A bad hire costs three to five times the role's annual salary. Omnicor designs and administers psychometric assessment programmes that materially improve hiring decisions , cognitive ability for fit, personality for predictability, integrity where stakes are high, role-specific skills where they matter.
Psychometric assessment fits into a selection process in more than one way, and the right choice depends on what you need from it. Some clients assess a single preferred candidate at the end of the process to confirm fit and surface what a manager should know going in. Others assess several candidates and weigh them against each other and the role. Both are sound. The difference is in the kind of information you walk away with, and how early in the decision you want it. Either way, you leave with a hiring recommendation you can defend.
Comparative information across a shortlist
When more than one candidate is in contention, assessing them together adds a layer you cannot get from a single profile. Alongside each person's individual strengths and development areas, you see how they compare against one another and against what the role actually demands. That comparison often changes the conversation, and surfaces fit considerations that are invisible when you look at one candidate in isolation.
This route carries more cost, and it gives you a richer evidence base to defend and explain the eventual decision.
Typically the final step before an offer
You have a preferred candidate and want a clear, independent read before committing. Assessment at this stage tells you where their strengths sit, where the development areas are, and what a manager should be ready to support once the person is in the role. It confirms a decision you are already leaning towards and gives the hiring manager a head start on the relationship rather than a blank page.
This route is efficient, low on candidate burden, and well suited to roles where you have already narrowed to one strong option.
There is no universal "pre-employment test." There is the combination of instruments that predicts performance for the role you're hiring.
The Screener is built for high-volume recruitment, helping organisations quickly identify applicants who meet the minimum requirements for a role. It supports knock-out questions, percentage-based match scoring, multiple question types, multiple roles, and document uploads for CVs, qualifications, education records, and certifications. Giving hiring teams a faster, more consistent way to screen candidates at scale.
The strongest single predictor of job performance for complex roles. Numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning measured against role-relevant norms.
Tools:Behavioural tendencies that drive day-to-day performance and team fit. We pair Big Five-based instruments with role-specific personality tools.
Tools:For high-trust roles (finance, retail, security, supply chain), measures honesty, counterproductive work behaviour and reliability.
Tools:Technical aptitude, clerical accuracy, mechanical comprehension, situational judgement. Used where general cognitive ability isn't enough to differentiate candidates.
Tools:(SJTs) are psychometric assessments that evaluate your behavioral instincts, soft skills, and problem-solving abilities by presenting realistic, ambiguous workplace scenarios. They require you to identify the most and least effective courses of action.
Tools:Strategic ability tests are assessments designed to evaluate your analytical thinking, problem-solving, and long-term planning capabilities. They are used to measure how well you navigate uncertainty, allocate resources, and anticipate future business challenges.
Tools:Measure specific capabilities like project management, coding, data entry, language proficiency, or mechanical aptitude etc.
Tools:These are starting points, not prescriptions. We adjust based on your specific context, volumes and timeline.
High-volume screening where speed matters. We use short, validated cognitive screens paired with a personality instrument calibrated for early-career candidates. Minimum test set is Ability & Personality
Sales performance is famously hard to predict. We combine a sales-specific situational judgement test, ability with personality dimensions known to predict sales success.
Where role-specific aptitude matters more than general cognitive ability. Mechanical, technical or numerical batteries paired with personality.
Complex roles where cognitive ability strongly predicts performance and integrity, personality drives team fit.
For new manager and senior individual contributor hires, leadership preferences, strategic capabilities, ability & personality. (For executive hires see our Leadership Assessment service.)
Cash-handling, security, finance, supply chain , anywhere integrity and reliability are material risks.
Role profile, decision deadline, volumes, current selection process. We identify where assessment adds the most signal.
We select the battery , typically two to four instruments , and confirm scope, timeline and reporting depth with you.
Candidates complete assessments remotely or supervised. Our team monitors completion and follows up if needed.
HPCSA-registered psychometrist scores, interprets and writes the report. We present recommendations in plain language for hiring managers.
Our assessment methodology is grounded in one of the world’s more rigorously regulated psychometric environments. Every instrument we use is scientifically validated, applied fairly across groups, and interpreted by appropriately qualified professionals.
We align each engagement with local employment, privacy, and assessment regulations in the jurisdictions where we operate, ensuring a defensible and ethically robust process globally.
Meta-analyses across decades of selection research consistently rank general cognitive ability as the strongest single predictor of job performance, with personality measures adding incremental validity, particularly Conscientiousness. A well-designed battery typically explains 30–40% of variance in job performance , substantially more than unstructured interviews alone.
Forced-choice and ipsative personality instruments , like the OPQ and Saville Wave , are designed to make socially-desirable responding harder to fake. We also build response-style indicators into our reports, so any attempt to game results is flagged for the hiring manager. In practice, faking is over-stated as a concern; the larger risk is poorly designed batteries that don't measure what matters.
Match the depth of assessment to the consequence of the decision. A graduate hire might need a 30-minute cognitive screen and a personality measure. A senior hire , where the cost of a miss is six figures , justifies a fuller battery and a face-to-face feedback session. We help you calibrate this at the brief.
Technically yes, but you shouldn't. The dimensions that predict sales performance are different from those that predict accountant performance. Using one battery for everything is convenient and inefficient , you'll over-assess where it doesn't matter and under-assess where it does. We design batteries per role family, not per organisation.
For high-volume programmes (call centres, retail, graduate intake) we use short validated screens , typically 15 to 30 minutes per candidate , automated reporting, and tiered follow-up batteries for shortlisted candidates. The economics work because the test cost is small against the cost of a single bad hire.
A poorly designed assessment programme damages your employer brand. We sequence tests sensibly, communicate timelines, offer accessibility accommodations, and provide candidates with developmental feedback where the engagement supports it. Candidates remember being treated well , and tell others.
Brief us on the role, the decision timeline and what you're trying to predict. We'll come back with a recommended approach within two working days.
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