Why do Companies use Mental Ability test?

Why do Companies use Mental Ability test?

Innovative thinking may be a prerequisite for various jobs. Having diverse teams with employees who exhibit high IQ and “out-of-the-box” thinking skills - that are imperative for an organization’s success within the competitive business world. We have often seen that these innovative thinkers are the ones who successfully move up the corporate ladder. They are the ones who proactively find solutions to problems their team or the organization faces.

Every organization is in search of such candidates with the high mental ability and are trying new recruitment methods to seek out these rare talents. General Mental ability tests are one such method used to assess a candidate’s ability to think and provide new and innovative solutions. These tests are made compulsory in the pre-hire stages by most organizations across different industries and sectors.

Companies make huge investments (i.e. money, time, and resources) into tools that will improve and strengthen their recruitment process as job-relevant talent assessment help in significant performance increases, higher productivity, cost savings, and reduction in people turnover too. Companies usually use assessments that are Valid (Can predict job performance), Reliable (Have results that are consistent over time), Non-discriminatory (Minority groups score similar to other groups), and that is formatted in a way that will produce a favorable Candidate Reaction.

A researcher called Campbell (1990b) explained this fact saying, “general mental ability is a fundamentally significant predictor of individual differences in job performance for any job that includes information-processing tasks.”

What is a Mental ability Test?

The mental ability test problems test the reasoning & interpretation skills of candidates. They are structured to understand the interpretation and thinking skills of candidates and current employees.  This is done by watching how a candidate approaches problems of the mental ability test. Though It is not very direct and straightforward to test the thinking of a candidate, unlike in other subjects vis-a-vis Physics, Maths, Biology, English, etc., there is not a particular established theory thereto. However, over the years, the mental ability test has moulded itself into a set of several questions that are still growing in variety. 

So, the following are some things that the Mental ability test assess & helps in screening

Better time management
Originality/Fresh Perspectives
Temperament
Logical Reasoning
Analytical Reasoning

Applications of Mental Ability Tests

Most of these aptitude tests can be customized to be job or domain-specific. It could indicate the candidate’s confidence level, creativity, and interpretation skills.

Mental aptitude tests often feature questions that fall into broad categories listed below:

Verbal Reasoning

Rearranging sentences to create sensible paragraphs
Finding the inter-relation between two or more statements
Summarising a paragraph in one or two sentences
Reading comprehension

Logical Reasoning

Alphabetic/number sequences
Finding missing figures

Statistical and analytical data interpretation

Riddles and puzzles

Guesstimate problems

Employers can be using any or a combination of these questions to find candidates with the skills they are looking for in their organization.

Taking tests at work might feel like a pointless distraction in one’s already busy schedule. But assessment tests play an important role in helping an organization measure its employees' abilities, aptitudes, and personalities. Taking assessment tests can help one prove to the employer that he has what it takes to succeed in the workplace, and hence is imperative to take up these assessments. 

General Mental Ability Tests

General mental ability test online provide insight into how well an employee can interpret and process information of all types. For example, a general mental ability test might ask basic arithmetic and grammar questions. General mental ability questions also might test spatial reasoning -- important in design and engineering fields, for example -- as well as general knowledge.

Aptitude Tests

Aptitude tests measure an employee's potential for growth. For example, an organization might want to find out how quickly an employee can devour a new skill, such as computer coding. Such a test might focus on measuring an employee's ability to organize information and understand logical processes. Employees benefit because they get to demonstrate their capacity to learn a new skill, even if they have little experience in the field.

Pre-employment assessments are more objective

Employers can rely on objective data to make more accurate hiring decisions. Pre-employment tests can provide employers with standardized insights on candidates and predict whether a candidate will be a good fit for the job and company culture. By using the results of cognitive ability tests employers can identify and hire the best candidates and thus improve their overall productivity.

Pre-employment tests allow employers to assess a broad range of relevant skills and personality traits. Employers use these tests to assess several characteristic traits of the candidate including, strategic thinking, cognitive ability, subject-area knowledge, problem-solving skills, leadership ability, confidence, agreeableness, organizational skills productivity, and analytical skills.

Pre-employment assessment increases employee retention

It is crucial for companies to retain talent and reduce turnover in order to be productive and efficient. With pre-employment assessments, employers can screen a candidate more readily for aptitude and see if a candidate will probably stay in a role and blend in with the company culture.

To see if a candidate may be a good fit for a job, there are many factors the employers consider, including; overall ambition, a passion for learning, ownership, and initiative, critical thinking skills, collaboration skills, and motivation screening for these skills during a regular interview can be challenging.

Replacing a bad hire can be time-consuming and costly, that is why employers tend to use pre-employment testing to help hire the right people for a given job opportunity, the first time around.

Hence for the overall well-being and organizational growth companies resort to the Mental ability tests.