Making the most of personality assessments
In today’s highly competitive and volatile environment, hiring is a complicated and expensive process. Imagine hiring a candidate after a multi-pronged, multi-level process only to find that the candidate does not fit well with your team structure and culture. A bad cultural fit will result in disorientation and dissatisfaction. This in turn will result in high attrition and low productivity.That would be money and time thrown down the drain. This is what often happens when you concentrate on hiring the best talent for the job, based only on a candidate’s functional skills.
Personality tests come into the picture when you seek a multi-level match. In other words, you should look for a candidate who not only fits the skill requirements for a job but also aligns with your company’s values, policies and work culture. Today, this is easier said than done. Most candidate’s are already equipped with canned responses for any general queries that are aimed at getting to know them better. Personality assessments are the answer to such canned responses. These specialty assessments are scientifically designed to help you build a personality profile for every individual.
Many of these assessments focus on evaluating five factors, namely, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. While there are varying opinions about the effectiveness of these assessments, they are very helpful when trying to make a choice between candidates with similar academic and professional backgrounds. It will also help you filter out candidates with outstanding resumes but no real-world skills.
DISC, The Big Five, Kolbe, StrengthsFinder (CliftonStrengths 2.0) and Myers Briggs (MBTI) are some of the popular personality tests used in hiring. The success of your hiring strategy will depend on the personality assessment you decide to use and how you incorporate the results into your hiring process. Here are a few tips that will help you use personality assessments to your advantage.
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People are not a mixed bag of fruits
While it’s easy to separate a mixed bag of fruits into apples and oranges, that is not the case with people. People are much more complex and cannot be defined by labels like extroverts, committed etc. Avoid boxing people into predefined labels using personality tests.
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It’s not a simple pass or fail
Personality tests should not be approached like any other assessment. In fact, you cannot pass or fail a personality assessment. Evaluate the candidate holistically, with a combination of personality tests and other tests. The overall performance of the candidate should enable you to make a decision.
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Is the candidate a good fit for the team?
A test that is customised for a role or a team would be the most effective. Use a combination of historical data and personality tests to thoughtfully consider team dynamics. Design your personality tests to help identify the best fit for your team.
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It’s the interpretation that matters
The test results by themselves mean nothing to your hiring team. It’s the interpretation of the results that will make the difference. You will need experts in the team, who can evaluate the tests and interpret the test findings accurately.
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Play to your weakness
Assess the gaps in the team you are hiring for and focus the assessment to hire for your specific team’s needs and gaps.
Personality assessments are invaluable tools that enable you to hire effectively and efficiently. To know more about HirePro’s custom built personality assessments write to us at sales@hirepro.in
sources
- www.4cornerresources.com
- www.inc.com
- www.indeed.com
- www.mytractiontools.com
- www.innovationtraining.org
- www.shrm.org
- www.ddiworld.com
- www.learn.g2.com
