No matter the stage of your career, when you apply for a new job you are being measured against the criteria deemed important for the role and typically compared against other candidates too. Traditionally, this is done by looking at your CV and digging into your experience through a series of interviews or practical exercises. It’s possible to get a good understanding of many aspects of an individual from this combination of methods. But there is one area that is much harder to assess and measure: the mind.
Many interviewers would say that they feel confident identifying the real ‘stars’ for a position based on their practical skills and experience. But what about deciding if the candidate has the right mindset or more intangible skills to be a good fit for both the role and the organisation. These softer skills that are somewhat innate and make us who we are. They are harder to spot, and only the most experienced interviewers can read between the lines and overlook their own inherent biases to tease them out. But arguably they are just as, if not more important than the hard skills that can be learned or developed over time.
This is where psychometric tools really come into their own. Developed for the purpose of measuring those traits that are harder to identify at an interview, they offer an objective way of comparing one candidate against another and the requirements of the hiring organisation.
More traditional tools used for testing candidates focus on visible or self-reported behaviours and tend to compare an individual to the average or norm within a given group or population. Undoubtedly helpful, but measuring ‘what’ we do and ‘how’ we behave doesn’t capture the whole picture. The subconscious mind is mistakenly ignored, and there is limited insight into ‘why’ people behave in the way they do – typically reserved for the domain of the occupational psychologist. But this is a costly and time-consuming endeavour and although it is very beneficial, it has traditionally been available for only the most senior hires.
The Cambridge Code is a new type of psychometric test, developed by a team of scientists from Cambridge University, which is going some way to help democratise this process. It goes beyond visible behaviours and unpicks the ‘why’ that sits behind them by gently assessing the subconscious. The speed and affordability of The Cambridge Code means that it can be offered at all hiring levels within your organisation. Understanding more about a candidate’s natural mindset and core drivers not only gives you a better chance of hiring the right person, but of making them successful when they start too.
The Cambridge Code’s unique methodology adds robust objectivity to the hiring process. It removes natural biases to see the “true” individual behind the walls we all put up, as opposed to judging a person based on the way they present themselves which is often done to conceal or play up to certain attributes they may think the recruiter wants to see. By really seeing into the mind of the candidate’s more primal instincts and natural preferences, it allows the recruiter to identify the strongest and most suitable candidates.
