60 years ago, in 1959, Chandler Macleod was established by Alf Chandler and Doug Macleod as the first industrial and organisational consulting firm in Australia. They quickly built a reputation of expertise in predicting employee behaviour and critical success factors for roles, teams and organisations, and used this expertise to provide specialised recruitment solutions.



To celebrate turning 60, our Chandler Macleod People Insights team decided to take a look back through the history of Psychometric Assessments from our early adoption in 1959, to the more digitised environment we exist in today.

Early Adoption by Chandler Macleod

Whilst the beginning of psychometric assessments can be traced back to imperial China, where exams measuring cognitive ability were introduced for civil servants, Chandler Macleod first gained a licence for use of the Humm Wadsworth temperament scale in 1959.

The Humm Wadsworth temperament scale was originally developed in 1934 in response to an incident where an employee of a large organisation killed his supervisor (wow, intense!). It was based upon a model of personality developed in 1927, in which abnormal behaviour (i.e., clinical mental disorders) were uncontrolled manifestations of regular personality. Consequently, the personality dimensions in the Humm Wadsworth Temperament scale were labelled: Normal, Hysteroid, Cycloid (Manic and Depressed), Schizoid (Autistic and Paranoid), and Epileptoid. As with other personality assessments at the time, the focus was on emotional adjustment.

Other industries utilising assessments

During this period, psychometric assessment was well established in military organisations to assess the suitability of applicants to various roles. The United States Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a primarily ability-based battery of psychometric assessments, was first introduced in 1968, and is still used today (having undergone major revisions).

There was also a widespread use of psychometric assessment in industry. Estimates of psychometric assessment use in industry range from 32% of companies using tests for hourly workers, to 75% of companies using tests.

Travelling on shaky ground

While the use of ability assessments was well established, the use of personality assessments was more controversial. This was likely because there were a large variety of personality assessments available with differing levels of quality, and rigour in their application. Or put another way, there were “untested tests for use in selection by unqualified testers”.

The criticism of personality assessment reached a peak in 1968, with the publication of Walter Mischel’s influential book Personality Assessment. In this book, Mischel argued that personality traits did not reliably predict behaviour. Some took his arguments as an attack on trait psychology, and thought that his arguments were evidence that personality does not even exist (which is insane, I know)! Mischel is also widely known for the “Marshmallow test” which has been widely recreated and posted on YouTube like the one below

Rise of the digital age; 2000 – current day

The period from the turn of the millennium to now has seen technology disrupt, enhance, or change many aspects of business, and psychometric assessment has been no different. The rise of availability and access to personal computers or other electronic devices has meant that many psychometric assessments are now computerised, whereas previously, they would have been pen and paper based. This computerisation of psychometric assessment has led to improvements in efficiency and accuracy of scoring and also made it more available to business leaders.

Computerised adaptive testing has only relatively recently become more widely available. In computerised adaptive testing, the item shown to a candidate depends upon their response to the previous item. That is, if a candidate gets an item correct, the next item will increase in difficulty, whereas if they get the answer wrong, the next item will decrease in difficulty. This allows for assessments which are just as – or even more – accurate but take the candidate less time complete. Similarly, Item Response Theory is a method of scoring which relies upon relatively sophisticated and complex calculations. Although the statistical scoring methodology has been around since the 60s, the increase in computerised testing makes the implementation of assessments using Item Response Theory scoring more feasible

We have also seen a rise in the availability of Game-based assessment which is both engaging and accurate and is particularly useful for volume recruitment in specific industries.

Into the future

There’s no denying that Psychometric Assessment is here to stay. With the increasing rate of Artificial Intelligence in our lives and the loss of some traditional jobs to AI, those transferable ‘soft’ skills are becoming more and more important for a successful, thriving organisation. Being able to predict factors like emotional intelligence, social persuasion, resilience and empathy is vital to weathering the storm of the digital age and creating differentiation in your leadership and organisation.

With so much growth in 60 years, I wonder where we will be 60 years from now?

Looking for a clearer view of your talent pool?



Chandler Macleod People Insights utilise their own Gateway, a unique assessment and employee experience platform, giving you access to over 150 world-leading psychometric assessments and surveys. Built by psychologists for business success, Gateway puts the power in your hands to hire with clarity, recognise talent in your organisation and realise the potential of your workforce.