Share this
Using Personality Tests in the Hiring Process
by SelectOne on Fri, Aug 17, 2018
Personality tests get a bad reputation, and with good reason. So many of them are little better than those online quizzes promising to answer deeply meaningful questions like “What fungus are you?” or “What color Power Ranger is your soul?”
But personality testing—the reputable variety based on our best understanding of behavioral science, not the quizzes on the back of teen magazines—can be a valuable part of the hiring process.
Why worry about personality?
If hiring decisions were best made based exclusively on quantifiable skills, then computers could handle it automatically. Qualified new hires would always be ideal, as they’d have the skills needed to get the job done. For better or worse, though, we’re still humans working in human environments, and skill is only one part of the recipe that makes up a successful hire.
Janice and Jackson both have identical skills when it comes to making spreadsheets. Janice likes to focus on one task at a time, putting on headphones and plowing through any challenges with single-minded intensity. She’s intensely critical of her own work and reviews it repeatedly for mistakes before sharing the products of her efforts with others. She’s friendly when socializing, but gets aggravated when people interrupt her or mess with her groove.
Jackson, on the other hand, is intensely collaborative. He likes to get everybody’s input on how he should go about finishing his product, even if he knows more about the process when they do. He often jumps from one project to another as inspiration strikes. He’ll experience a flash of intuition about the solution to a problem and finish quickly, then send it out for everyone to review. There are inevitably some mistakes, but he relies on people with fresh eyes to catch them so he can tidy them up. Two heads are better than one, he always says. When he’s not inspired, Jackson will procrastinate until the last minute. But he does seem to meet his deadlines, even so.
Who’s the better employee here? Neither. Or both. It depends. Jackson might be thrilled to work at a startup with open seating where everyone wears multiple hats and jumps on new opportunities as they arise. Janice might love creating reports at an accounting firm where impeccable attention to detail is required and an account manager handles the communication side of things.
Based on skills alone, that startup might find themselves with a miserable Janice instead of a satisfied Jackson. This is where personality testing really shines.
What you need to know when using personality tests.
- Understand the role. If you’re hiring for a position you don’t interact with on a terribly regular basis, or you’re adding a new role, you might not understand the needs of the position as well as you think. Not all programmers need to be introverts, and not all salespeople need to be aggressive. Talk with the people who surround the role. How does the team operate, on a day-to-day basis? What are the priorities of the job in question? The answers might surprise you.
- Understand the difference between “suitable for this job” and “suitable for hanging out with me.” It’s easy to get caught up in looking for people you understand. After all, you’re successful in your organization. Therefore, others who are like you should also be successful, right? But having a diversity of personality types is actually better for productivity. Know that you don’t need to be buddies with someone for them to be a valuable part of your team.
- Know that you’re working with a good assessment system. There plenty of assessments out there that are based on bad or outdated science. Even more of them are rooted in reality, but are so oversimplified as to be next to useless. A good assessment program should have both solid underpinnings and sufficient complexity.
Our take on testing.
SelectOne’s job suitability testing covers over a hundred different variables and measures them against the needs of the job in question, providing you with areas to dig into more deeply when interviewing. We believe strongly that good fit is just as important as the right skills, and our data bears this out: 90-95% of our recommended hires are successful in their role.
Interested in learning more about hiring done right? Get your free copy of The Benefits of Scientific Hiring and see what kind of different a little cognitive science can make for your next hire.
Share this
- October 2022 (2)
- September 2022 (1)
- August 2022 (1)
- July 2022 (4)
- June 2022 (3)
- May 2022 (2)
- February 2022 (2)
- May 2020 (2)
- April 2020 (8)
- March 2020 (6)
- February 2020 (4)
- January 2020 (2)
- December 2019 (3)
- November 2019 (2)
- October 2019 (9)
- September 2019 (6)
- May 2019 (4)
- April 2019 (9)
- March 2019 (7)
- February 2019 (10)
- January 2019 (4)
- December 2018 (12)
- November 2018 (6)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (6)
- August 2018 (14)
- July 2018 (8)
- June 2018 (7)
- April 2017 (1)
- February 2017 (5)
- January 2017 (8)
- December 2016 (8)
- November 2016 (3)
- October 2016 (7)
- September 2016 (8)
- August 2016 (7)
- July 2016 (6)
- June 2016 (9)
- May 2016 (7)
- April 2016 (9)
- March 2016 (8)
- February 2016 (6)
- January 2016 (8)
- December 2015 (7)
- November 2015 (7)
- October 2015 (7)
- September 2015 (8)
- August 2015 (11)
- July 2015 (8)
- June 2015 (4)
- May 2015 (5)
- April 2015 (4)
- March 2015 (4)
- February 2015 (7)
- January 2015 (8)
- December 2014 (5)
- November 2014 (2)
No Comments Yet
Let us know what you think