Category: Aptitude Test

HR Focus in Start-ups to Succeed

Start-up companies can come in all forms and sizes. They seem to have high failure rates, but the minority who succeed can become large and influential.

It has been seen that most start-up founders more often have a casual or off-beat culture in their thinking, dress, office space, HR practices and Marketing, as compared to traditional corporations. Some of these casual approaches, such as the use of “flat” organizational structure, in which employees can directly communicate with the Founders or CEOs informally, are practiced to promote efficiency and to enthuse employees in the workplace.

Business Strategies for Finance, Marketing, Production, Product Development and Innovation are made without a robust HR and People strategy. The importance of this needs to be highlighted as this is one pillars of the foundation on which the businesses is built, and if this pillar is weak or not there the dangers will always loom. Having a HR and People plan is like a having Finance plan which is absolutely essential to a success of a start-up. If people are not the key focus area the start-up cannot succeed. The HRand People plan needs to be budgeted in the initial phase itself.

Hiring the right person is one of the biggest challenges for the start-up – it is not that getting people is a problem but getting the right-fit certainly is for most start-up organizations. Many a times compromises are likely to be made to get the organization moving quickly hoping that the incumbents will learn and adapt as we go along – something which a start-up needs to be careful about in my opinion.

All start-ups need people who are innovative, adaptable and flexible, analytical, emotionally intelligent, team players and have willingness to learn. They should be willing multi-taskers. Easily said than done – how do we find this out in an interview of an hour or two at the most?  The founder’s or CEO’s experience or gut-feel may not be sufficient to make those judgements. There is a professional way of doing thisby putting the person through professional Competency Assessment or Personality (Psychological) Tests.

As the organization matures and grows retention of good people becomes the challenge.Attracting,developing and retaining an amazing team are the hallmarks of success for any start-ups success. If there are right people they will design and redesign success strategies and fight for the organization’s success.

What HR policies should be there? How shouldthe elements of legality, predictability, fairness, equity and control be built into them require in-depth thought and insight as does the business plan. What has succeeded in one organization may not in another as each organization have a unique character and personality. Having policies is not good enough it is their proper implementation which is the tougher part and leads to dissatisfaction in most organizations over a period of time.

Just like business strategies and plans change the HR policies need to be revised and re-engineered keeping in view the business needs.

Making sure that the there is adequate focus on people besides other areas is most important in my opinion.

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Employee Satisfaction Survey

Making Performance Management Work effectively

Managing Performance and keeping the workforce motivated is becoming increasingly complex and difficult particularly for the young brigade who is far more mobile and impulsive.
No system is perfect and permanent in any organisation. We need to continuously improve and adapt our processes to the changing environment.
Most organizations do have some form of Performance Management System as in recent times even Performance Appraisal is called the same. Firstly, let me clarify that Performance Appraisal is only one of the elements of the Performance Management System.
A robust Performance Management System (PMS) has 4 distinct sub-processes:
1. Formal Target Setting Process cascading down from the Annual Business Plan. It encompasses a participatory approach and is an open, transparent,data-based and an alignedprocess wherein the organization seeks to set challenging but realistic targets for all its employees.
2. Monitoring and Control involves an institutionalised and an on-going process for giving feedback, coaching and counselling to keepthe performance on track. This is the most important part of PMS and the organization needs to build the competence of its employees – it requires specialized training. This has invariably been a weakness in most organizations we have worked for in the last 30 years
3. The Performance Appraisal against the targets set in step 1 and any revisions thereafter. This requires the elements of subjectivity to be reduced and objectivity brought in. For this the appraisal form needs to be well designed. Self-appraisal often helps to bring acceptance and reasoning in the whole process. Appraiser and Reviewer both need to be data-based and objective to keep personal biases out.
4. A clearly defined Reward and Recognition Policy linked with thePerformance Appraisal contributes to building a motivated work-force. This needs constant review and updating year on year.
It is desirable to have the whole process fully documented with timelines with responsibilities clearly demarcated.
Other process such as Career and Succession Planning need to be in place for Performance Management to be more effective. Some Organizations do keep the two processes independent. However, the retention of talent has thrown a big challenge to many organizations as they grapple with balancing these processes.
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How to Use Psychometric Testing in Hiring

According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, approximately 18% of the companies these days are using personality tests in the recruitment procedure, and surprisingly, this number is growing at the rate of 10-15% on an annual basis- as per many industrial and organizational psychologists and the Association of Test Publishers.

Psychometric testing proves that there are certain cognitive and personality tests which help the new employees to succeed in their field and boost them for their future. Since the cost of a bad hire is extensively estimated to be a year’s salary; there are huge incentives for organizations to get hiring right. Due to lack of knowledge, unfortunately, many organizations use the wrong psychometric assessments in a wrong way and here are the followings they ought to know to minimize the potential risks and maximize their predictive accuracy, as Cengrows is helping you to achieve:

  • Know the law: the organization ought to keep in mind, the legal compliance when they want to add psychometric tests to their pre-employment screening system. The assessment tools, especially cognitive ability tests need to be job- relevant due to the presence of anti- discrimination laws. Competency mapping is included too for psychomotor testing.
  • Business needs should be known: these tests won’t help you unless you don’t have well- established measures of job performance. These days, organizations are focusing more on the predictors or independent variables rather than concentrating on dependent variables. It is important to know that if an industry doesn’t have quantitative measures of employee performance on the job, then there is no source for statistical correlations of how good these tests predict their performance. In such a case, you need to be dependent on the assessment center.
  • Risk of cheating is reduced: the tests like cognitive ability tests are conducted in order to safeguard the candidate; organizations should ‘proctor’ the assessment test, either by monitoring him via video conference, or noting their activities directly. But keep in mind that some candidates may be tempted to play a smart act with the result. You must compare the reference of the candidate and his interview ratings with their results to ensure whether the two are consistent or not. Such things are useful in the sales department where to need to have a smart candidate and you can be easily fooled by people by ‘impression management’. Using multiple psychometric tests can actually help the organizations to get a more consistent picture. You have to perform such tests in limit and never try to over-do it because sometimes, even a well-developed, predictive assessment battery and legally defensible won’t be of any worth if the candidate feels it being over time-consuming.
  • Must share the results with the candidates: every candidate has the right to see their effect these days- as per “informed consent” and few organizations also provide access to the reports based on the psychometric tests that the applicants take. Whether the candidate accepts the employment offer or not, there are both- the ethical as well as the pragmatic benefits of sharing the result.
  • Test the tests: job performance of an individual must be evaluated quantitatively, which give the company criteria for correctness. While hiring managers and HR, one must consume the right methodology to select and retain the authentic psychometric tests.

To undergo all these points as mentioned earlier, one ought to know and understand the business needs and make sure that you find a test that evaluates the characteristics. Some laws prohibit the company from discriminating the privacy of the candidate, but no legislation prohibits the company from using strange assessment tools.

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What Happens in the Graduate Assessment Centre?

The recruitment process is a herculean task, along being an interesting one too. Every recruitment center goes through various stages before the final list is presented, which can be challenging and you might be wondering what lies ahead at these centers. Cengrows is here to solve your queries regarding the same and how one should prepare for it in the best way.

Assessment Centre

Various levels involved:

  • Group exercise: this constitutes the larger part of the assessment center, along with being the most exciting level as you get to interact with other candidates of/in different teams and get involved in the group activities, challenging your personal skills. Here, probably, you ought to focus on good communication, sharing, negotiation, planning or even leading your team at some parts. If the things are taking unusual shape, one can be tested to demonstrate conflict management when there is the lack of planning and lots of arguments taking place in the team.

An experiment was conducted in U.K based company- Novo Nordisk, where all these steps are performed.

  • Case study followed by presentation: this is an intellectually challenging part of the program, where you can be asked to resolve an actual real life business case while being an active member of the team. As this isn’t a single case study, hence you must dedicate yourself in planning and coordinating various tasks. This is just not a SINGLE MAN show, where you can solve the problem on your own having sufficient time. You must be able to plan the things well and divide the task equally efficiently among the team members.

The important thing to be noted here is, you should be an active team worker, who doesn’t impose his ideas on other members. You should be open for discussion as well as sharing. You must know how to listen, instead of just speaking.

Nobody is testing your financial or technical skills in the business case, rather your ability to think logically, planning and engaging is what decides your selection. And YES, your presentation skills and ability to state your idea in more organized and confident way is what matters.

  • Interview: this is the last step for the recruitment and the most uncertain too, as you will be asked different questions. The interview is all about competency mapping and is conducted to judge your smartness on how best you can get fit in the required program. All you need is to have a sure shot career goals, and the things should be clear in your mind. Many times, you may even have to go through the stages in the interview as well, or maybe your interview is conducted by more than one person. Just be yourself in such a case and be easy. You go through psychomotor testing on the whole in the interview.

All these steps, though, constitute the recruitment procedure, nowadays; it is all about networking and socializing on a larger front- where you can interact during coffee breaks, or meals or even a fag. Hope, this piece was of some help to you and was an answer to most of your queries. Though the actual situation will be completely different, still, you can assess it via information provided.

Logical Reasoning Test – Your Path To Success

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Our personality impacts how we respond to situations or behave socially.  Being implicit in our understanding of people or being intuitive is part of our psychological behaviour. Logical reasoning tests are created to measure the ability to solve problems and identify logical reasoning. It involves selecting a missing shape, number or series as part of the test to demonstrate capabilities for analytical and conceptual thinking.

Each role is defined by a different set of personalities. For example, a salesperson would require to be smart & communicative, a designer needs to be creative; while a manager needs to be curious, a leader to lead the team with high spirits and enthusiasm while being motivating. Our personality is strongly correlated with our competencies and personality assessments and logical reasoning tests help in determining those competencies faster and in an efficient manner.

Logical Reasoning Tests: Perfect Aptitude Test

Developed by experienced psychologists, Logical reasoning test is timed and is recommended that candidates first get familiarised with the test style and format. Evolving around a set of images or patterns with optional answers, the test can also be referred to as an ‘analytical ability test’, that can be taken by anyone and the preparation includes training your mind to understand patterns, recognise the odd symbols or images and correctly solving the questions. It will also help in knowing the dos and don’ts of the test. Cengrow offers experts that provide personal guidance and determine relevant strengths and weaknesses using analytical ability test and other psychometric tools. This is really helpful in improving an individual’s aptitude test scores and learning the right problem-solving techniques.

Kinds of Logical Reasoning Tests

Assessment centre are digital platforms that enable people to take these tests and help organisations assess multiple qualities in their applicants in a faster efficient way. These tests are based on numerical, Verbal & Diagrammatic reasoning tests and are helpful while selecting candidates for professional jobs. Numerical tests demonstrate how an employee deals with numbers and assesses their knowledge of ratios, percentages, sales analysis and other trends. Verbal reasoning involves reading short passages and answering to questions that assess comprehension skills; while diagrammatic reasoning tests evaluate logical reasoning abilities by measuring the ability to understand flowcharts, diagrams and other sequential diagrams.

Determining Competencies & Candidate’s Potential

Simply put, logical reasoning tests are one type of personality tests that help employers choose and pick the most suited candidate or current employee for a job role. It is a standardised way to assess an individual’s logical behaviour and is quite an efficient approach in conducting interviews.

Assessing people and organizations is a highly specialized job. Cengrow makes this takes easy and manageable for organisations and are ideally placed to help you to gain this insight. Cengrow provides all kinds of assessment and psychometric tests that can help you make a better choice when it comes to selecting the right people with the right qualities.

Recruiters and employers are today utilising a combination of psychometric tests to determine personalities and hidden qualities in an individual. These tests form an important part of the interview structure and a powerful way to acknowledge people’s potential to work with the team and are therefore considered as a major part of the organisation’s decision-making process.