The Good and the Bad in Using Personality Tests While Hiring

The résumé and curriculum vitae (CV), cover letter, portfolio, and job interview are very crucial parts of the hiring process. Without them, as an employer, you might as well be committing favouritism or, at worst, nepotism. You have to determine a candidate’s experience, expertise, and education. But there’s also one thing that employers value very much in the hiring process: culture fit. Imagine if you have a company that offers printing services and graphic design. That means that your employees engage with a lot of collaboration on a daily basis. That means that your employees rely on teamwork to meet deadlines and get the job done. This is why it’s important for hiring committees to conduct personality tests. They help you weigh in the character of the candidate. So you often use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the DiSC tests. But some people believe that a candidate’s personality shouldn’t be a deciding factor. So what are the pros and cons of conducting personality tests during the hiring process?

PRO: Personality Tests Help You Know More About the Candidate

If you know more about the candidate’s character, then you’ll know more about their work ethic. And knowing about their work ethic, then you’ll be able to determine how they’d be able to contribute to the company. Yes, their experience, knowledge and skills matter, and that they contribute. But knowing their personality can help you get a deeper insight into them. They help you see things that the CV, cover letter, and portfolio can’t cover. If you play your cards right with the personality tests, your company will get to reap its rewards. Such rewards include an increase in productivity and morale. It would cause a stronger camaraderie and teamwork between your employees. And it leads to a decrease in the employee turnover rate.

CON: Data from the Personality Tests May Not Always Be Accurate

The thing about candidates is that they would do everything that they can to get hired. They would work on making a good first impression. They would highlight the best parts of themselves and their experience. This would make them more appealing to the hiring committee. So it’s fairly common for candidates to tamper with the results of their personality tests. They would answer the tests based on what might be pleasing to you. It’s because you’re the person who can determine the fate of their career. Through the test, they might claim that they have extrovert personalities. They might say that they’re never afraid to be assertive. This personality trait might be beneficial to your company. But what if it turned out that the candidate is not like that at all? Even if candidates don’t accurately answer their personality tests, their real selves would be revealed to the company anyway. Only, it might happen in the most inopportune time–such as when you’re on a strict deadline.

PRO: Personality Tests Help You Narrows Down the Pool of Candidates

If you work or own a major corporation, then a job vacancy would be very much sought after. Hundreds, if not thousands, of CVs and portfolios may come your way. It wouldn’t be efficient or even feasible to sift through all of the applications. Especially so if the job vacancy needs to be filled up urgently. Determining who amongst your candidates are actually qualified for the job may not help. You might still have a lot of applications to go through. Personality tests can help you narrow down your search, making the whole hiring process faster and less exhausting. This proved to be effective. Fifty-seven percent of U.S. major corporations that use pre-hire personality tests can attest to that. This also led to a lower number of overall hires and separations in the country–lowered by 25 percent.

CON: Personality Tests Can  Expensive

If you really want to make sure that personality tests are effective, you need to have reliable tests. It’s not advisable to use a random MBTI or DiSC generator online because they’re not always reliable. This means you have to invest in professionals to conduct and analyse the tests. If not, you might get instead premium packages or subscriptions online to gain access to comprehensive tests. The important thing here is that you get clear and specific results from the personality tests. Otherwise, you won’t have much to analyse and help you decide on a candidate. Personality tests clearly have their advantages and disadvantages in the hiring process. Because hiring is never an easy feat, you’ll want to use everything that would help you get it done. In the end, what matters is that you find a candidate that you’re confident in, someone that you think you can trust to do the job.