I have never heard of a company, first, second, or third hand, that uses psychometric testing, except for a few police departments that have IQ ceilings for applicants.
Some medical schools use them as part of the application process. I'm don't see a compelling reason for it, since the application officers are already getting data from full transcripts, 2+ recommendation letters from professors, a letter from the undergraduate institution's pre-medical advisory committee, MCAT scores, everything in the AMCAS application packet, and 2+ on-campus interviews. Naturally, the smart applicants bullshit their way through it and the rich applicants get advising from application consulting companies.
1) Tertiary education has become something that everyone is expected to have, without which you cannot get even a basic entry-level job.
2) Said college system does not actually provide much in the way of usable skills - it does really make you more useful to a future employer
The way I see it, the basic functions of an undergraduate program are to teach students the basic skills/knowledge required in a certain field, give them access to mentors and advisers with more experience (professors and upperclassmen), and provide a leg up to students applying to internships/jobs where the name of the university/college has weight. Bonus points if the school has its own internship programs, because real experience is much more attractive than knowledge alone.
This way of doing things is functional (I won't go as far as to say it works
well, mind) at highly-ranked programs with self-motivated, goal-oriented, brilliant students who know what they want to do with their lives and have a plan to get there (or at least have the tools and resources needed to figure out those things).
For the other "99.5%" of cases, the system is visibly failing. For many non-STEM fields, the careers within the field (that make semi-decent money) are limited to academia, think tanks, government agencies, media companies, NGOs, and the like, where competition is
fierce. The further you get from your direct field the less the competition gets, but at that point all your undergraduate degree means is you were intelligent enough and/or worked hard enough to get through college classes (which is at least more attractive to prospective employers than
not having it, but is $50K+ better?). Even within the STEM majors, internships and undergraduate research experience are important (and getting those largely depends on your ability to sell/present yourself or lean on connections) and you'd better hope your field isn't oversaturated (looking at biology PhDs pretty hard).
In short, it's not the degree that really matters, it's what you did parallel to getting that degree and how you plan to use it as a stepping-stone to get to the next place. But not enough incoming students are being told that their success in college is very much dependent on themselves going above and beyond what they've been been expected to do in the past, and that the bachelor's degree itself is a guarantee of pretty much nothing except checking a box that lets you compete in the arena with thousands of others for a handful of coveted placements.
What do I want to happen to help fix this? Better preparation of our youth — it's
hilarious to me that some people say that college is a time to explore and figure things out, when that's
really only a luxury for the wealthy and extremely-talented. This is on parents and the secondary education system, and maybe a little responsibility rests on culture as well. Sure you can take a few fun electives, but
have a solid plan in mind as well as alternatives. More career pipelines and loan oversight — we need to make sure that investments into training and education give a good return. No more liberal arts majors flipping burgers or making frappucinos. More "tracks", more technical certifications in undersaturated fields, more emphasis on trade schools and other "vocational programs". Without more stringent oversight or discernment on student loans, debt forgiveness is just throwing good money after the bad.
(This is just based on the collective experiences of myself and the people I've talked to IRL and online — I'm sure there's parts that are better or worse than I think, or I've missed the underlying problem.)
