Posts Tagged ‘psychometric testing’

More Cheating on Psych Tests

Saturday, June 11th, 2011

There has been an interesting discussion lately on a Psychometrics Linked In Group. The discussion was begun by Prue Laurence, Director at Psylutions, a workplace psychology consultancy in Melbourne where they are currently conducting a survey about cheating in workplace psychometric tests and people’s attitudes to psych testing.

Cheating on psych tests is a subject that comes up a lot, and I have fairly recently written about it myself.

In general, I would say that there’s very little point in even attempting to cheat, not because I make a moral judgement, but because potential employees just don’t know what an employer might be looking for. There’s a common perception that every employer is looking for extravert personalities, and put simply, that’s just wrong. There’s also a perception that extraverts are somehow “better” than introverts and that’s just silly. (For an explanation, please read my previous post, link above).

But Prue’s call for subjects to do her survey has engendered a discussion that has begun to develop the idea of cheating in a much deeper way, and to consider the phenomenon of psych tests and the way they can be used and abused from a different perspective.

One of the commenters, a UK Director of a Human Resources and Business consultancy, related the story of a group of young graduates gathering together to complete online unsupervised ability tests for their friends. He says, “…There seems to be no shame in this (they see it) as a fair way of outwitting the tedious, repetitious and time-consuming automated selection processes so many businesses put in the way of bright graduates applying for jobs.”

I think this is really sad. Psychometric tests, or any other form of employee selection should never be used to get in the way of anyone applying for jobs, or getting them. All our staff selection processes, including psych tests, should be used to get the clearest picture possible of not only who will be the best person for the job, but also whether the job is the best fit for the applicant. It’s a two-way street, and all our selection processes should be applied well, carefully and humanely, in order to achieve the best decision possible, and the best outcome for everyone.

The idea of a conveyor belt, one-size-fits-all, psychometric testing (most especially ability testing!) also really concerns me. You would hope that ability tests would be carefully conducted, and the idea that we are becoming a society where we are so concerned with churning through processes for expedience, rather than doing things well and carefully, is frankly repugnant. If tests are conducted coldly and blithely, then can we be surprised that people might treat them blithely? Psych tests most certainly can be used for screening, but that doesn’t mean we should forget that candidates are people, or that we should do it cruelly, coldly, or cynically.

But another comment in the discussion is even more concerning. The Director of a Leadership and Human Resources and Development consultancy in the USA says, “Have you ever applied for a job online lately? … No feedback, no contact, no personal touch … No real opportunity to tell your story…”.

Further, he says that he has built and used tests for many years, but finds himself “…embarrassed by what passes for professional practice these days” And tellingly, he says, “ We say people are our most valuable resource but then treat them like cattle being led to the slaughter.”

I say it’s a call to arms! It doesn’t have to be this way, and shouldn’t be.

All of us who are involved in Human Resources, staff selection and development, recruiting, and test development and delivery need to be constantly aware that we are in the business of dealing with people’s lives. If we don’t treat people well and fairly, then we can’t expect them to treat our processes well and fairly.

You don’t need to cheat on psych tests. Lets make sure we deliver psych tests and our other processes so well, that we’re not cheating on candidates.

For all of us, our job and work life is one of the most important things we have in life. We need to keep remembering that.

Lynette Jensen

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* This is a personal view and does not necessarily represent the opinion, belief or policy of the company. More posts below.

 

Cheating on Psych Tests

Monday, February 7th, 2011

 

I’m getting a bit sick of hearing people talking about cheating on psych tests. All over the internet, from chat rooms to websites to blogs and legitimate news and journal articles, people are sharing stories about how they have “cleverly” worked out that they can cheat on personality tests.

Well “duh”! Most people these days have a pretty good general idea of pop psychology, and what it means in general to be an “extrovert” and an “introvert”. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t think an extrovert is an outgoing person, and an introvert is a shy person who likes to keep to themselves?

Now, armed with this basic knowledge, you could go into a psych test, and pretend to be one or the other. I’m sure that would be pretty easy for most people. You wouldn’t need much imagination to pull it off, I wouldn’t have thought.

But here’s the thing: even if you cheated in a personality test, how would you know what sort person an employer was looking for? The assumption of most of these “clever cheaters” is that an extrovert is more desirable than an introvert. This is just simply wrong. A high extrovert score or a high introvert score on any psychometric test (or magazine quiz even!) is simply an indication of a certain personality tendency and style, and neither is “good” or “bad”.

Why assume, for instance, that an extreme introvert would be harder to work with than an extreme extrovert? Is it harder to work with someone who is shy and can’t make eye contact, than with someone who wants to dance on the desks and be the centre of attention and keeps wanting to talk to you all the time and won’t let you get on with your own work? Both extremities would be problematic in most circumstances, and one or the other would be most suitable in very rare and specific circumstances. A high extrovert might (but not necessarily) make a good stand-up comedian, for example, but a high introvert might be better as a light-house keeper.

It’s horses for courses, and if you were taking a personality test as part of a job application process, you wouldn’t know what kind of person was ideal for the role. Only the prospective employer would know what was needed and what they were looking for, just like an actor doesn’t know exactly what a film-director has in mind for a character. Just because it’s a sales job for instance, it doesn’t mean they’d be looking for an extrovert (think of travelling sales-people with long hours alone on the road), and do we necessarily want managers who are so caught up in their own confidence and ego that they don’t  pay attention to their team, or their organization?

This is only scratching the surface. I’ve only used obvious and extreme examples. There are myriad versions of personality styles made up of combinations of all sorts of qualities (you can be a high extrovert, for example, and yet be insecure, and one of the most popular people I know is very shy and not very talkative, and yet inspires great confidence in people).

So, I’d like to say to all those incredibly imaginative people who think they know how to cheat in psych tests:

1.No one kind of personality is “better” than another.

2.Don’t assume you know what a prospective employer is looking for.

3.If you want to do well in a Personality Test, do what all psychometric publishers tell you to do and be yourself.

4.Personality Tests are designed to give you and your employer more insight, so the more straightforward you are, the more you will know about yourself and how you fit into and operate as part of the group.

5.If you want to do well in an Ability Test brush up on your thinking skills, get plenty of sleep the night before, and be on time so you don’t get anxious.

You could cheat in an interview too, by pretending to be someone you are not, or you could falsify your resume. It’s all possible. But if any of this subterfuge managed to get you a job in the short-term, I’ll bet you wouldn’t keep it long, because YOU wouldn’t be the person they were looking for, and either you, or your new employer would get tired fairly quickly. So you could save yourself and everyone else time by being honest all along.

And as post-script, most psych tests have questions built-in to identify cheating, so really you are more likely to cheat yourself!

Lynette Jensen

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* This is a personal view and does not necessarily represent the opinion, belief or policy of the company. More posts below.

Psychometric Juggernaut: SHL & Previsor Merge

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

 

In the last few days, it’s been announced that two of the world’s well-known psychometric publishers, SHL and Previsor, have merged. Many people in the psych test world have been asking what this merger will mean for the market.

Previsor is a USA based psych assessment publisher and SHL is UK based. In Australia, SHL has a high profile, and provides assessments for a substantial part of the Australian market, particularly the mass testing kind that is used by department stores and fast-food chains. Previsor, on the other hand, seems to have a much smaller market share in Australia, which is possibly related to Australia’s general reluctance to accept many things American.*

I am by no means a business or financial analyst, but I imagine that the effect of this merger on the Australian scene will be very minimal, since Previsor will take on the SHL name, and I suppose that there will be very little change in the way SHL assessment is presented and provided. World-wide, it will mean that SHL will now have a much greater exposure in America, but I don’t imagine that SHL will change it’s presentation or tests significantly or at all, under the influence of a Previsor relationship.

While both SHL & Previsor should benefit from an increased profile, they will also be subject to the increasing bureaucratic challenges that arise from large, juggernaut-like companies the world over.

It’s my understanding that both these testing systems, like nearly all others in the world, are offered primarily online. Their attraction to clients seems to have been that they have been seen to be quick and easy, and that, because they appear to offer to take care of the whole process, there is little for adminstrators of the tests to have to do. This style of testing suits some organisations very well, and though it can lack flexibility and control of the process, and  the data, it is a price they seem happy to pay for perceived simplicity. However, it can also result in a mass testing situation in which very little discernment is involved.

Announcing the SHL/PreVisor merger and the effect it will have on the American market on his blog  http://www.bersin.com/blog/post/2011/01/SHL-and-Previsor-Merge–New-Global-Leader-in-the-Assessment-Market.aspx, Josh Bersin from Bersin & Associates wrote as part of his assessment of the current psychometric situation, ” …only 25% of companies have any well defined job competencies for each particular role. This means they are buying ‘off the shelf’ assessments for many positions where they have not necessarily tailored the assessment for the competencies they need.”

It seems to me that any proliferation of huge psychometric companies, with a “one-size-fits-all” range of tests and assessments, combined with a possible tendency for large organisations to mass test large numbers with “off the shelf” assessments, will add to the concern that Mr Bersin expresses.

It is well-known in Australia that in our own organisation our preference using GeneSys is for a more boutique or bespoke-style psych assessment approach, where the range of tests chosen are carefully tailored, with expert advise from Organisational Psychologists, to the particular needs of the organisation and the roles they need to fill or develop. GeneSys’ UK-based publisher, Psytech International has a locally based philosophy (Global Leaders in Local Assessment Solutions) that sees psychometric assessment delivered around the world by carefully chosen distributors who are local, and who have an intimate knowledge of, and a strong relationship with, their local business and organisational environments. Its a model we are proud of, and believe is probably fairly unique, but more importantly it ensures a very sound, reliable and objective assessment process.

We wish SHL & Previsor very well with the merger. Apart from a flurry of interest by other psychometric publishers and providers however, I see very little change for the world of psychometric testing in the short term, and am hopeful that in the long-term it won’t lead to a reduction of flexibility, control and individual relevance for psychometric users across the world.

* The Simpsons, Coca-Cola and some areas of youth culture are obvious exceptions

Lynette Jensen

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* This is a personal view and does not necessarily represent the opinion, belief or policy of the company. More posts below.

More “Style” Than Substance

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

 

A quick google search reveals all kinds of over-simplified and so called “psychometric” charts and graphics and tools, that have been deliberately, and I think cynically, designed to appeal to our human desire for colour and simplicity. Among these, you’ll find sea and water references of various kinds, circles, boats and other simplistic contrivances aimed at making the product look attractive and easy to use and understand.

This is partly natural, and as someone who comes from a long line of graphic artists, and who used to be a high school teacher, I know the importance of making things look attractive and understandable. But as an ex-school teacher, I also know the harm that can be done to genuine understanding by over-simplifying: you can patronize your audience, and thereby lose their trust and attention, and you can completely lose the meaning of what you are trying to convey.

Any textbook or advertising writer will tell you how difficult it is to sum up meaning and information succinctly and accurately, while at the same time making it easy to understand and quickly grasp. That’s why experts have to do it!

I’ve written in a previous post Keep Psychometric Assessment Scientific about how much I hate the over-simplification, and the misunderstanding this can lead to, in many of the less credible (and they’ll all tell you they’re credible!) “psychometric” products that are available. It’s one of my favourite soap-box topics.

As our shocked graphic artist said when I showed him the material of another (and surprisingly popular) psychometric tool, “The workplace is not kindergarten!”.

The workplace is not kindergarten, but I can easily understand that everyone is keen to solve a problem in the quickest, most straightforward way, and it’s this general desire that the designers of the kindergarten-style psychometric tools are tapping into. Just as in meetings, where we expect reports and presentations to look attractive and readable, too much glitz or “bells and whistles” will distract from the underlying subject matter, and undermine our confidence in its credibility. Good communication requires a balance between presentation and meaning.

All of this is not to say that psychometrics should not be easy to use. While we are a psychometric provider with good academic credentials and connections, we are also totally committed to making psychometrics easy to understand and use in the workplace. However, we would never patronize anyone with over simplified, overly bright kindergarten charts and graphics, and I’m sure most of our clients would be insulted if we did.

While all presentation should be attractive, clear and easy to understand and interpret, I’d suggest that psychometric tools that are deliberately designed to allure, rather than clearly represent underlying scientific theory, probably have more “style” (if you can call it that) than substance.

I’m highly suspicious of, and offended by, psychometric tools dressed up likeThomas the Tank Engine. As a prospective target audience member, it makes me ask, why would their publishers do it if not to trick me, and what are they hiding, or providing, for that matter? Why wouldn’t they have more respect for me?

And ultimately, how could I trust their product?

Lynette Jensen

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* This is a personal view and does not necessarily represent the opinion, belief or policy of the company. More posts below.

Keep Psychometric Assessment Scientific

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

 

As a high-end workplace psychometric assessment provider, and a professional psychology practice, we like to keep a firm general eye on the way psychometrics are perceived, and on the quality of both the products being offered in the marketplace and the providers who supply them.

Accordingly, my attention was drawn recently to a discussion about psychometric tests that had taken place a couple of years ago on the highly regarded Stubborn Mule (“stubbornly objective”) blog by financial analyst, mathematician and generally broad thinker, Sean Carmody. This discussion is still extremely relevant, and perhaps more so now, as psychometric assessment becomes more and more customary in the workplace.

The discussion began with Sean’s post I Hate Personality Tests which was followed by psychologist Maria Skarveli’s, I have a love/hate relationship with psychometric testing and was completed by Last Word on Personality Tests.

The discussion is excellent and I highly recommend it: it’s intelligent, thought-provoking, hilarious, concerning and cathartic (for the record, may I say that I Hate Stupid, Overly-simplistic, Kindergarten-style Charts and Graphics, Especially Circles and Sea References?!), and it raises many questions, and answers, about the way psychometrics are seen and used in the workplace.

The discussion identifies the problem of balancing our desire as human beings for simple (and time-saving) answers, with the necessity for credible, qualified people to supply, support and operate valid psychometric assessment.

Proper, quality psychometric testing is a science, as Maria points out in I have a love/hate relationship with psychometric testing, based on sophisticated statistical analysis and application. There is no place in science (or in the workplace I would have thought) for tests which read like magazine quizzes or present like kindergarten pictures, or which draw on an almost magical thinking part of ourselves like astrology does. (I Hate Personality Tests).

Quality psychometric assessment is not mind reading, nor is it somehow magical. It’s a statistical analysis of data provided by the person being assessed.

There are two main sorts of psychometric assessments used in the workplace: tests for Ability, and tests for Personality. The former should indicate if a person can do a job, and the latter how a person is likely to do it.

We believe that personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs TM for instance, which is based on the elements of personality originally identified by psychologist Carl Jung, should never normally be used as part of a recruitment process (and in fact the Myers-Briggs website says this), and that their usefulness in a work context is that they might begin a discussion about personality styles and how they combine in a team environment.

It seems to me that there are two main dangers with the sort of mass and undiscerning use of personality tests in the workplace which the Stubborn Mule posts address, especially the over-simplified & brightly coloured kind, or the more credible ones in the hands of less skilful or trained practitioners. Firstly, their simplistic use or design could stereotype or define people in a way that can be meaningless, unhelpful or down right stupid and dangerous as discussed in Last Word on Personality Tests. Secondly, they can be erroneously used as part of a recruitment process.

No matter what psychometric tests are used, even at the highest and most reliable end, psych tests should always be seen as part of the process and not a “stand alone” or simplistic answer. (See our website page Psychometric Assessment) As part of a proper, thoughtful and thorough recruitment or developmental process they can provide another, objective, measure to predict job performance, which helps in your decision making.

While psych tests should be smooth and easy to use when you know what you are doing, they are based on science, not magic.

I’d steer clear of over-simplification and kindergarten graphs and pictures, if I were you!

Lynette Jensen

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* This is a personal view and does not necessarily represent the opinion, belief or policy of the company. More posts below.

Leadership & Good Manners

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

 

An email I received out of the blue recently from a person I’ve never met left me reeling for a couple of days, and started me thinking about manners in the modern workplace. With all the promotion of leadership courses and discussions about leadership strategies and characteristics these days, I realised we never hear mention any more of manners. And yet, if there’s one thing I’ve always noticed about leaders, it’s that they are always polite and gracious.

Manners are the small social rules and conventions that hold us all together. They “oil the cogs” of all our relationships and keep things running smoothly in organisations, families and personal relationships. My recent experience got me thinking about the characteristics of leadership, like good manners, that we should all, and probably do, recognise, but that are not “sold” or commonly taught anymore, most certainly not as part of a quick-fix package or course on the internet. A leader, and anyone else, should know that good manners stop unpleasantness and misunderstanding from happening, and bad manners get in the way of things running smoothly, and are therefore costly, both in human and financial terms.

It seems to me that “Leadership” is a bit like “Emotional Intelligence” (or poetry or art or charisma) in that we all recognise it, but it’s very hard to define. And, like Emotional Intelligence, Leadership seems be subject to fashion. When I was a school student, teachers were always talking about whether we had “leadership qualities” or not, but when I was a teacher myself, the prevailing wisdom frowned on anything thought to be anti-egalitarian. Now, in the workplace at least, the pendulum has swung again, and “Leadership” seems to be a hot (and lucrative) topic. But even if, as human beings, we can all recognise leadership, can we really define it simply, or market it?

I think perhaps we should go back to our deeper, more personal, psychological understanding of how we recognise, and indeed follow, leaders, so that we can learn valuable lessons from them, rather than thinking we can package a simple formula and sell it (complete with coloured circular charts – I’ve googled!). Furthermore, it’s probably a good idea to learn to recognise a leader, rather than following some jumped up “wannabe” who yells loudest, and who’ll lead us over a cliff in a crisis.

Understanding leadership is like understanding anything, its complex, subtle, sometimes subjective, and requires good observation and thinking. Developing leadership requires time and wisdom. One of our clients recently said that she’s noticed that real leaders are always calm in a crisis. I have noticed that real leaders are unpretentious, gracious and polite. What else does a good leader really have? : usually charisma, charm, often patience, and they inspire confidence and respect (and there are lots of other characteristics).

The point is, that leaders, by definition, have to have characteristics that make people want to follow them. In other words, their characteristics and conduct give them influence. I’m very sure that none of us want to follow impolite people who make us angry, insulted and incensed. So on a personal, and a business level, it doesn’t make any sense to have bad manners.

I think the conclusion might be, if we want to get to first base as a leader, we’ll have to begin with good manners!

Lynette Jensen

*This is a personal view and does not necessarily represent the opinion, beliefs or policy of the company