Properly, psychometrics is a field that concerns itself with the effective measurement of any psychological trait, capacity or ability. In terms of recruitment and selection, it relates more specifically to the objective assessment of personal characteristic that are necessary to a role. Precisely which characteristics are measured will depend on the needs of the role in question, but they can be broken down into three main areas: personality, aptitudes, and skills.
We'll discuss shortly how this psychometric information can be acquired, and more importantly how it can be applied, but first we'll take a look at the first principles of psychometric testing within Human Resources.