Psychometric assessments are tools designed using behavioural science to measure the cognitive abilities, personality and motivations, values, behaviours, and preferred ways of working of individuals. For consulting firms seeking to optimise how they attract and recruit high-potential and high-performing talent to build a robust pipeline of future leaders, psychometric assessments can be a powerful method to increase confidence and accuracy in decision-making. 

There is opportunity to add value across your employee lifecycle by using psychometric assessments in employee and leadership development, team building and collaboration, culture and engagement, and succession planning. However, they are most typically associated with recruitment, where they can augment a selection process with objective data by providing a scientific measurement of a candidate.

Traditional selection methods, such as CV reviews and exploratory interviews, have long been the cornerstone of hiring practices. However, these methods are increasingly proving inadequate in today’s competitive and complex job market due to the risk of subjectivity, bias, and inconsistency, leading to unreliable hiring outcomes. Critically, these traditional methods focus primarily on past experiences and qualifications, which do not always accurately predict future job performance or cultural fit. Without psychometric assessments, important attributes such as cognitive abilities, personality and motivation traits, and behavioural tendencies remain largely unexplored. This can result in candidates with high potential being overlooked if they do not fit the conventional mould. 

7 Reasons Why Your Firm Should Adopt Psychometrics

1. Better Hiring Decisions, More Efficiently

By leveraging comprehensive data on each candidate, psychometric assessments enable more informed hiring decisions. This objective data helps predict a candidate’s future performance, reducing the risk of mis-hires and ensuring a better fit for the role. Research shows that psychometric assessments are proven to predict future job performance with a high degree of accuracy.

Using psychometrics can also help to lower recruitment costs and maximise efficiency by reducing time spent on manual selection processes, such as CV reviewing.

2. Increased Employee Engagement & Productivity

Employees are more likely to excel in roles that align with their natural strengths and behavioural preferences. Understanding the abilities and behavioural preferences of candidates during the recruitment process enables potential employers to better predict their performance in role and the support that they will need.

3. Support for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives

Objective assessments reduce biases and broaden the scope of what constitutes a ‘great candidate.’ By focusing on potential rather than traditional criteria, psychometric assessments support DEI initiatives, leading to a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

4. Enhanced Leadership Identification & Development

Psychometric assessments assist in understanding leadership potential by identifying the traits and leadership qualities required within unique contexts, which may not be apparent through traditional evaluation methods. This helps to mitigate risks associated with leadership transitions.

5. Improved Candidate Experience

Candidates appreciate a fair and objective evaluation process as a reflection of how that company treats its employees. Psychometric assessments provide personalised feedback, enhancing the candidate experience regardless of the outcome. This positive experience can bolster a firm’s reputation and help to attract top talent.

6. Enhanced Onboarding

High-performing candidates identified through psychometric assessments tend to reach productivity faster, increasing the return on investment (ROI) for clients. This streamlining of the onboarding process accelerates the integration of new hires into the team.

7. Reduced Rehire & Retraining Costs

A mis-hire can be very costly to your business. Ensuring a better fit between candidate, role, and company results in lower turnover rates, reducing the costs associated with rehiring and retraining new people coming into your business.

The potential ‘watchouts’

While the benefits of using psychometrics far outweigh the negatives, it is useful to understand the potential pitfalls when incorporating these tools into your business:

This oversimplification makes it challenging to differentiate between individuals who fall into the same category, potentially overlooking unique strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, this can lead to poor decision-making in talent management, as the assessments fail to provide a comprehensive view of each individual’s capabilities and potential.

• Misuse or misinterpretation of assessment results can lead to inaccurate representation of talent, as well as discrimination or unfair treatment of individuals.
• Using psychometric assessments as a one-off initiative without embedding the tools into a system, process, or programme of activity results in inefficient use of time, money, and resources to implement, leading to minimal value gain. 
• Psychometrics alone will not resolve all recruitment challenges and they should be applied within a robust end to end recruitment process with clear assessment criteria for a structured and consistent approach to identifying the best candidates.
• Using less accurate and impactful psychometric assessments when evaluating talent can lead to several pitfalls. Type-based assessments (often colour-categorised), for instance, often oversimplify individual behaviours and personality traits, which can result in a lack of nuanced understanding. 
• This oversimplification makes it challenging to differentiate between individuals who fall into the same category, potentially overlooking unique strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, this can lead to poor decision-making in talent management, as the assessments fail to provide a comprehensive view of each individual’s capabilities and potential.

Conclusion

Integrating behavioural science and psychometric assessments into consulting firms is not just a strategic advantage but a necessity in today’s competitive landscape. By leveraging these tools in recruitment, firms can not only improve candidate selection, but also enhance employee productivity, DE&I, candidate experience, and leadership identification. 

If you are a leader in an ambitious, fast growing consulting firm and are yet to incorporate psychometrics into your recruitment strategy, you should consider taking the following action:

• Engage with a reputable psychometric provider to tailor assessments to your specific needs and ensure they are embedded into your broader recruitment processes. By doing so, you will not only improve hiring decisions but also increase efficiencies in how you recruit the talent you need. 
• Start by evaluating your current recruitment and development processes and consider how psychometric assessments can provide deeper insights into improving your workforce.
• Seek to better understand what high-performance looks like in the specific context of your business. Consider what the future state of success looks like and what behaviours you need to see your leaders’ role modelling as you continue to grow the business. This will give you a clearer picture of what you need to measure.

Frequently asked questions about psychometrics

1. What types of psychometric assessments are available?

Personality Assessments, Cognitive Ability Tests (verbal, numerical, and logical reasoning), and Situational Judgement Tests. Personality assessments can produce reports for recruitment, onboarding, sales behaviours, leadership, and team building.

2. How accurate and reliable are the assessments?

Not all assessment providers deliver the same outputs and have formal accreditation. Ensure that the assessments are able to demonstrate high standards of reliability, validity, and fairness. Where possible, seek out a certified assessment platform with accreditation from a reputable institution.

3. How should we select a psychometric provider?

There are a number of assessments in the market, some of which use a variety of different personality theories in how they measure and report. While these assessments can be great for getting the conversation started about personality and allow individuals to reflect on their preferences compared to others, they may not be suitable for informing recruitment decisions or accurate succession planning, for example. It’s important to choose an assessment provider that can cater to your specific needs, increasing value across your talent lifecycle.

4. We have a psychometric tool already; how do we maximise the value?

To start with, consider whether the assessments you have are suitable for your use-case and are providing the type of data that you need.

Then, ensure that all relevant stakeholders are trained on how to interpret and use the assessments effectively (or seek a behavioural science expert), and then review how and when you are embedding the tool into your recruitment process. This will enable you to use the tool consistently rather than a once-off.

If you have achieved this already, the next step would be to further customise the tool and assessment criteria based on the data that you have collected.

5. How big does my business need to be to leverage behavioural science/psychometrics?

Whether your consultancy is 5 people or 500+, you will benefit from leveraging behavioural science in your people strategy. 

There is a strong argument that the opportunity is greater within boutique consultancies, due to the impact that each hire has within a smaller team. Investing in behavioural science ensures that you are identifying the individuals who will have the highest potential for value-add in the context of your business.

6. What are the costs to implement?

Costs vary based on the provider, the type of assessment, the volume of assessments required, and the preferred interpretation method. It’s best to consult a specialist who can provide a recommendation based on your specific need.

7. When should we be assessing our candidates?

For junior to mid-level roles, early-stage assessments help to identify suitable candidates more efficiently, particularly when there are large numbers of applicants. 

For senior roles where head-hunting is often the typical source of candidate, we recommend later-stage assessments to gain deeper insights into specific behaviours of interest and broader leadership styles. 

8. Can the assessments be customised to fit specific job roles?

Yes, certain psychometric platforms allow for assessments to be tailored to match the specific competencies and requirements of a role, ensuring effective measurement of relevant attributes.

9. How do New Minds use psychometric assessments?

At New Minds, we have chosen the Clevry platform for its accreditation with the British Psychological Society and its steep foundation in behavioural science, particularly Trait-based theory and the Big Five personality factors. Clevry’s assessments offer predictive validity, reliability, and fairness, making them ideal for identifying high-performing consultants and leaders.

We tailor assessments to measure traits crucial for success in management consulting. This customisation enhances the accuracy and relevance of the data, providing deeper insights into candidates’ potential.

Using the reports generated from these assessments, we provide hiring managers with comprehensive feedback from experienced talent consultants. This detailed playback guides processes such as development conversations, leadership coaching, and behavioural interviews, allowing for targeted behavioural questions that better predict candidates’ impact on organisational culture.