Whether you’re looking to relocate to Australia for a job, or you are job hunting inside the country already, its best practice to have an understanding of the recruitment environment you will be facing. An adequate understanding of the tools and techniques of recruitment in the geographic location you’re stepping into allows you to better prepare to compete for the role you’ve applied for; here is a look into how widely psychometric testing is used in Australia today.
Although it is commonly quoted internationally that a majority of top-performing companies use psychometric testing as part of their recruitment process, there is a scarcity of information in regards to the proportion of businesses using similar tests in Australia alone. Regardless of this lack of specific data, it still appears that psychometric tests are exceedingly popular in large-scale Australian companies. With the overall use of psychometric test use predicted to grow each year by as much as 10-15%, it is reasonable to assume that Australian companies of every size will follow this trend.
Top companies utilizing psychometric testing
As there is little formal research on the proportion of companies undertaking psychometric testing, we decided to have a look for ourselves. According to LinkedIn, the top 10 companies to work for in Australia are as follows: Westpac Group, Sydney, National Australia Bank Melbourne, ANZ Melbourne, Commonwealth Bank, Lendlease Sydney, PwC Australia, CIMIC, Deloitte Australia, Salesforce, and Amazon Sydney.
We chose to examine these companies’ recruitment processes because of their popularity; it has long been noted that psychometric testing is an excellent filter tool when employers are faced with an excess of applications to fill a single role. While not a formal study, it does provide a snapshot of the popularity of psychometric testing in the upper echelons of Australian recruitment and provides a clue as to how other companies may follow suit in the future, as the top-performing companies typically set a best practice precedent for aspiring companies to follow.
We found that 80% of the top 10 companies require candidates to complete some form of psychometric test during the recruitment process. The two companies that did not require all candidates to sit psychometric tests, were Westpac Australia and CIMIC Australia, who both state that ‘some roles’ require psychometric testing, which means they choose to make psychometric testing compulsory depending on the position applied for at the time.
With ANZ Melbourne stating that 60% of candidates do not proceed past the psychometric testing round, understand that it is both challenging and competitive. If you’re job hunting in Australia, then prepare for psychometric testing.
Slowly evolving psychometric environment
Out of all the companies examined, Deloitte Australia was the only company providing what has been termed as the ‘gamified’ version of a psychometric test. While Deloitte Australia still administers either a psychometric, skills-based test, or a case study, the company also offers a 20 min game-based simulation of work tasks which is currently intended for their graduate program applicants only and is a trial in response to an evolving need to make psychometric testing experience more natural in order to allow candidates to shine. While an example like this sounds very ‘fun and game-like’, this doesn’t mean candidates need to update their ‘game’ skills; a solid range of general psychometric competencies would do every candidate well.
Prepare to excel
If you have a strong set of skills and can perform well in any psychometric test put in front of you, you will stand the best chance of being offered the role regardless of how the psychometric testing environment evolves over time. Professionals take the same approach; being able to excel in a traditional test will give you transferable skills that help you both in test conditions and on the job – what could be a better investment in your Australian-based career than that?
Are you ready to face a psychometric test? Try our free Aptitude Test Readiness Evaluation and find out.
