Running the gauntlet to win a job

July 14th, 2009 by admin | Filed under Daily News, Employment, Recession, UK employment.

employment Anyone who finds himself in the jobs market these days does not have their problems to seek. Although there are signs around that a cautious recovery is afoot and there are more jobs available, the number of candidates for each job is rising accordingly. With the UK unemployed creeping slowly towards the three million mark, with another forty thousand plus added in June getting a job today is very difficult but still do-able.

Employers are making it extremely difficult today, and in a “buyers market” they understandably have increased the levels that they seek from their employees, both current and potential.

An interesting scenario is developing in the jobs market where companies are investing considerably more money than they did in the so-called “better days” in assessing the suitability of candidates not only for top positions but even medium to lower level management positions.

In the last twelve months psychometric testing for future employees has become the rule rather than the exception, and not only that the procedure is being adapted to help companies to assess and manage their existing workforce’s performance as the economic downturn continues.

Psychometric tests can be expensive, costing anything up to £6,000 per individual at a senior level. However more and more employers are taking the view that it can be a much better investment than employing and training someone new and then having to dispense with their services.

Backing up this theory is the fact that there has been a 13 per cent rise in the number of companies using psychometric tests within the last twelve months.

Not only that, but some of the more realistic people who have found themselves out of work, are actually financing their own psychometric tests so that they come to a job interview already spruced up, displaying initiative as well as being already psychometrically tested. Has to be a head start in today’s dog eat dog job market.