While skills, experience, and education are key indicators of a candidate’s suitability for a job, they must also fit into the corporate culture. Everybody wants a compatible, cooperative workplace, as this leads to productivity and harmony. Personality assessments as part of recruitment help employers have an idea of how a candidate will fit in.
Personality assessments can dig deeper than a recruiter or employer in an interview. These tests garner more and different information, going beyond experience and knowledge. It is a combination of standard interviewing practices and personality assessments that delivers the most information about a candidate in hopes of a great fit.
According to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 29 percent of employers use one or more forms of psychological measurement or assessment. And, 15 percent of employers use personality tests specifically. Personality tests are nothing new!
What Personality Tests Can Measure
Personality tests can measure a wide variety of traits that appear in work settings. These include:
- level of extraversion or introversion
- openness to new experiences
- optimism
- service orientation
- stress tolerance, and
- emotional stability
Looking at these traits, it is easy to see why this insight into personality can help recruiters and employers who want to ensure a good fit.
Personality tests for recruitment focus on traits that matter at work, looking at behavior, interpersonal interactions, and suitability for various work tasks. They are especially helpful for situations in which an employee is interacting interpersonally or as part of a team.
Types of Personality Tests for Recruitment
Personality tests must be suitable for career purposes to avoid needless intrusion that might dissuade some candidates from a job. A few common tests fit into this profile, including:
The Caliper Profile
This is an objective assessment measuring 22 traits, localized to several different counties. It looks at personality characteristics and individual motivations to predict behavior and potential.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
A popular personality test, the MBTI explores preferences instead of measuring traits, abilities, or character. The test gives results based on introversion vs. extraversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs. feeling, and judging vs. perceiving.
Hogan Personality Inventory
The HPI explores interpersonal relations when people are at their best, called the normal personality in the test. It explores adjustment, ambition, sociability, interpersonal sensitivity, prudence, inquisitiveness, and learning approach.
There are many more personality tests recruiters and employers can use, based on their goals.
Benefits of Personality Assessment in Recruitment
Personality assessments do not just provide insight into whether someone will thrive in a position now. These tests and their results are also helpful predictors of future job performance and satisfaction. Retention is important to employers who want a stable, satisfied workforce rather than replacing employees when they move on.
When it comes to future job performance and other considerations, personality assessments provide data. While some personality assessments are subjective, if an employer or recruiter uses the same one for everyone, it is standardized across all candidates. This information leads to better, and more informed, decision-making.
This standardized approach can also help the hiring process ensure there are no biases at play. Interviews are entirely subjective based on who is interviewing and their own lives, personalities, and individual factors. But with a reliable, quality personality assessment as part of the recruiting process, hiring is less about individual opinion and more about predictors of success.
The insight these tests give is so helpful that we recommend starting with personality assessment early on in candidate recruitment and screening. It is better to discover sooner than later that a candidate will likely not fit in with corporate culture or find long-term satisfaction. By applying personality assessments to the talent pool, recruiters screen candidates that will not be a good fit. And they ensure the remaining people are worth interviewing further. All of these advantages of personality assessments come together to give companies the best chance of finding the perfect candidate.
Find Help with Your Recruiting Process
Mitchell Martin’s customized recruiting programs can handle as much or as little of your recruitment as your business needs. From initial screening including personality assessments to completing a full recruiting campaign, we are here to help you find the best talent for the job. With our help, quality candidates will fill your open positions while your organization focuses on everyday operations.
Our candidate request form is available online for your organization to get started. Let us know what you need and we will develop a plan that suits your business and its goals.