At Miller Byrne we encourage our clients, where possible, to look beyond the CV and dig a little deeper when objectively assessing candidates for an experienced HR or Marketing opportunity. We pride ourselves on developing long term relationships with our candidates and rigorously assessing them on your behalf, however, we additionally encourage deeper psychological assessment, particularly at executive level.

Your organisational culture, team dynamics and business strategy are unique, and optimising the assessment process for experienced hires can contribute to greater hiring efficiency, stronger retention rates, improved diversity & inclusion and tangible candidate engagement. The assessment market is firmly established, continues to grow and innovate although is commonly overlooked during mid to senior level professional hires.

In the current highly disrupted recruitment market, with new and unprecedented environmental factors influencing the traditional recruitment process, meaningful capability assessment can offer significant value to the recruitment process and support the right decision making. Virtual recruitment is working and in fact thriving, however, gaining deeper insights into shortlisted candidates could offer significant value to the hiring process and the ongoing professional development of the appointee.    

Deploying a carefully thought through psychometric assessment tool can offer deeper insights for the recruitment panel and complement the traditional data gathered within a CV, stakeholder interviews and formal referencing. Whilst traditional recruitment principles should never be underestimated, psychometric assessment can offer many individuals the chance to shine and demonstrate strengths that have not been articulated in a traditional interview, in turn driving more diversity in your selection process through a broader and more balanced scorecard.

Keith Goddard, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, comments:  

“Not only have assessment methods developed over the years but so too have applicants’ ability to navigate these. Getting an accurate and in-depth preview of an individual’s potential for a role is challenging, especially with the current need for on-line assessments. Whilst everything may seem OK on the surface, getting under the skin of a potential senior hire is key to avoiding costly miss hires. Having an experienced assessment psychologist look at the key personality traits and the thinking skills of an individual will give incisive insights into potential senior performance and behaviour. This is especially true when clear role requirements and the organisational context are discussed in advance in order to truly know what success and failure in the role might look like.  

Understanding the intricacies of an applicant’s drive and motivation, combined with a clear assessment of their resilience are both key to really appreciating how the person will deal and cope with the multi-dimensional demands and pressures of senior roles. Add to this their people orientation and the nature of how they handle relationships, and you suddenly have a very good sense of how they will land in your organisation. For senior roles the level and nature of a person’s change orientation is often a key consideration for prospective employers; using personality and reasoning questionnaires often gives a clear sense of this beyond what the applicant may say or that you can glean from interviews or CVs.

We find (and our clients tell us) the real value in using psychometric assessments is in the debriefing. Using computer generated reports for psychometrics certainly reduces costs, but having an experienced assessment psychologist bring the candidate to life through discussion and being able to debate the pros and cons of potential risks, as well as strengths, really helps in making accurate and informed recruitment decisions – going into it with one’s eyes open!”

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