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by Austin Tay

Psychometrics and the Ethical Candidate

A new approach to recruitment holds promise for a more ethical workforce. Registered Industrial and Organisational Psychologist Austin Tay discusses how the next generation of applicant evaluation is changing the way companies select new talent.

turned to psychometric tools to devise

an assessment process to find better, and

more ethical, candidates.

Employers are utilising a range

of psychometric tools to find better

matches. Personality questionnaires dig

deeper into candidates’ suitability than

traditional interviewing. Ability tests give

measurable results, while role plays and

in-basket exercises test how candidates

react to job-specific scenarios. Even

presentations and competency-based

interviewing have become common,

giving applicants the chance to display

where talent has exceeded the amount

of work available, it has proven to be a

difficult task for organisations to identify,

attract and recruit good employees. Gone

are the days when organisations could

just stretch their budget to hire the right

talent. Choosing a person for the job is

no longer so easy, rather is more of a

tedious exercise to ensure that the right

person fits the job and the culture of the

organisation. How then do organisations

make sense of two qualified talents vying

for only one job? To deal with this, many

organisations, especially in Europe, have

As millions the world over look

back on New Year resolutions met

or broken, the world’s financial

organisations begin to lay the strategies

for what looks to be another year of uphill

climbing. Hard lessons from the financial

crisis continue to be unpacked, but two

clear areas are now demanding attention:

firstly, a more robust and innovative

way to recruit and identify talent; and

secondly, finding a mechanism to ensure

that the talent they identify will behave

ethically within their area of practice.

In this present economic environment,

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required job skills during the interview.

Together, these tools are giving financial

institutions in the US and Europe a

glimpse into potential employees’ sense

of ethics and work conduct.

This type of recruitment process,

though robust, is by no means an

inexpensive investment. Thus,

psychometric tests are now reserved

for candidates to whom organisations

are keen to present an offer or have

already offered a position. It must be

remembered that psychometric tools

used for recruitment are not to be used

to screen candidates. Instead the results

obtained from them are part of an overall

assessment to see whether an individual

is suitable for the job. When a suitable

candidate has been identified, the results

can then be used to pinpoint further his or

her training and development needs.

Far-cry from the classifieds In Europe, the entire recruitment process

has recently become more interactive,

and this is especially true in the financial

sector. Instead of the conventional

method of seeking candidates through

advertisements online or in newspapers,

organisations are making recruitment

more fun. A candidate now can log on to

the organisation’s website to learn more

about the job and its work culture. If

interested in the job, the candidate will

then be guided through a special section

of the website and may be required to

go through either simple personality

questionnaire, situational judgement task,

ability tests (such as verbal, numerical or

diagrammatic) or be involved in a more

complex, multi-levelled, online business

game.

This new twist on psychometric testing could

provide the much needed ammunition the

financial sector requires to combat rogue or

dishonest employees.

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Austin Tay

Reg. Psychol (I/O Psych) and

Managing Director

Tricor Human Capital

The basis of such interactive forms of

assessment is to allow both the candidate

and the organisation a view of personal

and company culture to seek a real fit

for the position. Successful candidates

are then contacted and invited for the

second phase of assessment, often an

interviewing process and the opportunity

to participate in an assessment centre,

before hopefully being offered the job.

On its face, such an interactive

recruitment process seems a hefty

investment, which is why it is only

presently adopted by the financial and a

few other sectors. However, these sectors

have reaped the rewards of identifying

and attracting more suitable talent and

have avoided the cost, anguish, disruption

and reduced productivity which an

incompatible recruitment can bring.

Measuring integrityThe other concern organisations in the

financial sector need to address is how

to identify potential employees who

will act ethically and professionally at

work. Although still in the trial stage, at

least one financial institution in Europe

has recently collaborated with Cubiks,

an international HR consultancy, and

created a questionnaire to identify

integrity in employees. This new

twist on psychometric testing could

become a powerful questionnaire to

provide the much needed ammunition

the financial sector requires to combat

rogue or dishonest employees. As this

questionnaire is still in its trial stage, how

accurately it identifies actual integrity

issues remains to be seen.

Devising a questionnaire to deal

with professional integrity is by no

means an easy feat. Integrity, which

transcends cultural morality and values,

is interpreted differently and cannot

be precisely pinpointed. Building a

successful psychometric test is not merely

an exercise of putting questions to spot

whether people are or are not displaying

integrity. The designing of an integrity

questionnaire is a complex task because,

like most robust questionnaires, it needs

to deal with not only issues of validity,

reliability and objectivity but also the

fundamental issue of how to define

integrity. In the above mentioned trial, the

questionnaire sought to measure integrity

through the candidates’ responses to

questions that measure their behaviour

in a work environment and not on their

personal values.

Towards a reliable integrity modelThe challenge to psychometricians and

occupational psychologists becomes

to first create a definition of integrity

and then to design relevant behavioural

questions that can measure this. A

sizable sample of respondents must

be assembled to test and re-test the

questionnaire to ensure that it is truly

objective, and, most importantly, that it

really measures integrity. In the event that

the questionnaire needs to be translated,

cultural sensitivities must then be

taken into account, with rigorous back

translation needed to minimise the wrong

usage of wordings or phrases.

Even after a scientifically rigorous

process, organisations could not be free

to use the questionnaire unreservedly or

treat it as an absolute tool to differentiate

candidates’ work ethics and integrity.

This type of questionnaire, like most

personality questionnaires, can only

minimise the risk of hiring an ethically

dubious employee. Psychometric tests

are not, and never will be, a panacea for

weeding ‘rogue’ candidates. It must also

be remembered that because integrity

falls within the very grey area of cultural

and moral values, such a questionnaire

might not necessarily work very well in

countries where personal sensibilities

should not or legally cannot be infringed.

A prescription for Asia?While no silver bullet, such a questionnaire

can certainly help organisations minimise

the risk of problematic employees,

making it instantly very useful in active

Asian financial markets like Hong Kong,

Singapore and Shanghai. If the usage of

such questionnaire proved to be workable

in the financial sector, one could easily

see such questionnaires becoming a

common tool for other business sectors to

incorporate in their recruitment process.

The question now remains: “Is the

Asian market ready to adopt an interactive

interface or an integrity questionnaire

in its recruitment process?” Based on

current trends, it seems very likely

that international organisations with a

foothold in Asia will implement these

tests as part of their global recruitment

initiatives. Whether such practices will

be picked up by their Asian counterparts

is less certain. If Chinese advancement

in the international markets is any

gauge, then the trail to integrity-focused

psychometrics as part of the recruitment

process will definitely be a short one.

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