personality tests

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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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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Leverage Your Human Resources With Assessment Solutions

To retain the right employees and maximize their effectiveness in the business, you need to implement effective assessment resolutions. These are structured means of evaluating potential employees on a gamut of fundamental criteria. These ways can also be applied to subsisting employees too.

When used in the engaging and selection process, assessment solutions help you to pick the apt candidate for the role through the usage of a number of structured ways. Employing tested criteria ensures the people you hire are not only the suitable for the position in question but also decide whether they can match and thrive in your current company culture.

Hiring and Recruitment

When it arrives at employee selection and recruitment, many companies yet cling to the traditional methods of recruitment. These methods – interviews, resume critiques, background checks and so on – are still valid but are nowhere near enough to decide whether a candidate is fit not only to do the work you’re choosing them for but also whether they will fit into your organization and be engaged to its long-term success.

Contemporary assessment systems incorporate skills and abilities tests, behavioral and character evaluations, structured interviews assessments and simulations, cultural fit, job fit and career fit, practical job previews, administration evaluations and can hold custom-built assessments.

As for your existing employees, assessment systems comprising a range of tests, interviews, and simulations provide an ideal method to assess training and development needs. By correctly determining these needs, you’ll be in the perfect position to formulate a training program that improves your employees and thus your complete organization.

Examples are assessment centers and simulations. These enable you to evaluate performance levels and development changes for current employees as well as candidates. These contain a wide range of stimulating and practical activities providing presentation and role playing exercises, written analysis applications and workflow simulation exercises.

Performance Indicators

These allow you to foretell how well your employees will be involved in their work and if they are likely to stick with your organization.

Assessment solutions can also help with another problem that some firms face, that of employee retention. Employees leave organizations for many reasons, but job dissatisfaction is high on the list. Job dissatisfaction can result from many factors including not fitting in with organizational culture to feeling undervalued or in the wrong role.

Employee retention

Proper assessment can improve employee retention in many ways. For one thing, it can work in the hiring process by making sure that the candidate is someone right for the position s/he’s applying for and also right for your company culture. The modern assessment covers such factors as cultural fit, job fit and career fit, to make sure your new employee is with you for the long term.

Ongoing assessment can ensure employee satisfaction by making sure an employee’s talent is recognized and put to its best use.

Cengrow is one among global leaders in management consulting firms and has transformed businesses in all sectors and regions in India and across the planet. They have partnered with a range of clients to develop need based assessment solutions for employees at reasonable costs.

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Should Small Businesses Rely on Personality Tests for Recruiting Staff?

Research indicates that half of all new hires fail within 18 months, but most of them fail for attitudinal reasons (personality traits, human interactions, etc.) rather than cognitive competency (brain-based skills like logic and reasoning, problem-solving, language, etc.). So as a small business owner and hiring manager, what can you do to ensure you hire the right people?

Can do – will do – will fit

As business owners, we are responsible for hiring the right people and building teams which perform well together. And the smaller the business, the more costly it is when you get this wrong.

Personality testing

One tool in the recruitment process that larger companies tend to rely heavily on uponcertainly, but is often overlooked by smaller businesses, is the personality assessment. Personality testing, also known as psychometric testing is designed to predict how people will behave in the workplace. In other words, it attempts to predict how the candidate will work, rather than worry about whether they have the technical skills to do the job. It might cast light, for example, on how the candidate will work under pressure, how they will interact with co-workers, or whether they will fit into a given team, given the existing team members’ personalities. In other words, companies rely on these tests to screen candidates for ‘good fit’ – the end goal being to reduce turnover and improve productivity.

Developers of these assessments tend to counter that the tests do have controls that detect inaccurate answers, typically by asking a question several times in different ways to test the consistency of responses. This may help correct one misunderstood question or a slip of the mouse.

Personality testing as part of the recruitment is supported with some academic credibility, and businesses should certainly apply them in particular if they are being used exclusively to predict a candidate’s fit. A lot of the time, the candidate interview, and the psychometric test are seen as two separate processes or sequential ‘hurdles’ that the candidate must jump over. Take a more integrated approach with Cengrow that is leading organization that deals in personality assessment, and address in a second interview any concerns which arise out of the test results, probing any potential ‘unwanted’ personality traits.

Ironically, sometimes the ‘will fit’ (personality fit) assessment may conflict with the ‘can do’ (Skills) assessment. Research conducted on characteristics of successful salespeople suggests that employees who are assertive and display a strong will to achieve are more likely to sell more than those who gregarious, dependable and persistent. And yet psychometric testing may well find out the suitable types because they are present right with them. It’s necessary to always relate your recruitment assessments to a conscious consideration of the specific skills and attributes you need in a particular role, rather than blindly trust in an automated evaluation process.

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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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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.

Personality Tests – Better Evaluation for Qualitative Research

Personality tests help employers screen out desirable candidates in accordance to the skill requirement. It assists companies to make better choices while recruiting employees with specific qualities that can be enhanced as per the job roles & responsibilities.

Benefits of Personality tests

There are limitations to self-awareness and sometimes our brain needs to be stimulated for an adequate response. There are things each one of us intuitively ‘know how to do’ but may not know if we have that ability to perform that task. A face-to-face interview often limits the potential for being creative, imaginative and rational. Candidates undergoing personality tests are tested on their qualities including Determination, persistence and the willingness.

Projective techniques are a mix of tools and techniques that is based on evolutionary adaptive processes and behavioural economics. Projective techniques are typically divided into five groups and can each be applied as required. It includes Associative techniques, Completion techniques, Constructive techniques, Choice/ordering techniques and Expressive techniques. All these techniques consists of perceptions, impressions, emotions and heuristics to help analyse a candidates inner conflicts, habits, social behaviour, social influences, thinking style etc.

It goes beyond just communicating to what is asked and helps the candidate present themselves in a more transparent, logical and sensible sense. The test involves projective techniques, that help reveal candidates emotions and internal conflicts that may not appear easily while appearing for a competency based interview.

Helps Determine Leadership and Extraversion Qualities

A personality test helps determine qualities like Leadership and Extraversion in an employee or a new candidate. Both of these personality traits play an important role in a business environment. Remember, a leader is more than just a boss and leadership comes naturally to a person’s overall behaviour. How a person manages and be creative can determine how good a leader he can be. Additionally, his motivational spirit also adds to his personality and helps employers bring in better leadership qualities to their organisation workflow.

Similarly, for a sales profile, employers look at candidates who are extrovert and are confident communicators. Ever seen a sales person who does not talk! Qualities associated with sales profile need to include being cheerfulness, assertiveness, gregariousness and highly confident in the product he is representing. For employers, it is important that the candidates they select have the desired qualities that make sense in lieu to the job roles they are assigned with. Personality tests can really be helpful in choosing, recruiting and selecting the perfect employee. This will be a good future decision for the organisation that can further use the employee for other senior roles and enhance these attributes.

While cost of infrastructure, technology and even managing businesses may have gone down, the cost of recruitment & selection has seen a dramatic increase in recent years. The human resource development team spends a large amount of company’s expenditure and efforts on hiring employees and yet most of the employees chosen are not even committed to the company for long or not up to the required job preferences. Cengrow knows how important objective and quantifiable information can be for analysing an individual’s potential and therefore offers businesses psychometric inventories comprising of personality tests, questionnaire type inventories, tests of intelligence, analytical ability tests, competency based interview, general aptitude tests etc. Cengrow has the expertise to design and develop customized inventories, keeping in view cultural dynamics and client specific needs.