About our Guest Contributor

Ben Schwencke is the chief psychologist at Test Partnership, with extensive experience in consultancy and research. He writes extensively on many topics, including psychology, human resources, psychometric testing, and personal development.

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Paradoxically, psychometrics and pre-employment testing are used most extensively at polar opposite ends of the career ladder. Early career hires can expect to complete a wide variety of assessments as part of their recruitment processes, typically as an early-stage screen. Senior executives also frequently encounter psychometric testing, particularly behavioral assessments and personality questionnaires. However, for experienced hires around the middle of the career ladder, psychometric assessments are comparatively rare, which is highly perplexing.

In practice, however, psychometric assessments are just as useful for experienced hires as they are for any other demographic and can add significant value to selection processes. In this article, I will outline whether specific assessments have their place in experienced hire recruitment and how best to incorporate them into experienced hire selection processes.

Cognitive Assessments

Cognitive ability tests, which some organizations call aptitude or ability tests, are, from a purely scientific standpoint, just as effective for predicting performance in experienced hires as they are for early career hiring. Ultimately, the complexity of the role determines the predictive validity of cognitive assessments, and senior individual contributors often work in highly complex jobs. Additionally, cognitive ability is a powerful predictor of learning ability, serving as a useful gauge of a candidate’s capacity to acquire skills. Not only will this help mid-career professionals continually develop, but it also serves as a proxy for the level of skill they currently possess, making it a useful predictor of both present and future performance.

However, the main reason organizations are hesitant to use cognitive assessments for experienced hires is candidate attrition. Unlike recent college graduates, who are both highly motivated to complete assessments and apply in high numbers, experienced hires have comparatively more power in the selection process. You also simply won’t receive as many applications as you would in the early careers space, meaning candidate attrition can be a serious issue. Moreover, experienced hires may take offense to being tested in the first place, believing you are treating them like fresh graduates. This is particularly true if you use gamified cognitive assessments, which make excellent early-career screening tools but often aren’t taken seriously by experienced hires.

Overall, cognitive assessments are some of the best pre-employment tests around, and I strongly recommend using cognitive assessments for experienced hires, but typically towards the end of the recruitment process. For early-career hiring, we use assessments immediately upon application, serving as a powerful shortlisting tool. However, experienced hire recruitment, especially for niche roles, is far trickier, and candidates need to be guided through the process. Assessments could even be used in person alongside a face-to-face interview, giving candidates no chance to opt out.

Behavioral Assessments

Behavioral assessments are, in many ways, the opposite of cognitive assessments. Behavioral assessments are powerful measures of soft skills, character, and temperament—constructs that fall outside the scope of cognitive assessments. They are also typically used with senior hires, often the most senior leaders in business. However, they remain powerful indicators of performance, fit, engagement, satisfaction, and retention in experienced hire roles, adding tremendous value when used. They are also relaxed assessments that typically don’t incur much attrition, theoretically making them ideal for experienced hires.

But again, they are rarely used for individual contributors and are instead commonly reserved for senior managers. The reason for this is cost: many of the traditionally used behavioral assessments are very expensive and thus most cost-effective in the highest-stakes recruitment. This effect is compounded by the fact that many assessments practically require organizations to hire an external consultant or coach to conduct, evaluate, and provide feedback on the assessment itself, adding to the expense.

Instead, I recommend finding a provider that can offer behavioral assessments more affordably and scalably. This allows you to incorporate behavioral assessments at any stage of the recruitment process and on any rung of the career ladder. Not all providers charge hundreds of dollars per assessment, making it very viable to use behavioral assessments with experienced individual contributors. Additionally, you should find a provider that offers simple, easy-to-interpret results, saving you from needing to either pay for expensive training or hire an expensive consultant to conduct the assessment for you.

Skills and Knowledge Assessments

Skills and knowledge assessments evaluate candidates’ expertise in specific domains, such as marketing, software, coding, etc. These assessments are designed to determine whether applicants have a baseline level of knowledge in a relevant domain, enabling them to add value immediately. This matters, as for many roles there simply isn’t time to train someone on a relevant skill, and successful applicants must hit the ground running. These kinds of assessments are typically used at the junior level, with 1–3 years of experience, but in principle should be predictive of performance at any level.

As with cognitive assessments, organizations are typically hesitant to use these tools with experienced hires for fear of offending them. Experienced hires may take offense at their knowledge being tested in this format, as if the organization is doubting their abilities. They may also see the assessment as an attempt to avoid conducting technical interviews, thus highlighting a lack of commitment to their application. In both cases, experienced hires are unlikely to react positively to these tools, and their use may increase dropout rates.

Overall, I advise against using these tools for experienced hire recruitment. The risk of attrition is simply too high, and a technical interview with a subject matter expert allows organizations to evaluate practical skills more effectively. Ultimately, these tools occupy a niche that doesn’t matter as much for experienced hires and are likely to increase attrition rates without meaningful benefits. Instead, technical interviews are a more palatable option for experienced hires and allow organizations to appropriately gauge a candidate’s level of knowledge in a specific domain.

Summary and Recommendations

For experienced hires, psychometric assessments can add tremendous value to recruitment processes, making them highly underrated. However, one can understand why organizations are hesitant to use them. Compared to early-career hires, experienced candidates are less likely to complete assessments and apply in far lower volumes. Similarly, compared to senior hires, the stakes simply aren’t as high, making it less cost-effective to use expensive assessments. Instead, we recommend finding cost-effective assessments and using them towards the end of the recruitment process when candidates are maximally engaged.