The crucial piece: Screening for cultural fit

"People make cultures and personalities make people so you could logically conclude it's the personalities of the people you employ that make the culture," says Mark McCutcheon, practice leader for assessment, Chandler Macleod Group. "When you're looking at cultural fit there are two sides to the ledger. One is you need to have a very clear view of the culture that an organisation has now or would like to have, and then part of your hiring is to get cultural fit as right as you possibly can. That's not just the role of a psychometric test or assessment; it's something that should permeate your process right from when you present the role to people - so if people don't like the culture they can select out. The Virgin Blue culture, for example, is a very strong culture and they make it very clear early on what that culture looks like. If you don't like that, let's not waste everybody's time."

Psychometric testing can be used to measure a number of factors:

• personality or behaviour - preferred style of operating in the workplace. For example, the interviewee may be asked which statement is most like themselves: I get nervous before a formal situation; I like selling things to people; I'm interested in understanding what drives people.
• ability - the underlying cognitive skills someone might require for the role - whether that's verbal reasoning, numeric reasoning. For example, to assess numerical reasoning, there might be a graph with inferences to be made from accompanying data.
• motivation - the elements that will most likely motivate someone in the workplace. For example, on a scale of 1-5, how important would it be for you to have your own office? How important is it for your salary to match what you think you should be earning?

"Initially we say it's very important to define what you're looking for first. As far as personality goes, what are the actual behavioural preferences that you'd be looking for someone to exhibit in the role? For example, a sales position would be very different from a business analyst. For the sales role you might be after someone who's a risk taker, highly persuasive and influential, but not necessarily high on the detail. A business analyst on the other hand you would want to be absolutely rigourously stuck on the detail and using data to make decisions," explains Stephanie Christopher, national director, SHL Australia and New Zealand.

Online or in person?
There's still debate about how psychometric tests are best handled. McCutcheon notes that most organisations will now separate the personality assessment from the cognitive assessment. He notes there's a level of comfort about doing the personality assessment online, unsupervised. However, while better tests are coming onto the market, most organisations still prefer the cognitive assessment be done under supervised conditions.

"Obviously there's a fear that people will get some help for the cognitive. But there are two sides to that: there is the risk that people might get some assistance with the cognitive test - and you can't discount that - but there's not a lot of evidence that happens. The converse of the problem is that people will do the cognitive test in an environment that is not conducive to good results. So they might get onto the internet having a glass of wine or watching tv - so they're not doing themselves a favour. It's not so much about cheating but making sure you get the most accurate result from the candidate," he says.

SHL is the only assessment company to provide an online tool called Verify, which is "cheat proof", according to Christopher. "It allows a person at any level of the organisation to complete the assessment online at home. Then they come in and before you make the offer, you do a verification, which is where they sit a shorter version of the same test. It verifies whether that same person completed the original test or not," she says.

Generally, personality tests are hard to fake. First selection testing is the recommended approach, whereby the candidate makes forced choice responses. "Generally you have four statements and you have to say what's most like you and what's least like you. You do that over 100 times. It's hard to fake those things," says McCutcheon.

Broader implications
Is it important for employers to consider the broader picture - for example, the skills that may be required for a recovery verses those skills required during tough financial times? Christopher believes so. "Talent is what the company needs - so the right person in the right job at the right time. Talent in an organisation during the upturn may be different to the talent they needed during tough times. For example, thinking about what talent looked like in the financial services sector over the last three or four years, in the good times it might have looked like a high achieving, risk taking 'out there' person. Then during the downturn you may have looked for someone who had strong adherence to rules and principals. During the upturn it may be a bit of both."

McCutcheon adds that fundamentally every form of assessment - whether its reference checking or behavioural profiling - is attempting to predict a person's behaviour. "The personality based assessments are trying to look at behavioural preferences: does someone prefer to be motivated by deadlines, more money or reward & recognition? Cognitive tests are trying to predict how well they will be able to cope with the problem solving and decision making demands of the job. Most of the research shows that cognitive tests will measure whether someone can do the task elements of the job, whereas the personality side is more about the style of person you want in the job."

For example, someone who enjoys being part of a close knit team who applies for a role requiring them to be on the road as a traveling salesperson, on their own all the time, will likely not be motivated by that experience.

It's also worth noting that while a person's personality may not change a great deal in their lifetime, their motivations probably will. A major life event might shake up preferences, making motivation more contextual. "Perhaps at one period in your life you're more interested in personal growth or working with people - that's more motivating for you. Then perhaps life might change and you find its money driving you forward and that's what gets you out of bed every morning," says Christopher.

An interesting aside to this, and something that has occurred with greater regularity in the recent economy, is that an organisation's offerings may change also. "If you can't offer bonuses and pay rises, or hefty commissions, what else does your organisation have to offer? Look at the other things that motivate your employees, like personal growth or teamwork," says Christopher.

Where and when?
Where should such screening take place? Christopher notes it may depend on the volume of recruitment. For large quantity recruitment where 5,000+ applications may be received, she suggests undertaking psychometric testing right at the beginning, once the gross disqualifiers such as 'are you able to work in Australia' are covered off. "Some sort of sifting tool might be used so you're putting your investment, which is your time, towards people who are already pre-qualified," she says. "For graduates, some organisations might get 6,000 people so they might screen on ability upfront, to make sure people have the underlying aptitude to do the role. Further down the track, closer to interview they might do personality. For a call centre role or blue collar transport role you might use a different type of sifting tool upfront to see if someone is likely to turn up to work. What's the likelihood they'll take unscheduled leave and sickies? How about attitudes to safety?"

There is, of course, a broader issue to consider: does the employer want to be known as an organisation that screens people out on the basis of a single test? "There is that employer reputation to bear in mind," says McCutcheon. "That said, if you have vast numbers of people applying for a role then you need an efficient and objective way to get that number down, so it's a reasonable thing to do. It really depends on the organisation's strategy when it comes to hiring as to where they position these tests. The sooner you do them the better, really. If you wait till right at the end and it's a role where, for example, you need good numerical skills and you find out right at the end that the person's in the bottom 10% compared with other managers, then it's back to square one."

The data obtained, however, can become a valuable retention tool. Someone sits the test once - SHL's OPQ32 may take 20-25 minutes - and then useful information can be pulled from that assessment for a period of up to 18 months. "For example, you may be putting together a team and you want to know how someone works within a team. You can pull off a report of what's their style of operating in a team. Or perhaps this person says they want to move into a sales role - do they actually have the specific sales ability and aptitude?" says Christopher.

"It's one piece of evidence - a very valid, scientifically tested piece of evidence - that puts together a whole picture of someone you're hoping to employ. However, as with any testing you do upfront you should check and validate that during the interview," she adds.