You\’re not alone if a job application required a personality evaluation test: The New York Times said that “100 million workers worldwide take psychometric tests…designed to study personality and aptitude,” creating a $2 billion business. According to Psychology Today, 80% of Fortune 500 organisations utilise such exams for hiring.
One of the most widely used personality tests, the Myers-Briggs, asks test takers to rate themselves on statements like \”You regularly make new friends\” and \”Seeing other people cry can easily make you feel like you want to cry too,\” asking them to \”agree\” or \”disagree\” and to what extent.
Talent Select AI, a 16-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based digital interview and psychometric assessment firm, hopes to disrupt the industry with its natural language processing (NLP)-powered candidate screening tool, which eliminates self-reporting exams from job candidates. Talent Select\’s technology performs a psychometric evaluation on a job candidate\’s word choices during a live interview with a recruiter.
Psychometric AI API
Clients may link the company\’s API with their recruiting platforms and tools. The business told VentureBeat that it would debut its own user-facing software on its website next month.
“We’re new to offering this solution,” Talent Select AI CTO Will Rose told VentureBeat in a Zoom interview. He said the business thinks removing psychometric exams as a separate interview phase would help companies and job-seekers.
Rose said Talent Select\’s AI algorithm analyses psychometrics and personality factors by matching a job search candidate\’s word choice and conversation environment using just a text transcript.
As Rose notes, other techniques that focus on visual information or intonation may prejudice particular racial or ethnic groups. Rose emphasised that cultural differences and how they are viewed have led to many difficulties. “We focus on words.”
“We can tell from the words how a candidate matches a specific role or company culture,” Rose said. “These predict job performance and outcome.”
Initial findings seem promising
Launched in 2023 with the promise of \”unbiased candidate insights,\” Talent Select\’s API has already led to a reduction in the time it takes to hire candidates by more than half, an increase in the number of candidates chosen from underrepresented groups by eighty percent, and a feeling of increased confidence on the part of 98% of users.
When asked by VentureBeat about the companies that Talent Select AI has worked with so far, Rose refused to name them, citing confidentiality agreements, but did say, \”we are working with existing providers.\”
Psychometrics has a lengthy history…along with criticism and controversy.
Since its inception in a laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1887, the discipline of psychometrics has seen profound changes.
Intelligence tests, such as the Stanford-Binet and the Army Alpha and Beta exams, were developed with significant contributions from psychometrics in the early 20th century.
These days, psychometricians use elaborate mathematical models like item response theory (IRT) and structural equation modelling (SEM) to create and analyse assessments for the human mind.
However, there has been debate and criticism levelled at the field due to questions about the philosophical and epistemological assumptions underlying psychometric models and methods as well as the validity and reliability of psychological tests across a variety of populations and settings. The famous Myers-Briggs test shouldn\’t be used for recruiting, according to the test\’s designers.
However, as seen above, there is still a need for additional such tools, and Talent Select AI is certain that it has created a new, enhanced, simplified, and efficient version.
The firm has been in business for almost 15 years, but claims to have the knowledge of 30 years of recruitment and hiring experience. President and Chairman Stuart Olsten and Chief Operating Officer Heather Thomas run the company.
Academics and psychometrics experts including Drs. Michael and Emily Campion, Dr. Sarah Seraj, and assistant professor John Fields serve on the company\’s advisory board.