What is the Predictive Index Test?
The Predictive Index test or erstwhile known as Professional Learning Indicator Test is a personality test. It has been used as an assessment tool to check how potential employees fit aptly with the organization. Companies use two major types of predictive index assessments. They are the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment and The Predictive Index Cognitive Assessment. A Predictive Index Test measures the abstract intelligence and the probable character traits of the potential employees of the organization.
How does the PI assessment work?
Candidates are often asked to sit for the predictive index test as a part of a recruitment drive. It is usually a two-part process that screens candidates before they can move on to the next step. In the cognitive assessment, candidates are asked questions to test their problem-solving and aptitude skills. It also checks how quickly someone can assimilate information. Applicants in order to pass the PI test will have to answer 50 questions from the following groups:
- Non-verbal: Analogies, odd one out.
- Numerical problems
- Analysis, Antonyms, and analogies.
The average score of the cognitive assessment of the PI test is 20. So in case if anyone scores above the average marks, that person will automatically stand out. In the case of the behavioral assessment, there is no pass or fail criteria. There will be a reference profile that will match your results once your assessment is complete.
What is the PI cognitive assessment?
Companies use the cognitive assessment of the Predictive Index test to find out how suitable a person is for a particular job profile. If the behavioral assessment anticipates success in the future in terms of behavioral fit, then the cognitive assessment finds out how quickly a candidate can learn his way into the organization. Cognitive ability is a very important marker of future job performance.
Different job profiles and working environments require different cognitive abilities. An entry-level recruit whose work is to follow the seniors of the company doesn’t have to really score high on the cognitive test of the Predictive Index. However, an employee who has been hired for the role of director will have to deal with complex data sets and design strategies for the entire company. This is why he will need a higher score on the cognitive test of the Predictive Index.
This is a reason it’s better to not have an umbrella predictive index score for the cognitive assessment. If you are not very particular about the job role and the score it requires you might miss out on deserving candidates just because of the umbrella score that you have set.
What is the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment?
The PI behavioral assessment is a free-choice and stimulus-response test which is not timed, unlike the cognitive PI test. Companies use the behavioral assessment test in order to find out if the candidates are suitable for the job that they are applying for. The behavioral assessment test has scientific validation for effective workplace recruitment. The parameters that the behavioral test follows are:
- Dominance: The ability to influence others in the team
- Patience: The ability to stay stable and consistent
- Extraversion: The inclination to involve yourself in social interactions
- Formality: The propensity to adhere to rules and laws laid down by higher authorities
On average, it takes around 6 minutes to complete the PI assessment. There is the flexibility of choice in terms of your preferred language. The applicants have to pick from two adjectives to describe their preferences and how they would act in a given situation. The adjectives picked will describe the person from the perspective of the words assigned to them in the PI test.
What are the 17 reference profiles for the classification of candidates?
Predictive Index Personality Types
- Adapter: They will accommodate themselves for the demands of the group.
- Altruist: They are great team players and are always willing to cooperate.
- Analyzers: These people are sticklers for smaller details and can solve problems better.
- Captains: They have great resolve and are willing to take risks and innovate.
- Collaborators: People with this personality type can get along very easily with people.
- Controller: Touted to be the masters in their field and they help people do the right thing.
- Craftsman: Sensitive and need to be guided by a leader but they have a calming effect on the team as a whole.
- Guardian: They are very unselfish and are so set in their ways that they can be resistant to change
- Individualists: Can turn out to be great leaders and they are pretty analytical in their approach.
- Maverick: They can be innovative but they have the inclination to sometimes delegate their work and not follow up.
- Operator: These people are so calm and collected that they don’t lose their bearings when the going gets tough.
- Persuaders: They motivate and lead from the front.
- Promoter: Such people have the ability to talk more. They sympathize with you more than others.
- Scholar: Scholars are heavily dependent on data to make decisions and are quite reserved.
- Specialists: Loyalty is an unwavering quality in them and they accept the policies laid down by the company without any hesitation.
- Strategists: They have the ability to see the bigger picture and can lead naturally.
- Venturers: They can smell opportunities for the organization before anyone else.
How can you Prepare for the PI behavioral assessment test?
- The first thing that you need to know is that there is no pass or fail in a PI test. You have around fourteen seconds to answer each question. In case you want to skip a difficult question and leave it unanswered you can. Since there is no scheme of negative marking for a wrong answer or for an unattempted question.
- Read the instructions carefully because not paying attention to them can come back to haunt you.
- Practice sample questions. There are plenty of sample papers that are available on the internet.
How can you use PI to make recruitment decisions?
Suppose you are the recruiter of a certain company and you will need to hire someone to fill a position. A resume only gives much information but does not give you enough insight into the entire personality of the candidate. This is why a Predictive Index Assessment is important. You will know if a person is a team player or not. You will also know how well they can cope with change and if they stand up for what they believe is right or not. The behavioral test allows you to know better if the person has the right attitude and personality for the job.
The questions will try to know the value system and moral compass of the candidate and that will enable you to see if they fit in with the vision of the company.
How to use the Predictive Index test beyond recruitment?
Behavioral assessment is a data-driven evaluation and can have a lot of other uses:
Predictive Index to foster harmony in the team
The problem with the promotion mechanism is that companies promote top-performing individuals in a higher positions not realizing that better performers do not necessarily make great leaders. Firstly they might lack the leadership qualities that they need to excel in that position. Secondly, they may not want to step out of their own comfort zone to accommodate everyone. They have no awareness of how their behavior might have a direct bearing on those beneath them. The following steps will show how you can leverage the Predictive Index Test to promote people from within:
- Follow the same steps to promote as you had while recruiting hires. Use the behavioral assessment test to find out the right set of traits needed for the role. Then find out among your interviewing candidates who best suits the role that you are recruiting for. If there are gaps in the candidate then you can ask them how they would like to bridge that gap to suit the role better.
- With the PI inspire mechanism managers can enable two people to work in perfect harmony with each other. They can also gain meaningful insights into the individual preferences of the employees. The PI inspire solution also helps to understand why two people are working together but are not able to achieve anything significant.
Ensuring sync between Business strategies and senior leadership
The Predictive Index can have a lasting impact on team performance as well. If the team members go through the PI assessment the test assigns them a behavioral trait. From then the test sorts each employee into a quadrant: Innovation and Agility, Teamwork and employee experience, Process, Precision, and finally Result and Discipline. Then the Predictive Index Assessment assigns a behavioral type that is the collective behavior type of the entire team.
The second thing that you need to do is select a goal that you think your team can achieve. Once you finish this check how your team’s traits align with its strategic goals.
Tips to perform well in the Predictive Index Assessment
Every decision you take in the test paints your picture in a certain way. So be very sure about how you want yourself to be portrayed in front of your prospective employers. The following tips will help you through this process:
- Before sitting down for the behavioral test look up the company. That will give you valuable information about the role for which you will be interviewing.
- With that information in mind choose the adjectives that you think will suit the job best from the perspective of the recruiter.
- Also considered the philosophy of the company and the requirements of the job role before choosing any adjective.
- Maintaining consistency while choosing the adjective is the key. If your choices are contradictory then you will be painting a murky picture of yourself which will not do you any good.
Apparently, the behavioral assessment test is simple and quite easy to go through. However, the makers of the test have crafted the questionnaire in order to find out inconsistencies in your answers to know you better.
How to leverage AI to improve your recruitment process with the Predictive Index Assessment?
According to Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends report, a lot of companies today have decentralized recruitment processes to Artificial Intelligence to great effect. Modern software integrated with Artificial Intelligence can not only enable the employer to see if the candidate is good at performing tasks but also can help him see if he has the right attitude for the job. Hence, AI and ML coupled with the PI test can give you better results than a non-automated process.
The questions of the cognitive and behavioral assessment can be fed into the system. Candidates will answer these questions and AI will sort them to categorize these candidates into different personality types. Once AI creates these Predictive Index personality types it can then assimilate these into different job profiles which require that specific personality trait. If the behavioral test becomes this easy for AI to conduct then the cognitive test would seem like a walk in the park.
What are the benefits of using AI in recruitment?
The following benefits will show you how AI is reshaping our understanding of recruitment:
Improvement in the Quality of hire
With AI and its algorithm, you would not have to worry if you are leaving out deserving candidates. AI-enabled recruitment drives enable companies to recruit from a wider pool of candidates who might be remotely located. Automation will increase the data efficiency of the drive will increase which will further enable you to make more data-driven decisions.
Better integration of analytics
HR personnel has their task simplified with AI because decision-making is solely based on data. This is because AI assigns roles to candidates based on skills and traits which means that there is a sense of impersonal decision-making involved. AI-enabled recruitment has far more accuracy than human recruitment.
Saves time
For every company, time is of the essence. Every year companies spend weeks finding out who fits what role and how to get over the process quickly. With automated recruitment, AI can compile and analyze huge amounts of data in a matter of seconds and before you know it you have the data handy for you to call shots. If the process of remote recruitment is also among your concern then video interviews integrated with AI can save you and your candidate’s lot of resources as well.
Unbiased Recruitment
No matter how impersonal the recruitment team claims to be, nothing can be as unbiased as recruitment made possible by artificial intelligence. AI generates tell-tale signs as to why a particular candidate is fit for the role and rationalizes it with its parameters. Hence, it maintains consistency throughout the process.
Is AI going to take over recruitment completely in the future?
There is an increasing trend among companies to use AI more frequently today. Companies use it for recruitment and promotion and even for reading the market better. There are no tell-tale signs that the involvement is going to dwindle. A lot of people are apprehensive about their job security because they believe that AI is going to take over their jobs. However, no matter how ominous it sounds it is slightly exaggerated. It is needed to deliver better job performance. AI simplifies the technical side of your work in order for you to make more informed decisions. AI is adding value every day to human work.
Birbal is a platform that works with AI and ML to make your recruitment process seamless and quick. It can deal with not only the cognitive aspects of your recruitment process but also the behavioral aspect. If you are in the midst of recruitment season, maybe it’s time for you to sit back and relax and let Birbal take on the mantle for a pleasant change.
