Psychometric Testing

Our approach combines robust assessment methodology with our understanding of executive roles and the organisational context in which an individual will operate.

Saville Wave provides insight into an individual’s workplace personality, including their talents, behavioural preferences and work motives. This can help organisations understand not only what an individual is capable of, but the environments and circumstances in which they are most likely to perform effectively.

Our psychometric services can support:

• Executive selection – providing an additional evidence base alongside competency based interviewing and other assessment processes.
• Internal promotion – assessing an individual’s strengths, preferences and potential against the requirements of a more senior role.
• Succession planning – identifying potential future leaders and understanding their development needs.
• Leadership development – providing individuals with greater self-awareness around their behavioural preferences, strengths and potential areas for development.
• Team effectiveness – understanding the collective profile of a leadership team, including complementary strengths, potential tensions and areas where additional capability may be required.
• Executive onboarding – helping organisations and new leaders understand working preferences and establish effective relationships from the outset.
• Leadership due diligence – providing additional insight into leadership capability and behavioural preferences as part of investment or organisational change processes.
• Role profiling – helping organisations understand the behavioural and cognitive requirements of a role before assessing potential candidates.
• Development and succession conversations – creating a structured, objective basis for conversations around performance, potential and career progression.

Our Head of Research, Kirsty Mclardy, is a trained psychometric assessor. Kirsty pairs the assessment output with structured interview questions and targeted areas for exploration, allowing the results to inform, rather than replace, a wider assessment process. This helps clients test specific hypotheses arising from the assessment and gain a more rounded understanding of an individual’s suitability for the role and environment.

We also have a strong relationship with Insights, enabling us to draw on alternative assessment methodologies where these are better aligned to the client’s objectives.

While Saville is particularly well suited to assessing executive capability, personality, aptitude and potential in the context of a specific role, Insights Discovery can offer a valuable alternative where the focus is on individual development, self-awareness, leadership effectiveness, or team and Board dynamics.

Our approach is therefore not to take a one-size-fits-all approach to psychometric assessment. We can advise on the most appropriate methodology based on the purpose of the assessment, whether that is selection, internal promotion, succession planning, leadership development, team effectiveness or Board effectiveness, and draw on our relationships with leading assessment providers and practitioners accordingly.

Psychometric assessment is most valuable when it forms part of a broader evidence-based approach to understanding people; helping organisations make more informed decisions about selection, succession, development and leadership.

We offer additional People Advisory Services to support our clients: Executive Compensation Consulting | Talent Mapping & Business Intelligence | Board Succession Planning | Board Due Diligence.