Take Personality out of Assessments

I read an article titled, “Assessing Personality” written by Peter Cappelli that appeared online at www.hreonline.com about the use of personality testing to assess the quality of job applicants and employees has been an on-again, off-again practice – with interest growing recently. But there was a reason the use declined once before.

First, I believe that my personality came from my mother and father. Second, I think the influence that others have had on my life including my mother, father, friends, neighbors, teachers, bosses, colleagues, and experiences have helped me formulate my behavioral style and this style is unfortunately rather predictable. This now enables me to walk down the street with several letters written on my forehead or just one card with the letter “D” taped to my baseball cap.

The assessment world should eliminate personality testing from their vocabulary. The uses of each of the assessments should be defined by its validity, reliability and definition and design for what it measures. The testing of aptitude coupled with behavioral traits might be appropriate in the hiring and selection process if the company is willing to profile the leaders of the organization to develop a profile. This could relate to people development as well. Personality testing might compliment the understanding of the differences in all of us that lead to conflict and communication barriers. So if we focus on team development, improving communication, or relationship building, then let’s look at Personality testing, but only if they are already hired. Orientation to certain competencies or skills may be helpful in determining the potential for liking or disliking a particular profession, job or skill set. Didn’t we take those in the sixth grade to solidify our lifelong career objectives? If you call most of the publishers relating to Personality Tests, they will tell you that their assessment instrument is not indicated for use in the hiring and selection process and certainly cannot predict successful leaders. So how then have we come to believe they are a valuable tool in areas they have no indication?

More importantly then, are there any good predictors for future job performance? The answer is definitely yes but it is a skill that most of us are not very good at. It is called behavioral interviewing. I happen to believe that interviewing skills are the most important competency for a manager that can be learned if they consider interviewing a process and not just an event. It takes planning, organization, a defined skill-set, vehicles to measure the skills needed for your “open” position, and a scorecard to rate the candidate on each of those skills, time, and energy. Don’t hesitate to use any of the tools validated for use in hiring and selection but make sure you incorporate them into a process that takes the “guesswork” out of selection and development. Just work at it and practice…practice…..practice.