Employers will soon be able to receive unlimited access to a free online psychometric profiling service from PeopleMaps.

The PeopleMaps Basic service can be undertaken online and takes less than eight minutes to complete. A free report summarises some of a candidate’s natural preferences and provides an insight into the type of work environment that suits them. Companies who require more in-depth insight or who want to create benchmark profiles for specific jobs can pay for the extra service which starts at £97 a month for unlimited use.

PeopleMaps director Stephen Sharp told Recruiter that technological advances have allowed the company to deliver professional psychometric profiling “simply and inexpensively” so it wants to pass this on to employers but understands that some might be sceptical about the free price tag.

“Scepticism is healthy, which is why we’ve made the basic service free so people can test it to destruction if they want,” he said. “If it’s not for them, so be it, but for a lot of people it’ll be a very effective way of improving their hiring decisions.”

He added that cost and ease-of-use have been the two main barriers preventing everyone from adopting profiling and making best use of it. Hebelieves profiling works best when you have a benchmark that everyone who applies for a job can be measured against. “We sorted out ease-of-use a while ago, but kept getting bogged down in the money question,” he said. “So we decided to remove that barrier altogether.”

One of its earliest unlimited users is Steve Barker, who, when health and safety manager and driver trainer at a major logistics company, used PeopleMaps psychometric profiling as part of a programme to lower driver accident rates. He achieved a 56% drop in HGV accidents in one depot and saved the company £3m.

“If you have a driver who says he’s the type of person who would rather take a risk and apologise later, you know he/she isn’t going to be the right person for the job,” said Barker, who added that previously, profiling would have been cost-prohibitive for the entire fleet of drivers.

“We had several hundred drivers and agency staff so at, say, £25 a report, this would have been too expensive. But if I’m paying a fixed amount a month for an unlimited service I can budget it in.”

www.peoplemaps.com