Personality Testing As A Hiring Tool Preemployment Testing

Personality Testing As A Hiring Tool

Pre-employment Testing ©Pre-employment testing breaks down into many different categories, honesty, personality, and the like. The one with which we are most concerned today, is personality testing.

Personality testing: © Tests can cost anywhere from $10 -$2, 000 (The Christian Science Monitor) © Most take less than 30 min and generally request yes or no, and true or false answers © Some request that you select adjectives from a list to indicate what you think describes you, and then what words you think others might use to describe you © Are designed to identify applicants that might be prone to theft, abuse sick day privileges, break company policy, etc.

Personality Testing cont. © Personality testing is a $400 million industry according to Psychology Today, May, 2000. © There around 2, 500 personality test publishers in the industry. (Psychology Today) © More than one in five employers (22%) administer testing to employment candidates. (Centre Daily Times, Oct. ’ 01)

Popular Types ©Myers-Briggs ©Kersey ©NEO-Five Factor Inventory © 16 PF

Advantages: © Help in selection when an employer must choose among several applicants. © Assist in placement, finding an optimal match © When there is a shortage, tests can be used to increase candidate pool. It is possible to explore whether individuals with non-typical backgrounds have the aptitude for a given job. © Save resources in the long run, bad hires are expensive

Disadvantages: © Many people feel that tests which get at information that is not explicitly given are a breach of privacy © Easy to cheat © Cost © Thousands exist, not all have been validated, and some might be outright discriminatory © They don’t capture the person © People are categorized too simply

Faking? © Also known as “Response Distortion” © Studies show “faking adversely affects the construct validity of personality scales” © “RD” is significantly greater among job applicants than among job incumbents, and that “RD” among applicants can have a significant effect on who is hired. – Joseph J. Rosse, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1998

How to combat “Response Distortion” ©Exaggeration scales – “Subtle fake” and “Gross fake” © 1. Experimental groups instructed to fake or answer honestly © 2. Subgroups created from a single sample of applicants or non-applicants by using impression management scores © 3. Job applicants vs. Non-Applicants

Journal of Applied Psychology (Aug. ’ 98) ©“Personality assessment as a preemployment screening procedure is not without controversy. One major debate concerns the effect of response distortion on personality inventory… The results show that response distortion does occur among real job applicants taking a typical commercially available test in an actual job selection setting. ”

Some Personality testing sites: ©www. keirsey. com ©www. claritas. com ©www. emode. com ©www. queendom. com/tests ©www. quincyweb. net/quincy/psychology ©www. biztest. com