ANZSOG Research informs NSW public sector guidance on psychometric testing for recruitment and selection

In early 2025, the NSW Office of the Public Sector Commissioner commissioned ANZSOG to undertake a review of the evidence for the effective use of psychometric testing in recruitment and selection processes in the public sector.  

The research has recently been released with a guideline from the Commissioner for NSW public sector recruiters and hiring managers. The guideline highlights key findings from the research and places psychometric testing within the broader selection process, that includes selection criteria-based applications and interviews.  

Psychometric testing includes assessments of cognitive ability, personality traits, and emotional intelligence (EI), and situational judgement. ANZSOG’s report surveys the most recent literature on each of these tests, including their predictive validity (the correlation between test scores and job performance) and potential biases inherent in the tests or in the way they are used in selection processes. 

Headline findings from the evidence review include: 

• Recent research confirms the moderate predictive validity of cognitive ability testing for job performance, but the correlation is lower than previously understood. Predictivity may be strengthened by testing specific mental abilities relevant to specific jobs but might also possibly be weakened by the effects of linguistic and cultural proficiency. 
• Of the Big 5 personality traits, conscientiousness is a moderate predictor of job performance; the other four traits (agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, extraversion) are only weak predictors – and testing for them does not add much value above and beyond conscientiousness. Nonetheless, testing for traits is more predictive than testing for types (like the popular Myers-Briggs test). 
• EI is a moderate predictor of job performance – and it is most predictive of most predictive of managers’ organisational commitment and may also increase their job performance. Managers’ EI has also been found to moderate the effect of employees’ EI on their performance (so managers’ EI supports overall effectiveness). But both personality tests and EI tests are sensitive to how different cultures express different traits. 
• Situational judgement tests (SJTs) tend to be developed for specific job contexts, and in those contexts have moderate predictive validity. SJTs add predictive validity over and above cognitive ability and personality tests. 

Overall, the report finds that psychometric testing has a role to play in larger, multi-stage selection processes. Good practice will include managing the possible effects of cultural biases on how tests are interpreted and deployed in the selection process. 

Future work in this field should aim to fill in gaps in understanding how larger selection processes can be most effectively designed and sequenced. There is also a lack of public sector-specific research, especially in Australia and New Zealand, so there is an opportunity to further investigate how testing might support selection for the sector’s unique needs, including integrity requirements, public sector motivation, and operating within larger, hierarchical organisations).  

Read the full Psychometric testing for recruitment and selection in the NSW Public Service report here.