How and why we use McQuaig Psychometric tests

Louvre Abu Dhabi

McQuaig? What is that?

The McQuaig Institute is a psychometric assessment provider, founded in 1966 by industrial psychologist Jack H. McQuaig.

The company’s mission is to help organizations refine corporate culture and grow human capital. Today, more than 1,500 organizations in over 30 countries (with multiple language support) use McQuaig.

Their system is widely known and accepted in three different areas of talent management:

• talent acquisition

• talent development

• organizational culture

How does C Level Finance use McQuaig in our talent acquisition projects?

We start with asking selected candidates to complete the McQuaig Word Survey.

Participants are presented with 116 adjectives grouped into four sets of 29 words each.

For each set, they must choose the words that best describe them:

- as they see themselves (self-image),

- as others see them (external image),

- under pressure or stress (stress image), and

- as they would ideally like to be seen (ideal self).

The role of adjectives in the survey:

Each adjective corresponds to specific personality traits that are then analyzed using the McQuaig system.

This analysis provides a comprehensive profile of:

- the individual's behavioral style,

- communication style,

- decision-making approach,

- leadership potential

- and more.

In addition, the stakeholders (the people involved in recruiting the new hire) create a unique and customized benchmark for the position.

We use this benchmark to compare the top candidates with.

This allows the hiring team to understand individual candidate Job Fit and identify candidates most closely aligned to the benchmark created by the stakeholders.

What's the added value?

When we compare the time invested by all parties in using McQuaig with the wealth of information provided, we realize the power of this system:

• candidates invest (in average) 20 minutes to complete their Word surveys

• stakeholders take (in average) 10 minutes out of their time to complete the Job survey

The real effort is within the McQuaig platform. Here, I, as a Level 2 Accredited McQuaig Interpreter, am able to generate comprehensive reports covering important areas:

• the Ideal Candidate Persona

• candidate Job Fit match

• where the best candidates are coming from

• a development plan for the new hire

You can learn more about McQuaig here.