Lucie Ilbury sits down with the MindTools L&D Podcast to discuss "What exactly is psychometric testing?"

Last month our in-house Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Head of Client Enablement Lucie Ilbury had the pleasure of sitting down with Owen Ferguson and Ross Garner to discuss the ins and out's of psychometric testing and assessment. Here she shares her perspective on why measuring the whole person is important for fairness and quality of decision-making.

I had a great conversation recently with the MindTools team on the topic of psychometrics. We discussed how assessments can be used in hiring, development and to support wider talent strategy, as well as exploring the importance of taking a whole-person view and how blended assessments can help. Other key topics included why it’s so important to view the individuals using and completing assessments as a customer and the practicalities of assessment, like designing a process that will offer an efficient and cost-effective approach.

Reflecting on our discussion, it can feel like such a delicate balance to get assessment right. We want (and need) to create a great experience for our candidates and assessors, we need to make sure we are measuring what matters in a robust and fair way, and we also face multiple pressures like how quickly we need to fill a role, how our stakeholders might feel about the process, and its ROI.

This is where getting both technology and science right really speaks to me. The right assessment platform can help to create a really engaging end-user experience and offers huge opportunities in terms of efficiency and joined-up data capture. But, when it comes to applying the technology and the design of our assessments, we have to go back to first principles in assessment: is it valid, it is reliable, and is it fair?

With so much pressure facing organisations - economic turbulence coupled with a surplus of vacancies that have resulted in a war to attract and retain key talent – it’s never been more important to get assessment right. If we neglect it, we run the risk of making quick but poor and error-prone talent decisions that hurt our businesses, our teams and our people. This costs more time and money over the medium-term. We also have to evolve to what the current landscape demands of us: speed, efficiency and cost control. I feel, quite passionately, that robust whole-person assessment coupled with the right technology is the answer here. While it may feel like we have to compromise on something, as long as we are clear on what we need to measure, our practical constraints and what a good experience looks like, we can get the best of all worlds.

I really hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Listen to the full episode here: