Products & Tools

You want to improve the rigour of your recruitment process.
You want to more accurately predict the performance capabilities of (internal and external) candidates.
You want a benchmarked, objective, valid and reliable assessment tool.
You think you may want psychological testing customised to your business, based on statistically proven benchmarks established for high performing individuals in key roles.

The trouble is, psychometric tests are expensive and time consuming, Right? A report for a senior appointment has always cost somewhere between $750-$1000. What's more, you have to book your candidate/employee into a four-hour test at some consulting office and then wait two days to get the results - and that process can take a week. Therefore, it becomes neither time nor cost effective to use these tools even though their reliability and validity is extremely well established.

The Solution

You need to buy psych-testing software to run inhouse, and no, you don’t need to a have psychologists in your team to use these software products.

Organisations can now purchase software to run a full battery of psychometric tests within their own work environment. The scoring and reporting is literally instantaneous. You can have a full report in your hand before the candidate has even had time to take a sip of coffee. The rigourous testing process may still take 2-3 hours, but you can have that report in your hand and discuss it with the candidate in the same meeting.

And the cost, well it’s a tenth of what you think. A full executive report including verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, abstract reasoning, personality, leadership style and motivators and values costs only $77 + GST!

That’s why all the leading companies are using testing software inhouse. Just ask our clients:

Angus & Coote, Bayer, Big W, Coke Cola, Harris Technologies, Liquorland, Metcash Nutrimetics, Southcorp, Westons and many others.

Problem: which software to choose?

You need to look at purchasing inhouse psychometric software. It’s a confusing and difficult choice.

There are thousands of tests all measuring different characteristics. There are three main software packages, all purporting to do the same thing. How do you navigate through this minefield and end up with the right tool for your requirements?

Well, this is a problem we know well. Why? Because we had to face it is well! We had been hand-scoring and dicta-phoning out psychometric reports for over twenty years. And yes, it was enormously labour intensive and we charged $750 for a report and it took a day or two to get the report out to our clients. We figured, there had to be a better way to service our clients. So we went looking for computer-based assessment software.

This is what we learnt:

1) The tests utilised must be proven to be valid and reliable psychometric tests. Check with the Australian Psych Society or a registered psychologist to ensure that the tests you are selecting meet the internationally accepted standards. Ensure that the tests have been assessed through Academic Research and that practising psychologists commonly uses them.

2) Beware of "home grown" test software. There is no regulation preventing anyone from constructing a "test" and selling it on the market. It may be well presented, it may look sexy, it may make sense, but is it valid and will it hold up in Court?

3) The software should contain a wide range of tests for you to choose from. One test will not meet all your requirements. Just like psychologists have been doing for years, you will need to select different tests for different positions and different circumstances (eg: recruitment or development needs).

4) Similarly, you should expect a wide range of normative data. Tests are only as useful as their norms. Who will you be comparing your staff to? How big is the norm pool? Is it an internationally accepted normative sample? Can you compare against Australian norms, managers or graduates or supervisors etc etc. This process will easily sort out the pretenders because normative data is what makes psychometric tests so valid, reliable and useful.

5) It must be easy to use.

6) There must be ongoing support both from a technical (it) perspective and from a psych interpretation perspective.

7) Training in the interpretation of tests must be thorough.

Solution: GeneSys

After an exhaustive search internationally we made our choice; GeneSys. In fact, apart from buying it to use in our practice, because we were so impressed, we bought the licence to distribute it in NSW.

(A variation of the "I liked it so much I bought the company" theme).

Bear in mind that in our minds, there are really only a few tools that meet all of the above requirements. We could easily have become accredited in any of them, but after careful comparison we chose GeneSys. This is why we believe GeneSys is undoubtably the best tool in the market:

1) It has an enormous range of validated tests including the 15FQ, which is very similar to the 16PF, which we have been using for years. Other tests include all types of reasoning tests, occupational personality profile, Jung Type Indicator (an adaptation of Jung's MBTI), interest inventories and values and motives tests.

2) It is internationally recognised and utilised and carries a huge range of well-researched norms including Australian Norms.

3) It is by far the most economical software to use, costing almost half the competing products to run for virtually identical results.

4) It is very easy to use.

5) Our clients will be well supported with a national helpline.

6) It is tried and tested by leading organisations globally.

For more information on GeneSys, go to www.genesysonline.net