Among all of the decisions that organizations have to make, hiring is the most important one. Decisions are often made based on methods and/or information that is mostly irrelevant and hard to measure. When recruiting, it's not a good idea to rely on just your gut instinct.
Here are just a few of the biases your thought process might be subject to:
Confirmation Bias
Having an early guess about someone and looking for evidence to back it up; preferring information that agrees with our beliefs.
In an interview setting, this could mean asking questions based on what you already think about a candidate, which could lead to interviews that don't generate new information.
Halo Effect
This is a form of cognitive bias that makes you think that the job applicant has desirable traits when in fact, they don’t. The most common example is when we meet someone we think is physically attractive. We would naturally perceive them to also be smart, have good interpersonal skills, etc.
Stereotyping
Broad generalizations about a certain group of individuals, based on the premise that a particular attribute or characteristic is true for every member of the group.
For instance, research indicates that there is a negative stereotype associated with overweight individuals, and as a result, they are less likely to advance in the recruitment process.
Conclusion: Replacing gut instinct with psychometric assessment
Psychometric assessment is used to determine an individual's suitability for a position inside an organization by assessing attributes such as intelligence, values, and behaviors. Psychometric assessments are supported by scientific research, and data insights which are collected by testing candidates on things such as verbal, numerical, and logical reasoning, as well as via personality and situational judgment tests to reveal their underlying character qualities. It enables recruiters to make fact-based, rather than gut-based, judgments about a candidate's suitability.
All of this enables recruiters to avert potentially costly hiring errors.
