Why should recruiters use cognitive ability test?

Laszlo Bock, V. P Talent-Google, mentions in his book – ‘Work Rules’ that general cognitive ability is one of the top most parameter that they look for in a candidate while hiring at Google. The reason they do so is, he says, is that cognitive ability is one of the best indicator of performance for a given job role. 

So what exactly do we mean by cognitive ability? Is it same as IQ?

Well, very simply put, cognitive ability is the ability and speed of learn new things. A person with higher cognitive ability can learn the new things faster than the one with the lower cognitive ability score. For example, think of cognitive assessment as a tool to test the processing speed of a computer. Some computers can have higher processing speeds and some lower. 

But the question that comes to the mind is, why is it so important to determine the learning agility of a person through cognitive ability test?

One of the main reasons is that, the cognitive ability or learning agility of a person does not change appreciably after a person crosses the teenage. So as a company you can only hire a person with the required cognitive ability and not tech or improve it once the candidate is hired. 

A very important thing to remember is that cognitive ability is not same as IQ. Cognitive ability assessments such as Predictive Index Cognitive Ability (CA) test, measures only the capacity to learn and not the raw intelligence of a person (IQ). What it means is that if a person has a low CA score that does not mean he lesser intelligent than the person with the a higher score. 

When CA is used as a pre-hiring tool, it helps recruiters in understanding what is the range of score required for a given job role and helps them determine the same for a candidate to do an apple to apple comparison. This helps recruiters and HR to predict the performance of the candidate on a given job role. Important here is to match the score range with the ability shown by the candidate and not to just hire the candidates with the highest score. When we hire a candidate with either too high or too low score than what is required for the job, then each has its own consequences.  

With the hyper-dynamic business environment that we are entering into, organizations needs talent who can keep the pace up with the learning required for the changing job needs. The steep changes brought in last one year due to COVID and lockdown are best example of it.  

Read more on Predictive Index Cognitive Test @ www.tpsg.in/predictive-index


Vinaya Bansal
Workplace Talent Optimizer
vinaya@tpsg.in

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