent a candidate from experiencing a professional failure due to a poor match between his or her skills and the job requirements.

In conclusion

It therefore seems that it is the combination of various methods used to assess a candidate’s skills that best allows us to predict job performance.  In concrete terms, it is simply a matter of combining your methods such as a structured interview with a personality test, a cognitive aptitude test and job references when possible. This way, you can vary your sources of information to better predict job performance and, above all, reduce the risk of having to restart your staffing process!

Meyers, R., Houssemand, C. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 56 (2006) 123–138.
Michaud, R., Bernier, A. & Ben Mansour, J. (2020). L’adéquation formation-emploi : concepts et pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines. Relations industrielles, 75(2), 296–320.
Schmidt, Frank L., and John E. Hunter. “The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings.” Psychological Bulletin 124.2 (1998): 262.