Law firms should be wary of placing too much emphasis on psychometric testing - with identity fraud occurring in some 15% of tests completed on-line, graduate recruiters heard at the BPP conference last month.
Elizabeth McIntyre, manager at Hays Assessment Services, said psychometric tests - which ask applicants to rate themselves against behavioural statements - can only ever reflect what candidates think about themselves.
She added that while on-line tests can seem like an efficient way of dealing with a high volume of applications, the IT costs involved in setting up and administering the tests can be significant.
She said: 'Psychometric tests are a tool that can be helpful - but there is an exorbitant amount of poor use in the market place. There is a problem with test-taker identification for Internet-based tests, with about 15% of candidates giving significantly different results when they are tested again in a controlled environment.'
Ms McIntyre added that psychometric and other tests can disadvantage certain sectors of society. She said: 'Let's not forget that men perform much better than women on average at numerical reasoning tests - and most psychometric tests have an adverse impact on minorities.'
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