“At college age, you can tell who is best at taking tests and going to school, but you can’t tell who the best people are. That worries the hell out of me.” Barnaby C. Keeney

Psychometric tests can be classified in three basic categories. Each category assesses a particular aspect, whether it is personality, cognitive ability or basic interests. Listed below are the three types in some detail:

1. Personality & Values: Tests of personality and values provide a fair, objective and accurate method of predicting likely behaviour in a wide range of settings. They allow you to gather information which is not easy to gather from interviews or any other traditional means of evaluation. They give you much greater insight into character pattern of behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

2. Aptitude & Ability: These tests provide a comprehensive and in-depth measure of mental capacity. Tests in this category are designed to assess high level reasoning ability. This is a category which most of us have had more exposure to at school, entering colleges and now, even common place when applying for jobs. 

3. Development & Guidance: These tests are used to facilitate personal development, career guidance, team building and counseling. They provide candidates the ability to understand key concepts on how to interact with the rest of the world, take in information, process that information and eventually make decisions. These help greatly in areas for developing much stronger teams and making the candidate more productive and efficient.

Once again if you are asked to take or are taking a test for personal development, it is highly recommended that you ask the test provider for details regarding the reliability and validity of the test. This list will also provide you with reference for the sort of test to take to get the information you seek.