FAQ's

Is support included?

Our support is different in that we don't just sell a test and then forget about you. We continue to work with you to ensure you get the best return on your investment. Click here for more information on our consultants.

Is The McQuaig System Researched and Validated?

The McQuaig System™ has strong validation and meets all the UK standards set by the BPS, Psychometric Testing Centre and Business Test Publishers Association. We are so confident in The McQuaig System™'s quality and robust features, that we guarantee its success in your organisation - or you don't have to pay.

How much does it cost to use The McQuaig System

We have two options – Pay As You Go and Unlimited Usage. Our Unlimited Usage license is 'FD friendly'! One fee per annum and you can use the System as much as you like.

What kind of reports are included?

Our Reports are extremely easy to use (click here for sample reports ). An average Report contains over 10 separate sections to enable you to get the best results. You simply pick the ones you want to use. Click here for sample reports.

Do I need trained?

A simple 2 day training course is all that you need to become an Accredited McQuaig Interpreter. The Reports are written in simple language, perfect for line managers and employees.

Who is the McQuaig Institute of Executive Development?

The McQuaig Institute® has helped companies make better people decisions for over thirty years.

Their founder, Industrial Psychologist Jack H. McQuaig, researched thousands of companies, assessing their high and low performers. He discovered that people rarely succeed or fail due to lack of skills or intelligence – instead, their success or failure is due to personal characteristics such as attitude, motivation and, especially, temperament and behaviour patterns.

The Institute's base in downtown Toronto is home to MICA (Leadership Development), MICA McQuaig Larkin (Organisation Development Consultants). Visit their website at www.mcquaig.com

Do you offer a free trial?

Yes. We are so confident that our Psychometric Testing system will:

• help you make much better people decisions
• reduce your staff turnover
• save you time and money
• improve working relationships

that we are willing to remove any risk in your buying decision. Call 0800 043 3950 now to get started.

What is different about The McQuaig System™?

• WE HAVE AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO DELIVER PYSCHOMETRIC SERVICES
  • We realise that to be truly successful a psychometric test has to be part of a holistic approach and integrated into the company as part of a wider system. We have developed the 8 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL SELECTION programme to integrate The McQuaig System™ into your organisation.
  
  
• WE OFFER AN UNLIMITED LICENCE
  • o Use McQuaig as many times as you want per year – our unlimited licence makes it easy to budget and plan for. Our ‘FD friendly’ approach means you only have to budget once and don’t have to worry that you’ll ‘run out of credits’. All support and consultancy you need over the ‘phone and via email is also included in your licence!
  
  
• THE MCQUAIG SELF DEVELOPMENT SURVEY®
  • The McQuaig Development Survey® helps both managers and employees develop themselves based on natural strengths. Because this is generated from a psychometric base, you get a thoroughly validated development plan based on 40 years of research.
  
  
• EXTREMELY EASY TO USE AND INTERPRET REPORTS
  • There is no need to employ expensively trained psychologists to use our system. A simple 2 day course is all you need. Plus, anyone can view and understand the reports, as they are written in easy to understand language.
  
  
• OUR CONSULTANTS
  • Our Consultants perform the role of sales, training & ongoing support. They are also experts on all aspects of selection, and development of people in companies. Most of them were former users of McQuaig and they were so impressed with it that they joined The Holst Group.
  
  
• THE STAND ALONE INTERVIEW GUIDE
  • It enables better quality interviews and a consistency to the process you cannot find anywhere else. It reduces mistakes and provides consistency to the interview process.
  
  
• THE McQUAIG INSTITUTE
  • Our parent, based in Canada has been established for over 40 years and constantly researches, updates and validates The McQuaig System™. Our extensive technical data is available on request.
  
  

Why use psychometric testing?

Around 70% of UK companies with over 50 employees use psychometric tests, often in recruitment, sometimes in developing skills. Use is increasing.

Yet “psychometrics” still sounds like a black art and “testing” gives people flashbacks to sweating over exam papers.

BBC TV’s programme “Test the Nation” seems to suggest that testing looks at what you know; that a test is something you pass or fail. Yet your existing knowledge is only part of what you bring to life – at school, at work or at home. Given how quickly the world changes, it might seem better to find out what and how easily you can learn different subjects.

What are often known as “softer” factors are increasingly seen as important in success, for instance:

• how well you understand and get on with people
• your ability to lead
• how far you follow rules or come up with your own unique solutions
• your ability to cope with stress

Testing is as much about these as about being a “know-it-all”.

As service orientation grows, the old saying “people are our most important resource” becomes more relevant. They are also an organisation’s biggest cost and single most complex aspect of organisational success and failure. Next to recruiting and managing a workforce, putting in a new intranet is a doddle.

What do psychometric tests measure and what are they used for?

If you are a parent, your children take them at school in between examinations to check their progress and predict their results. They sometimes highlight particular strengths and areas that need more teaching. If you have entered work on a graduate recruitment scheme, you’ve probably taken one during the milk round. And you may well have sat one when you went for your first or subsequent jobs.

Psychometric tests provide an M.O.T of what goes on under the human bonnet. They compare one individual’s performance with other people’s or show what are the relatively strong and weak areas within one person. True psychometric tests look at three basic areas:

Abilities: people’s capacity to work with numbers, words, diagrams and systems

Attainment: what people actually know about an area

Personality: how people are typically likely to act. This covers a huge range of aspects from people’s motivations and values to how they characteristically react to authority and their honesty or integrity.

Mix and match these and you get dedicated tests of areas like trainability, leadership, customer service orientation and how people think – areas that are directly related to particular jobs. Assess lots of people in your company and you can get an organisational profile: how well your teams work; what particular skills you lack; who’s going to fit in.

Tests are used to recruit new staff; identify people with the potential to be promoted and developed; counsel staff who are under-performing; put teams together; coach senior managers; identify stress factors in an organisation; decide on the best organisational structure; create incentive programmes that really motivate – any decision about people individually or people in groups.

So, what exactly is “psychometrics”

This could get long and complicated! Put simply, psychometrics is a set of techniques used to ensure, among other things, that:

• you are actually testing what you think you are testing. A written test of mathematics should be testing maths, not writing for instance.
• your test gives the same results if it’s given to the same person twice or administered by different people
• it’s fair to everyone
• you know how accurate the measure is and how far you can depend on it. No measure – whether of your height or your profit is 100% accurate (just ask an accountant about the latter). Sometimes this can be significant.

Psychometrics allows you to weigh up the accuracy of your decision.

I use interviews and other methods; why should I replace them with tests?

You shouldn’t! Tests provide part of the picture; interviews, for instance, provide information tests can’t reach.

But research shows that interviews, references and application forms are very bad at predicting whether people will succeed. Interviews are particularly dangerous because you will be hugely influenced by your prejudices, likes and dislikes without realising it.

If you think back, you will remember the great candidate who proved top be a complete disaster. You might even recall the exciting company which employed you and which you left as quickly as you could. Let’s not forget that recruitment is two way!

What are the business benefits of testing?

Psychometric tests sound rather academic but they're actually ways of making hard-headed business decisions.

Psychometric Tests will:

• increase your bottom line
• decrease staff turnover
• identify talent
• create a more efficient organisation

Psychometric tests sometimes look expensive. A good test might cost you £100 to administer and interpret. But since it may cost you £10,000 in direct costs if you recruit the wrong senior manager (and a lot more in indirect costs) this doesn't seem too high a price.

Tests will also help companies defend against legal challenges to HR decisions, which might end up in expensive tribunals and court cases. It's illegal to discriminate on grounds of:

• gender
• race
• sexual orientation
• religious belief
• age

Test results are defensible evidence in court, whereas interviews are open to all sorts of challenges. And, of course, using them will ensure that you are being objective, building a successful, effective, motivated organisation.

Good recruitment and development practice are part of a company's marketing and brand development. Even a rejected candidate will speak well of a company that's taken the time to create a professional recruitment process which gives valuable feedback; tests provide that.