These psychometric test feedback skills are vital to anyone preparing to give a personality questionnaire evaluation. Use these to enhance the effectiveness of the session and the results.

Ten Psychometric Test Feedback Skills

There are certain general feedback skills that can be applied to create a positive psychometric test feedback process. These can be broken down into ten employee engagement strategies.

1. Build Rapport

Taking steps to build rapport during psychometric test feedback greatly enhances the effectiveness of the session. It can also improve the impact of the results.

If the recipient gets the sense of “being on the same wavelength” as the giver of feedback, they are much more likely to accept the results. This will heighten the degree of honesty and openness attained during the evalutation. In turn, participants will take more positive action to develop themselves.

2. Focus Your Attention

It is important not only to be attentive to what the recipient is saying and doing but also to convey this fact. Listen to what the person is saying.

Moreover, show that you have been paying attention by picking up on leads. Ask appropriate follow-up questions and re-state or reflect back on what has been said.

Note that attention is also conveyed by a number of non-verbal behaviours. For example: eye contact, open posture, nodding and smiling when appropriate.

3. Show Empathy

Develop empathy with how the psychometric test feedback is being experienced by the recipient and communicate this to them. The person needs to feel that they are being understood and not judged.

The verbal and non-verbal signs of attention noted above will facilitate this process. This will also build a rapport.

4. Encourage Reactions

Encourage the expression of individual feelings and opinions. Discuss the circumstances prior to the completion of the personality questionnaire. Alongside, the experience of taking the aptitude test and the implications of the results.

The more recipients take an active part in the discussion of the data, the more they will be able to bring in additional information. Whilst developing new insights and incorporating the data into their own view of themselves.

5. Listen

The proportion of talking time should preferably favour the person whose profile it is. The amount and quality of information elicited are likely to be influenced by the questioning style adopted.

Questions should be:

  • Short or succinct;
  • Open;
  • Probing;
  • Single – one at a time.

Avoid questions that are:

  • Leading;
  • Closed (except to get specific clarification);
  • Hypothetical;
  • Multiple;
  • Over-elaborate.

Read: Introducing 360 Degree Feedback Questionnaires in Your Organisation.

6. Be Objective

Don’t confuse how you might feel about the profile if it was yours with how the recipient is feeling. Each person’s attitudes are unique.

Be alert to your feelings about the person lest these inadvertently lead you to bias your description of the results. Aim to avoid making overt judgements about the individual concerned.

7. Be Sensitive

Be sensitive to the needs, feelings and aspirations likely to be aroused in the recipient. You can expect any of a whole range of reactions from someone who may be rejecting the psychometric test results outright.

Similarly, someone struggling to recognise themselves in the profile and someone actively going through the process of developing a more realistic self-image.

8. Be Specific

Your interpretations need to be specific. Don’t engage in generalisations or offer bland statements with little practical worth.

9. Have Courage

Have the courage to help the person confront the data contained in the profile and the overall picture that is emerging. Avoiding what may appear to be a potentially sensitive or “problem” area is likely to be unhelpful to the person in the long run.

The defence “I didn’t want to hurt them” often means that the person giving feedback lacks self-confidence in dealing with possible negative reactions.

10. Be Open

There are strong arguments for using the profile chart openly and placing it on the table between you and the recipient. This encourages co-operation and reinforces the idea of mutual involvement and “working together”.

The graphic design of the profile chart also makes it easy to absorb the information. It’s especially beneficial if accompanied by a clear, jargon-free interpretation.

You may possibly want to start by first showing a blank or sample profile to the participant. This way the recipient gets a feel for what the personality questionnaire does or does not measure.

This will also prevent the recipient from becoming overwhelmed when they see their own results for the first time. It may in fact be useful to mask some sections of the profile from the outset or to only reveal the results section by section.

Additionally it might be worth discussing a part of the profile first before actually revealing the results. Whichever approach is adopted, it is important that the recipient should be able to view the profile in its entirety at some stage.

Contact great{with}talent and try their free psychometric tests online called FindingPotential.

(Main image from Legal Recruit)