How Effective is Psychometric Profiling in Your Recruitment Process?

Finding the ideal talent in the financial industry isn’t easy. While there are countless highly qualified professionals in the world today, the changing landscape and the rise of new work styles present various challenges to business leaders.  

In the modern world, many financial hiring managers are relying heavily on video-based interviews and online recruitment to expand their teams of remote and hybrid staff. While these solutions do make it easier for companies to access a wider range of talented candidates, they’re not always ideal for gauging how well someone fits the requirements of a specific finance role.  

Even if a person has the right qualifications and experience to thrive as a management accountant in your company, there’s no guarantee they’ll blend perfectly with your company culture, ethos, or values. Fortunately, psychometric profiling could be a workable solution for employers. 

What is Psychometric Profiling? 

Psychometric profiling is psychological testing used to gauge a potential candidate’s aptitude, mental capabilities, intelligence levels, and work ethic.  

Employers can use various testing methods to examine different soft skills, from verbal reasoning to situational judgement and logical reasoning. Psychometric testing can augment the current analysis and interview strategies currently used by financial recruiters. While your competency-based interview questions assess a candidate’s skill, and your technical tests examine their education, your psychometric profiles look more closely at personality traits and aptitudes.  

After all, a candidate who seems ideal for a role on paper might not have the logical processes, problem-solving capabilities, or work ethics to thrive in your current team.   

By measuring traits like emotional intelligence, communication skill, and aptitude in a candidate, recruiters and hiring managers can develop a clearer picture of how a new employee might fit into the existing company culture. This reduces the risk of disrupting your workforce when hiring new hires and ensures team morale remains high.  

The Benefits of Psychometric Profiling for Recruitment 

In the recruitment landscape, gaining the most holistic and complete view of each candidate before welcoming them into the team can be an excellent way to save time and money. Around 18% of companies already use psychometric testing to evaluate “workplace fit”, which is growing by between 10% and 15% per year.  

Studies even show implementing psychometric testing into the recruitment process can significantly improve and preserve company culture. More than 75% of the Times list of the “Best companies to work for” use psychometric profiling.  

Essentially, psychometric testing goes beyond the information employers can gather from a candidate’s LinkedIn page, CV, cover letter, and interview answers to look at behaviours, motivations, values, and personality traits. Some of the biggest benefits of psychometric profiling include: 

Ensuring cultural fit:  

Many psychometric tests provide companies with information on the type of environment a candidate prefers to work within. 

This can ensure employers see whether their new staff members will fit well into their existing workplace. For instance, a personality profile can showcase whether a candidate works best in a team or independently.  

Hiring someone who shares the same behavioural processes and values as other people in your financial team is a great way to ensure an efficient, well-balanced workforce. You can guarantee in advance that your new hire isn’t going to disrupt your existing team.  

Defining Suitability for a Role: 

Psychometric profiling dives into how and why candidates may behave in certain ways. For instance, psychometric testing can offer insight into how well an employee will deal with a mistake in a report or a pressing deadline in a financial environment.  

Psychometrics can help businesses develop more appropriate competency-based questions to use in interviews to determine whether an employee is suited to a position. For example, a company hiring a new CFO might determine whether their new candidate can make decisions quickly, think outside the box, and network effectively with others.  

Highlighting Development Opportunities: 

Many new financial sector candidates may need upskilling, reskilling, and development as they move into different positions. Using psychometric testing can help companies to determine whether certain soft skills need to be enhanced alongside technical talents.  

For instance, if a candidate appears to be perfect for a role in most ways but doesn’t have a lot of skills in decision-making and leadership, they can be placed on a leadership course to develop those capabilities.  

Should Your Company Use Psychometric Testing? 

With more financial companies now hiring employees from various environments for remote and hybrid positions, the way organisations assess talent is changing. There won’t always be an opportunity for an employer to meet with an individual face-to-face or give them a trial run in a business environment to understand how they work.  

A standard video interview or a basic set of questions might not provide a comprehensive view of what a candidate will be like in the job. However, with psychometric testing, business leaders can dive deeper into what might make one candidate more suitable for a role than another. It’s an excellent way to get a more “holistic” insight into each employment opportunity.  

What’s Next? 

If you’re planning on using psychometric testing as part of your hiring strategy, it’s worth working with a professional recruitment team who can help you to implement this new methodology. With Rebus Recruitment, you’ll gain access to a specialist financial recruitment team capable of implementing various hiring strategies to suit your needs.  

Thanks, 

Rachel  

About Rebus Financial Recruitment    

Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, ranging from various organisations, including SMEs, to large PLCs.     

We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we get to the heart of employer and employee needs, and, in doing so, we match the two perfectly. Contact one of our team today to find out more, or you can call us on 01282 930930.