Psychometric assessments: The hidden competitive advantage for employers

Why the smartest companies in Sri Lanka have stopped guessing and started measuring

- By Rohitha Amarapala

WHAT does a bad hire actually cost your organisation? For a mid-level manager earning Rs. 150,000 monthly, conservative estimates put the total cost of a hiring mistake at over Rs. 2 million, factoring in recruitment expenses, EPF and ETF contributions, training investment, lost productivity, team disruption, and the eventual cost of replacement.

This figure becomes even more painful when you consider that 65% of executives and managers in Sri Lanka earn between Rs. 55,000 to Rs. 91,700 monthly, meaning most organisations are making multiple hires at this level throughout the year: Multiply Rs. 2 million by every hiring mistake, and suddenly you're looking at financial losses that could have funded significant business growth instead.

The truly painful truth is that most of these failures could have been prevented. They don’t happen because candidates lack technical qualifications which are relatively straightforward to verify through certificates and experience letters. They happen because of invisible misalignments in personality, behavior, work style, and cultural fit that traditional interviews simply cannot detect.

This is precisely why psychometric assessment has evolved from a multinational luxury into a strategic necessity for forward-thinking Sri Lankan organisations serious about building competitive advantage through their people.

The fatal flaw in how Sri Lankan companies hire

Walk into most organisations across Colombo, Kandy, or Galle today and you will find hiring decisions still being made the same way they were 30 years ago; a CV review, a 45-minute interview with senior management, perhaps a reference check with a former employer, and, most dangerously, gut feeling based on first impressions.

What global research reveals about this approach is that unstructured interviews predict job performance with only 14% accuracy. You might as well flip a coin.