Archive for category: General

In pre-employment testing, there are many important questions that need to be answered, which can’t easily be resolved during an interview. Of course, you can ask a candidate how quickly they can learn new tasks, but until they are actually put into a situation where they need to learn new tasks, you won’t really know how well they will do.

This is why in Perth, we include a cognitive ability test in our pre-employment assessments, allowing us to elicit a whole range of critical aptitudes from your candidates, which are essential to you as a company.

What are the benefits of using a cognitive ability test for Perth businesses?

Also known as general metal ability, an employee’s cognitive ability indicates how well they will learn new skills, respond to training and solve complex problems. A pre-employment assessment that includes some element of cognitive ability testing, has been shown to clearly predict the future performance of new candidates.

In fact, a cognitive ability test has been shown to be more predictive of work performance than either experience, qualifications or references. Which, if you still limit yourself to the ‘old-school’ type of pre-employment testing, means that you are quite possibly, not hiring the best employees for your business.

Including cognitive ability tests into your recruitment process will in the end, save you money in hiring and training people who turn out to be unsuitable for their roles. These tests are quick and easy to use and will identify the top performing candidates out of your pool of applicants.

Finally, one of the features of cognitive ability tests that appeals to many businesses in Perth is that it removes any bias from the recruitment process, and it works equally well for simple, as well as highly complex roles. In fact, for a multi-level role that requires a complex set of skills and the ability to problem solve on the fly, a cognitive ability test is just about essential.

For more information on how you can include a cognitive ability test in your Perth based recruitment campaign, get in touch today or contact Urban Psychometrics in Brisbane on 07 3535 1220 for more information.

Many small businesses jump straight into the recruitment and pre-employment testing process without a clear idea of their needs. This makes hiring the right person more like a gamble, because with no clear job description for your new employee, they can become frustrated in their work, feeling unsupported and let down by their employer.

So let’s take a look at the key steps involved in the recruitment process, ensuring that you hire the right person for the job every time.

1. What do you need? To successfully employ someone to fill a specific role in your organisation, you must know what you need. This involves looking at your current business goals and your available resources and crafting a job description for your new employee. It is not good form to keep adding tasks to an employee’s full time load, simply because you didn’t fully understand the role yourself, before starting the recruitment and pre-employment testing process.
2. Write the job description: If possible, ask for input from other staff members when you are putting together the job description. This description must clearly outline the employee’s responsibilities and tasks, their hours of work and remuneration, and who they report to within your organisation.
3. Selection criteria: Once you have the job description written, you can now make a list of the competency skills, experience and personal attributes of the new employee. You also need to select the people who will be on the selection panel. This is also the point where you can decide on the type of pre-employment testing you will include in the selection process, giving due consideration to psychometric testing to ensure that you find the right person for the role.
4. Advertising the job: You will need to craft an advertisement for the job, identify the most suitable mechanisms to advertise for candidates, prepare the marketing tools and distribute these materials in a timely manner.
5. Screening and selection process: This is where you initially screen applicants with the aim of creating a shortlist of suitable candidates. The pre-employment testing and psychometric testing you utilise at this stage of the process will ensure that the person you select is the best person for the job.

For more information on using pre-employment testing and psychometric testing in your recruitment process, get in touch today and call us on 07 3535 1220.

In today’s market place, competition for jobs, particularly those for professional positions is high. This gives businesses the upper hand, but one bad choice can put you two steps back instead of one step forward. This is why managers are taking advantage of a psychometric personality assessment and avoiding a disaster in the making.

 Why is a psychometric assessment in Sydney important?

It is not only the misrepresentation of qualifications and experience that is the problem, but an increasing awareness that some people are simply not suited for certain roles. Trying to identify the best candidate for a high level position can be very difficult, particularly when the position requires qualities that are sometimes difficult to gauge at an interview.

This is why more and more managers are using a psychometric personality assessment, in addition to the usual checks, to enable them to hire the right person for the job. By incorporating a psychometric personality assessment, managers are able to identify candidates that possess the personality characteristics necessary to succeed in the role. As experts in psychometric testing in recruitment, we know how important it is to hire people with not only the right qualifications and experience, but also the right personality fit for the job. This is why we have developed five simple steps any hiring manager can take to make the best selection decisions and avoid hiring the wrong person for the job.

5 ways to avoid disaster in the recruitment process

Selecting the right people can be as easy as following these 5 simple steps.

1. Assess personality fit: Administer a personality assessment to measure the personality traits that are important for successful performance in the role. A psychometric assessment in Sydney can be administered in person or online.
2. Check qualifications: It is well known that occasionally people lie about their qualifications, so the simple solution is to check their qualifications and make sure they are legitimate.
3. Check experience: Talk about their experience, as qualifications alone do not equal experience. Probe for evidence of their previous performance by asking for examples of how they dealt with specific situations in the past.
4. Check references: Always contact the candidate’s references and have a frank conversation about how well the candidate fit into their company and performed in their role.
5. Check social media: As well as a psychometric personality assessment, many employers are now using social media to gain a more complete picture of a candidate’s character!

For assistance with psychometric assessment in Sydney and across Australia, get in touch today and call us on 07 3535 1220.

At Urban Psychometrics in Brisbane and Melbourne, we have found that including an assessment of a candidate’s risk taking behaviour, greatly maximises a business’s ability to employ people who are responsible and avoid taking unnecessary risks.

This doesn’t mean that you will employ staff who are risk adverse and unimaginative, because at Urban Psychometrics in Melbourne and Brisbane, we recognise that the ability to take a leap of faith, to be creative and to be innovative are all positive qualities for many employers. What an employer needs however, is for employees to work within the workplace health and safety parameters and to effectively promote safe working behaviours at all times.

The problem is that some people are more likely to injure themselves at work or to be more complacent about safety issues than others. If employers can identify these traits in prospective employees using psychometrics, in Brisbane and Melbourne, as well as across Australia, they can actively streamline their selection processes.

Costs of workplace accidents in Australia

Safe Work Australia has shown that work related injuries and illnesses were estimated to cost $60.6 billion in the financial year ending 2009. Even more alarmingly, a typical compensation claim for a serious injury involves 4 weeks of sick leave and 25% of these require 12 weeks or more off work.

Clearly, reducing the incidence of workplace related injuries is vital for all concerned, which is why we offer an additional component to the usual psychometrics in Brisbane and Melbourne that will identify these safety risk factors in prospective employees.

What safety attributes can we identify in psychometric testing?

The ideal employee looks to both their own and their team mates safety and follows all safety procedures in the workplace. They avoid taking unnecessary risks, recognise the signs and consequences of fatigue or hazardous behaviours, and can recognise and report safety issues quickly.

These traits are easily identified using our expertise in psychometrics. In Melbourne, Brisbane and throughout Australia, we have many clients who have successfully incorporated these safety risk factors into their pre-employment assessments and are already reaping the benefits.

If you are interested in including safety testing in your next recruitment round, call us on 07 3535 1220 or complete our online enquiry form and get in touch today!

Have you ever been perplexed by an employee who just doesn’t perform to his or her potential? You know they can do better – and you’re paying them handsomely – but they don’t seem to have their heart in the job. It’s quite likely they’re not being stimulated by the work and may be dissatisfied. In fact, research has found that the key to keeping people satisfied, working hard, and motivated to stick around, is not always the money and benefits, but how well the employee’s interests align with their employer.

People have different interests and have different reasons for doing – or not doing – things. If you want to get the best from your people, you need to appeal to their passion and enthusiasm. But first, you need to find out what makes them tick! You can tap into this early, by incorporating pre-employment assessment into your next selection process.

Pre-employment assessment helps companies remain competitive

With most managers wanting to hire the very best employees, research indicates that you need to look further than just remuneration and benefits to remain competitive. Pre-employment assessments can provide information about what elements and/or types of work lead people to put more or less effort into their work, gain more or less satisfaction from their work and ultimately achieve better or worse outcomes and outputs.

Interests and motivation questionnaires help to understand:

• What drives people and keeps them energised – and for how long?
• In what situations and environments are people likely to perform at their best?
• What types of tasks appeal – or don’t appeal – to different people?
• What rewards motivate your people?

At Urban Psychometrics, we know how difficult it can be sometimes to find the right people for the right job and to keep them motivated to stick around. That is why we include interests and motivation questionnaires as part of our pre-employment assessment offerings.

Take the guess work out of your next hire and find out what drives your people to perform at their best and keeps them motivated to stick around.

Psychometric assessment is designed to make your employee selection process flow more efficiently, and to help you select candidates who are suitable for a prescribed role.

While qualifications and experience are always going to be a large part of your selection process, the likelihood of selecting the most suitable candidate can be enhanced by incorporating pre-employment assessment.

Pre-employment assessment helps to measure a candidate’s fit with your business and their aptitude for the role. Together with an effective interview process, you can ensure the most suitable combination of skills, knowledge, abilities and personality traits to achieve your business goals.

Why is psychometric assessment important?

Far too often employers recruit candidates because they look good on paper, or because they have they have the ‘gift of the gab’ come interview time – only to discover, after time on the job, that they are not really suitable. This mismatch causes problems for both the employer and for the employee. However, this is the type of problem psychometric assessment can help to prevent. Pre-employment assessment objectively measures how well a candidate’s personality and cognitive abilities match the required role – giving you more certainty in your hires and saving you the cost of selection errors.

The best type of employee for your business has the qualifications and experience for the role, as well as the aptitude to cope with the role demands, and personality to fit with your businesses culture. Taking the step to truly pre-qualify candidates and match them to specific job positions in your business, helps you as the employer as well as the employee.

As an employer, psychometric assessment provides you with the added confidence that a new member of staff is more likely to integrate smoothly into your business and perform competently in their role. A well suited candidate is likely to ‘hit the road running’, giving your business the edge it requires. From the employee’s point of view, a pre-employment assessment helps to ensure an easy transition into their new role. Finding a job that seems to be a perfect fit means they are likely to feel appreciated, happy and part of the team.

Including psychometric assessment in your next selection process is one of the most objective ways you can identify candidate suitability and start building the best possible team for your business. After all, growth relies on finding the right people and pre-employment assessment is simply a tool to help you get there.