What is Personality Assessment? How to adopt it in hiring

Personality Assessment are considered a great way to make an interview more fruitful. Every organization aims to ensure that its hiring is quick and efficient. However, for this to happen, companies need to follow a holistic approach. Interviews should be about how talented an employee is and how they will conduct themselves in a crisis situation.

This is why interviews have become more nuanced these days. They now include behavioral interview questions, structured interviews, and the blind CVs method. Adding personality assessment is also one component to further refine and improve the process.

What is Personality Assessment 

Personality assessments are questionnaires prepared in an interview that gauge a candidate’s social skills, soft skills, etc. Basically, they measure the personality of the prospective employee, which includes how they handle difficult situations at work. While two employees could be equally talented, their personalities could be entirely different. And since a lot can go wrong in a workplace, how the two employees react to specific problems can greatly affect how their teams function.

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Why do companies use Personality Assessments? 

What is the main aim of every company on the face of the earth? Profit. Organizations will always try to adopt methods that maximize profit. A great way to increase profit is by hiring the best employees who can work in their company for a long time. This decreases the time and money that would have been spent on the hiring process regularly.

This return on investment that the company aspires to is one of the reasons they started including personality as a key trait while hiring them. In addition, every organization has a specific work environment and philosophy. So, even a highly talented individual might not be a great fit for a company just because his personality may not align with the employees. On the contrary, these tests will also prove helpful if the company suddenly wants to hire employees with specific personalities to change their image or working environment.

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Advantages of using Personality Assessment 

Hiring time decreases 

One key advantage of using personality assessments is decreased interview time. Since they measure a person’s personality along with their talent, they help recruiters better understand not only an employee’s capabilities but also how they will perform in the real-time corporate world.

Since it is already part of the interview, it helps companies learn more about the candidate in a much shorter time.

Better Return on Investment 

Using such a holistic approach also allows the company to hire the best employees for the job. Specifically, any employees hired using this method will be more determined in their role, more proactive in their job, and, most importantly, will be at the company for a long time. Having such motivated employees who are willing to work for a long time at the company will ensure holistic growth of the company, increasing both revenue and brand image.

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Eliminates bias 

Various types of biases can infiltrate the hiring process, such as racial bias, gender bias, or disability bias. Over the years, companies have adopted various methods, such as blind CVs, structured interviews, and DEI hiring policies. Personality assessment is another great weapon to further eliminate bias of any kind.

Improves the company’s culture 

Using personality tests also helps ensure the company’s culture becomes more positive. At the end of the day, employees are the building blocks of an organization. However, having a toxic work culture can be detrimental for everyone. It can lead to a high attrition rate, unmotivated employees, and a culture where sycophancy also seeps in. Using personality tests thus ensures that the work culture is appropriate, where creativity and hard work are rewarded.

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Types of Personality Assessment Tests 

Hogans Assessment 

Developed in 1987 by  Drs. Joyce Hogan and Robert Hogan’s assessment analyzes how a prospective employee will act in a certain situation. This includes their day-to-day behavior and how far they will go to achieve their goals in the company’s setting. The Hogan’s assessment consists of five different tests:

• Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
• Hogan Development Survey (HDS)
• Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI)
• Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI)
• Judgment (JUD)

DISC Assessment 

DISC assessment is used to measure how effective someone’s communication style is. DISC stands for  Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. According to the DISC assessment, there are four types of people:

• People with D personality are confident but can be immune to feedback with their main emphasis on getting the job done.
• People with I personality are more prone to suggestions and are not willing to sacrifice relationships, for achieving results.
• People with an S personality put more emphasis on cooperation and teamwork to create an environment that fosters inclusivity.
• People with C personality are more focused on accuracy, expertise. Their main aim is to have competent employees who can accomplish their tasks.

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Caliper profile

The caliper profile measures 21 personalities to predict how an employee will act on the job. Companies prefer a caliper profile because it is very effective in predicting how an employee might act in the future. This means that this process can be used even after an employee is hired during future hikes and promotions.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a test that ascribes an individual to one of the 16 personalities. It is a self-reported inventory test, meaning users can take the tests themselves. One advantage of these tests is that it doesn’t say that any [personality is either good or bad.

However, the inventors of the test have said that this personality test shouldn’t be used for hiring. Rather, it should be used to determine which projects should be allotted after hiring an employee.

Gallup’s CliftonStrengths Assessment

The CliftonStrengths Assessment by Gallup is based on 34 themes and four domains. Under this assessment, candidates are given paired statements, of which they must choose one that describes them. This entire process can take up to 30 minutes. After this test, a comprehensive report is generated that defines your strengths and weaknesses.

Big Five personality test

One of the most widely used personality tests is called the Big Five. Although not used as much in hiring, the test still has a great accuracy. In this assessment, the candidate has to read 5- items and has to rate on a scale from one to five. One means strongly disagree, two means slightly disagree, three means neutral, four means slightly agree and give means agree.

Using the answers provided, an individual is allotted one of five personalities. These five personalities are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience.

BarRaiser is the best AI interview platform that features structured interviews, AI-generated interview notes, interviewer training, and tools to ensure quality hiring while eliminating biases from the recruitment process. With BarRaiser’s support, you’ll be well-equipped to build a strong team of sales associates who will drive sales and deliver exceptional customer service.