Even knowing that a psychologist has been prepared for no less than 4 years to be able to interpret the psychological evaluation techniques that are administered to compose a psycho-technical evaluation, candidates insist on looking for clues, answers, clues of what they should see, say or avoid saying in such evaluations.
What is not usually considered is that the evaluating psychologist does not generate conclusions from a certain response or indicator (such as whether or not they drew the famous umbrella; whether they said they saw «blood»), but rather seeks to decipher the touch points of the entire assessment as a whole.
Thus, for example, no matter how robust an umbrella we draw, if we are not consistent with this robustness when confronted with the other techniques of the evaluation, this umbrella loses validity.
On the other hand, a number of factors are taken into account whose standards are unknown to the candidates, such as response times, gestures, postures, comments or the absence of them, size, tone of voice used, pencil pressure, handling of materials, organization of space, etc. Everything is analyzed and put on the table at the time of composing this puzzle that is the dreaded «psycho-technical».
Both projective evaluations (graphic techniques, verbal tests, smudge tests) and psychometric questionnaires have certain variables that allow us to analyze the internal consistency of the technique. Sometimes you may have noticed that questionnaires ask you the same question in different ways. In most of the questions, they are also asking it but so indirectly that the candidate does not notice it. That is part of the reliability of the test.
The above factors, along with many others not mentioned here, also help to validate inter-test consistency, which means that among all the techniques administered (i.e., the different tests), the practitioner looks for coincident, contradictory or recurrent indicators. Generally, the interview and the return interview are used to verify this information with the candidate and reach the most accurate conclusion.
The more information the candidate has gathered about the assessment techniques, the more confused he or she will be when taking the tests, and the worse the result the psychologist will analyze. In other words, the more likely it is that the candidate himself will appear to be an unintelligible walking confusion.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the first and last purpose of any psychotechnical (or as we prefer to call it among colleagues, psycho-employment assessment) is to match the candidate’s job profile as closely as possible to the job profile. This is not only so that the company finds the best candidate available for the position in question, but also so that the candidate does not become frustrated by occupying a position that requires competencies that do not match his or her own.
In summary, from the candidate’s perspective and beyond any understandable need to get a job, the best option is to be as authentic as possible, which will make it easier to meet the candidate’s expectations for the job, as well as those of the employer.