Psychometric Tests for Hiring: Advantages & Disadvantages in 2026

The painful truth is that often we make hiring decisions based on our gut feeling.

What ends up happening is that we either hire the wrong person or end up rejecting the right ones. Especially now, when the war for talent is more prominent than ever and finding the best-fit candidates is difficult, the ability to look into the future and see how employees perform before they are actually hired is the goal for everyone.

There are two most common ways through which a candidate’s suitability for a role is often assessed: resume screening and traditional psychometric tests.

In this blog, we will tell you a bit more about psychometric testing in recruitment.

Psychometric tests in recruitment

Psychometric tests have been around for approximately 200 years and have become a popular method of measuring and assessing the intelligence and aptitude of individuals. It’s nothing new, and more than 75% of The Times Best Companies to Work For are using it and seeing positive changes in their teams.

Yet, what exactly are psychometric tests?

Psychometric tests: A definition

Psychometric tests are psychological tools, which are developed and validated according to a scientific method, to measure a candidate’s cognitive abilities, personality, and aptitude. Cognitive ability tests, in this case, can be seen as a subgroup of aptitude assessments.

These tests have become an increasingly popular method in HR processes—whether it be when assessing the dynamics of current employees or assessing the suitability of candidates for specific job roles.

What kind of traits do psychometric tests measure?

The most commonly used psychometric tests within HR processes are aptitude, personality, and behavioral tests. At the core of aptitude tests is the measurement of cognitive abilities and reasoning skills, whereas personality and behavior-focused tests place a focus on exploring an individual’s values, behaviors, and motivations.

Long story short—personality tests are focused on determining the personality and behavioral characteristics of each individual, and aptitude tests focus on cognitive abilities.

Aptitude tests: Cognitive ability/GCA

Aptitude tests measure the general ability to learn, solve problems, and process information. In fact, General Cognitive Ability (GCA) is the #1 most important trait determinant of job performance. Some examples of the things that are measured by GCA assessments include reasoning, memory, problem-solving skills, and so on. It has the highest validity and also the lowest application costs. It is also the best predictor of job-related learning. 

Cognitive ability has proven to be the most significant predictor of work performance, with a correlation of 0.65-0.74 (source). 

In contrast to that, the predictive power of a CV is very low:

• The correlation between education and job performance is 0.10;
• The correlation between work experience and job performance is 0.16.

Behavioural tests

In contrast to aptitude tests, behavioral tests (usually in the format of questionnaires) assess personal behavior preferences. Basically, it’s the way in which an individual prefers to work. In fact, behavior has proven to be a significant predictor of work performance, with a correlation of 0.45 (source).

At the core of personality tests or questionnaires is the idea that it is possible to quantify one’s intrinsic personality and behavioral characteristics by asking a multitude of questions related to an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Two of the most popular personality tests include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Big Five personality traits.

Being aware of various personality and behavioral aspects of a candidate is absolutely crucial, as it can be the determining factor for whether the person is a fit with the organization in terms of attitude, general work style, and overall personality.

3 advantages of psychometric testing

Psychometric tests can objectively reveal the part of human beings that you can’t read from a resume, yet the parts do have a significant impact on your hiring success.

There are three main advantages of using psychometric tests in recruitment:

Eliminate bias (both screening and interviews).

This means that all the candidates are being assessed equally while you are simultaneously getting to know the person behind the CV objectively.

Improve hiring success.

Psychometric tests focus on personality, (soft) skills, and cognitive ability, which have proven to be the best predictors of future performance.

Improved hiring efficiency.

You are provided with an already interpreted report for each and every candidate, in a standardized format, saving you a lot of screening time.

Eliminate bias (Both screening and interviews).

Eliminating bias from the hiring process can often seem like a tricky and complex puzzle. However, if bias is not eliminated from the hiring process, we tend to make hiring decisions that are based on our own subjective feelings and thoughts rather than on facts.

This results in an increasingly high rate of mishires, which in turn leads to large financial losses on a company-wide level. 

There are risks of CV-based screening you (probably) weren’t aware of that lead to misleading and inconsistent insights. Furthermore, your first impression of the candidates might end up being heavily influenced by unconscious biases. Once bias creeps into your hiring process, your talent pool becomes less diverse and inclusive. 

Using psychometric tests helps you fight bias both during the candidate screening and the interview process. These tests are made to be less biased, as they use standard methods of assessment such that every candidate is provided with the exact same set of questions and instructions. 

This means that all the candidates are being assessed equally while you are simultaneously getting to know the person behind the CV objectively.

Additionally, since you’ve already collected a lot of information prior to the interview, you can now focus on diving into this information. This way you can get the right first impression about each candidate and prevent wrongfully rejecting or advancing candidates in the future, as well as make better hiring decisions.

Improved hiring success

If you have not yet used psychometric tests as pre-employment assessments, you’re missing out.  Pre-employment assessments in general help you raise the quality of your hires by helping you find the very best candidates in terms of both job and team fit even before the first interview.

Improved hiring efficiency

By using psychometric tests, you not only eliminate bias from both the screening and interview process but also improve hiring success. But is it a more efficient process than quickly skimming through resumes and motivation letters? It may at first seem like implementing psychometric testing and using these tests during the candidate screening process is time-consuming; however, that is not the case. 

Psychometric tests, in fact, allow you to more accurately, easily, and efficiently sort through the applicants. It is the dream of everyone working in human resources—it can reduce the workload of going through large numbers of unsuitable candidates drastically.