HR Professionals' Beliefs About, and Knowledge of, Assessment Techniques and Psychometric Tests

In all 255 adult professionals concerned with selection, assessment and training completed a questionnaire which asked their beliefs about the validity, cost, practicality and legality of different assessment techniques (i.e., Assessment Centres, Biodata, Interviews) and their knowledge and use of both personality and ability tests. Participants tended to be positive about the tests themselves, how they were used and about test publishers. They rated Assessment Centres, Cognitive ability tests and Work Samples as the most valid, while Interviews were rated as most practical. Results from knowledge of personality and intelligence tests indicated that only a few tests were widely known, more so in personality/motivation than intelligence. Implications of these results for educating and informing practitioners are considered.