Personality Tests as a Hiring Tool
Introduction
Picture 1: Myers- Brigg Type Indicator
Source: (verywellmind, 2021)
Source: (verywellmind, 2021)
In the employee selection
process organizations assess applicant’s traits in determining their fitness to
the job, organizational culture, and work environment. Application forms,
interviews, and employment tests are the most common type of selection devices.
Employment tests such as Cognitive ability tests, physical ability tests, and
personality inventories widely use to sort out best fit candidates for the job
(Daft, 2014). Today many organizations around the globe use personality tests
in their selection process. The most commonly use personality tests are Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator (MBIT), The Caliper Profile, the Employees Personality
Profile, Disc, and Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire.
Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The MBIT was designed to
determine how individuals see the world and make decisions as it identifies
individual’s reactions and preferences regarding perception and judgment (Reman
& Nordin, 2021). The MBIT described the individual’s preferences on the
following four dimensions.
- Extraversion or
introversion/ Describe the focus and the attention of the people
The extroverts are exterior-oriented and focus on people and objects’ perception and judgment. Introverts are oriented toward the inner world, and their perception and judgments are based own concepts and ideas.
- Sensing perception or intuitive
perception/ The way people absorb information
People who prefer sensing tend to take information from five senses and intuitive people depend on the obvious process.
- Thinking judgment of
feeling judgment
Some people may rely on
logical consequences and others may depend on feelings.
- Judgment or perception
The way people deal with
the world may base on either the judgmental process or perceptive process for
dealing with situations.
Above four dimensions create sixteen unique personalities depict in the diagram.
 |
| Picture 2: Myers- Briggs Type Indicator Diagram Source: (Wang, et al., 2012) |
According to the indicator there is no such a personality called right or wrong, it helps recruiters to select suitable candidates based on which each of them perceives what’s around them. For example, one company found that extroverts are best suited for the job of salesperson. With that intention, they started hiring extraverted individuals for sales jobs (Recruiters Blog, 2021).
Global Context
The need for personality
tests began to emerge in World War I and II. During the period concern was to
select most suitable person to correct position within a very short time. After
that numerous personal tests have been used at the selection processes to find
out best fit people to organizations, and their usage has been growing
overtime. The research result has been indicated that more than 45% American
Organizations use personality tests at their selection process (Reman &
Nordin, 2021). The Organization like Facebook, Google and Microsoft highly
depend on the personality test at the recruitment process.
Importance of personality tests
Personality tests help to
sort out candidates who are best fit for the job, organizational culture, and the
workplace, through this organizations will be able to drive towards their goals
more effectively. Financial cost of high employee attrition and turnover can be
reduced since selected employees are best fit to the organization. Personality
test can predict disruptive behaviors of applicants that are counterproductive
to the organizations, due to this economic losses can be avoided by mitigating
thefts in the workplace. An effective personal test can reduce the Legal risks
that can be occurred from employees engage in criminal or hostile behavior
(Kumar, 2019).
Limitations
According to the number
of research conducted based on the validity of personality tests at the
selection process, there is a high possibility to provide fake information in a
socially desirable manner by the candidate. These distortions question the
validity of the personality test. For example, faking can change the rank of
the high scored candidates and can be ended up with selecting employees who are
not fit for the organization (Kumar, 2019).
Conclusion
Today Organizations
operate in a highly competitive environment and selecting the best fit
employees to the organizations has become more challenging. Even though
organizations select a highly skilled, well-qualified individual to a job, the
selection won’t be successful if the personality of the employee doesn’t suit
to the organization. Therefore recently Human Resource Management has moved
towards screening candidates demonstrating the personality traits that best
match with the organization.
References
Daft, R. L., 2014. Managing Human Reasources. In: Management. s.l.:Cengage Learning.
Kumar, R.,
2019. The Use of Personality Testing in Personnel Selection. [Online]
Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3119&context=cmc_theses
[Accessed 29 July 2021].
Recruiters
Blog, 2021. Top Five Corporate Personality Tests. [Online]
Available at: https://evalground.com/blog/top-five-personality-tests-developed-for-corporate-skill-assessment/
[Accessed 29 July 2021].
Reman, P.
& Nordin, A., 2021. ResearchGate. [Online]
Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349466573_Personality_tests_in_recruitment
[Accessed 29 July 2021].
The Myers-
Briggs Company, 2019. What is the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Personality
Assessment?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoQi9Mvqip0
[Accessed 20 August 2020].
The Myres and
Briggs Foundation, 2021. The Myres and Briggs Foundation. [Online]
Available at: https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/home.htm?bhcp=1
[Accessed 29 July 2021].
verywellmind,
2021. An Overview of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. [Online]
Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-2795583
[Accessed 10 August 2021].
Wang, C.,
Parawan, J. & Carney, S., 2012. The Four Dichotomies. In: I. WC
Personality, ed. MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE. s.l.:WC Personality, Inc., p. 12.
Great explanation given Rukmali. In the employee selection process organizations need to identify applicant’s traits in determining their fitness to the job, organizational culture, and work environment if not he or she will not be able to work with in the organizational culture which will leads to a turnover. in the present even though organizations select a highly skilled, well-qualified individual to a job, the selection won’t be successful if the personality of the employees doesn’t suit to the organization. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the feedback Harsha.
DeleteHi Rukmali, Well explained. There are 5 reasons for using personality assessment in recruitment. 1.Using Personality as a Predictor of Future Job Success. 2.A data-driven recruitment guides to better hiring decisions.3.Using personality assessment improves candidate screening .4.It's feasible to evaluate if an candidate has the best character in regards to a wide scope of occupation categories.5.Finding the most appropriate candidates rises employee quality and retention.
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the feedback Parami.
DeleteNice topic to discuss. However there some drawbacks and practical constraints of these kind of tests in nowadays. My opinion is personally can not be teates by the physical test. It has to be monitored over the years by situational wise. I agree that up to some extent recruiting should be concern about the personality. However the correct training , behaviour changes to be implented as on the job training to improve any kind of personality towards the organizational goals. Thanks for this informative article.
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the feedback Oshadha.
DeleteAttractive topic Rukmali, Personality is made up of mental preferences, attitudes and priorities. And while many things influence (including social and cultural pressures), personality is a major factor behind habits, behavior, and attitudes. It is therefore not surprising that some personality tests can be a solid predictor of performance.so agreed with your conclusion. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteGood context. We have to more focus on selection criteria's. Because most of the companies still use traditional selection techniques. As you mentioned, personality cannot measure from an interview. Employer need to be more creative when they deal with millennials. In today all most all the freshers are graduated and most of them have MBAs when they enter to the corporate world. So knowledge is can find easily. But right personality is very rare to find.
ReplyDeleteThankyou very much for the comment Pradeep.
DeletePersonality testing is a complicated process, in fact there is no exact way to measure someone's personality. As well as there no right or wrong personality. Handling personality test should be done by well experience HRM professionals with lot of care. Nice article Rukmali.
ReplyDeletePersonality tests are used in the global context to go beyond the expectations of the recruiters with the intention of understanding specialized set of skills possessed by the candidates. However, there my be both pros and cons in this system. For example some of the candidates could easily manipulate the process by proving fake information and in order to get rid of this the hiring company can dig in to more detailed investigations about the candidates in order to understand the true personality of them. Good write up, keep it up
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the valuable feedback Wathsala.
DeleteGood article Rukmali, very informative.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Costa (2020) in an article on Skeeled, the research shows, a well-developed personality evaluation would accurately predict employee performance in a variety of job roles. The personality evaluation, when paired with other forms of tests such as motivation and cognitive ability, as well as structured interviews, gives valuable insights to improve the selection process and influence recruiters' judgments.
Thankyou for the valuable feedback Fayaz.
DeleteHi Rukmali.In the workplace, personality affects how employees interact with their your colleagues, managers, and clients, but new research compiled by Truity suggests it may also have an impact on their earnings potential, their career trajectory, and job satisfaction
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the valuable feedback Bhashitha.
DeleteHi Rukmali, very good article, According to Sherrie Haynie, Director of US Professional Services for The Myers-Briggs Company, leads Practitioner Development and Consulting Services.
ReplyDeleteNot all personality assessments are suited for personnel selection.
When using personality tests for hiring, companies should approach with care. You may make bad decisions or end up in legal trouble if the test isn't psychometrically validated for hiring and selection. Using a personality test for recruiting when it wasn't designed to be used for hiring is unethical in many circumstances (like using the MBTI assessment for hiring). The MBTI personality test has been psychometrically validated for its primary purpose, but not for recruiting and selection. The evaluation gives more details and can help you in identifying existing employees' strengths and weaknesses, but it is not aimed to predict job performance. (Haynie, 2021)
Thnank you for sharing, all the best for upcoming articles.
Thankyou for the valuable feedback Praveen.
DeleteHi Rukmali well lined up article. Personality testing is a powerful matching tool that accurately unlocks a candidate's inner world. These types of tests have the potential to assist candidates and employers in the recruitment process. thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the valuable feedback Thilina.
DeleteEmployment personality tests are a great way to assess how someone might handle a situation within the workplace. It can also give information on how this person will work with the team, solve problems, apply practical knowledge, lead others, deal with stress, handle pressure, follow the rules and regulations, and more. Many companies have begun using these evaluations to help them better understand potential candidates.
ReplyDeletePersonality tests helps to identify the characteristics or the responses of people when facing different circumstances. It provides an insight on strengths and weaknesses of people which helps to collet information to formulate necessary strategies for the betterment of both companies and employees.
ReplyDeleteThankyou for the valuable feedback Gangani.
Delete