Can IQ and Aptitude Testing Help You Secure the Perfect Candidate?
In 2016 the European Union employment rate for persons between the ages of 20 and 64 stood at 71.1%, the highest annual average recorded for the EU. In June last year, the European Commission adopted a Skills Agenda for Europe under the heading ‘Working together to strengthen human capital, employability and competitiveness’. The purpose of this is to ensure that individuals develop the skills necessary in order to boost employability, competitiveness and growth across the EU.
When it comes to hiring new employees, all employers are in agreement that they only want to hire the best candidates which is why a lot of careful planning goes into formulating recruitment and hiring processes. While the term ‘the best’ is extremely subjective, there are general traits and characteristics that all employers seek, such as general intelligence, verbal and non-verbal skills and levels of creative thinking.
The correlation between IQ and work outcomes
IQ has to be relevant to job performance and with regards to certain high-profile positions, using a reliable IQ test is often the first step in the screening process. In many white-collar jobs, an employee with a high IQ may display a greater potential of showing positive outcomes within the working environment. Such a candidate will also be expected to render work of a higher quality and substance. Employees with higher IQ’s tend to get showered with an increasing amount of responsibility since it is expected of them to provide positive results. This also generally means that they are likely to be granted higher rates of compensation and increased benefits.
An above-average IQ may indicate that an individual has an above-average ability to solve problems,
something which is of great benefit in many fields of employment. As much as employers want team players in the organizations, they also value independence in their employees, something a higher IQ may be indicative of.
IQ tests VS psychometric tests
A psychometric test is similar to an IQ test in many ways and is conducted to analyze an individual’s reflex responses to certain situations and stimuli within varying parameters. These tests can be extremely long with many questions being repeated with only the slightest variations in them. The motive behind this is to confuse the mind into remembering the previous answer while trying to gauge an individual’s level of consistency. These types of tests are conducted mainly by employers and recruiters who want to assess and measure candidates against pre-determined benchmarks to learn whether or not they are suitable for a certain industry or role within an organization. It is impossible to ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ a psychometric tests, the results will simply state whether a candidate is suitable or not.
As helpful as intelligence, personality and skills test may be when it comes to finding the perfect candidate for a job it is imperative to remember that none of these are fixed and can therefor change over time. When hiring someone always take into consideration that life events may change a person’s personality, experience may improve skills and intelligence is bound to manifest itself in more ways as a person rises up within the ranks of the organization.
