Featured Job: Research and Product Development Director with 10x Psychometrics

Peter Saville, founder of 10x Psychometrics, is very clear about the opportunity this role offers: ‘Join us and you’ll have the freedom to use your brain. We’re going places and you’ll go places with us.’

But how, I wondered, will this person find a role working with Peter Saville, who is one of the world’s leading psychometricians, a serial successful entrepreneur and author of over 100 tests. After the success of SHL and Saville Consulting, surely Peter can create a new company’s products without help. ‘No. We want new blood. Work is rapidly changing and we’re looking for younger people with new ideas who can meet new needs. It would be good to find someone who is chartered but I’m agnostic about precise qualifications. We need someone numerate and with real job knowledge; who understands multivariate statistics, R, IRT, people analytics – the new wave of tools that psychometricians use. Then we need someone who is creative. And finally, our new director must have business nous – if someone comes up with a great idea I’ll say, “Come back with a worked-through plan to make it happen” – so we’re looking for project skills and financial discipline. This is a great opportunity to get out from under a glass ceiling.’

I can imagine Peter’s reputation might inhibit younger psychometricians but, as he says, ‘they’ll work for a new CEO who we’ll appoint. In any case I’m not a micro-manager. Working in a start-up you get a lot of freedom – this person will have smart targets but how he/she gets there is up to them. We’re looking for someone who likes working with other people and is prepared to contribute ideas and effort to get to team goals. They’ll not mind working or playing hard.’

Peter obviously sees their new offices as a plus. ‘We’re in the Surrey Research Park, Guildford. This puts us close to the university as well as offering great facilities, like a superb gym.’ He also stresses that the company has already made huge progress over the last six months. ‘We have some key staff in place and we’ve developed our platform very quickly.’

You would have thought that, given his track record, Peter would be content to sit back, play tennis and golf and listen to the soul music he loves. But he’s enthusiastic about the future of 10x Psychometrics. ‘We’ll grow internationally. We’ll pioneer new ways of doing things. And we’ll have fun doing it.’

- Find out more on our Jobs in Psychology website.