Personality tests can help prevent hiring disasters, but be careful that you don’t toss out the good ones by mistake.
In the world of recruiting, employers need to assess applicants’ skills, abilities and personality traits. One way to assist organizations in doing so is by the use of carefully developed, structured questionnaires termed self-report inventories.
Everyone is aware that many people are clamoring for the same jobs in this down economy. That reality leads to the likelihood that more candidates might be exaggerating their suitability. This can be determined by special scales built into well-designed inventories. But sometimes the opposite happens, and an applicant is rejected for the wrong reasons.
So how should organizations approach such tests so that they can determine which applicants will potentially better manage themselves and perform their jobs most effectively?
First, I’ll review the basics of a self-report inventory. Generally, you will see two types of these assessments:
- The inventory of general personality characteristics that is designed to point the way to suitability for particular kinds of jobs.
- The so-called integrity test, a questionnaire that screens for characteristics that you do not want your employees to have, such as laziness or dishonesty.
Next, it’s important to understand that a human resources (HR) department will probably need help, preferably from a psychologist, to determine which particular self-report inventory to use. A trained and qualified professional can explain to the HR staff what pitfalls to be aware of. No test is perfectly designed, and some have more pitfalls than others.
Assuming that a suitable instrument has been selected, sometimes an organization will see the following happen. An applicant may score either too high or too low on a particular scale, and the HR staff will simply remove that applicant from further consideration. This is not necessarily wise, because the applicant may have answered just one or two questions for unique reasons that did not follow the logic of the test.
Let me give you an example. You’re looking for an energetic person. The self-report inventory question is, “I move more slowly these days.” The applicant checks “true,” and as a result is one point over the score that is acceptable for a particular scale; and he/she is therefore rejected.
But a well-trained HR professional might look at each of the test items and wonder about certain responses. So the HR professional asks the person individually, “You’re saying here that you’re not moving as quickly these days…” Then, the HR person looks closely at the applicant and notices that he/she has a broken leg!
In other words, there might be an unusual but completely legitimate reason for the applicant’s response, and a qualified applicant might be excluded accidentally or for the wrong reason.
Here is another example of what I’m talking about: A self-report inventory test might have a question such as, “As a child, I sometimes stole things.” The applicant checks “true.”
What we don’t know, however, is that this child was raised in a single-parent home. The mother screamed a lot and frightened the child by saying that they were going to the ‘poor house,’ or would have to live out in the street because they had no money to buy anything. As a result, the child became so terrified that he would go out and steal whatever he thought was needed in order for them to survive.
Unfortunately, this example comes from an actual case. This individual lived in a highly dysfunctional environment as a child, which had nothing to do with present personal or moral values. To avoid these errors, applicants can be asked about their responses to individual items, especially those that seem out of line with other information about them.
As you can see, HR professionals should be careful when conducting and reviewing self-report inventory results. And in some hiring situations, they should be particularly careful, such as when testing for positions where public safety and trust are very important.
In my next HRTools.com Insight, I’ll provide additional examples and share tips for how to handle those applicants who might be exaggerating on a self-report inventory.