Case Study 2 - Assessing Candidates Discussion Questions

• What do you think about the way personality testing is used in these examples?
• Have you taken a personality test for a job? Do you have any experience with personality testing in HR role?
• Do you see this as having a role in a good employee assessment program? How? Or, why not?

Maybe it's because I haven't taken one for a job before, but I have to admit, I'm still a little bit skeptical about the effectiveness of personality testing in assessing job candidates. I took several personality tests in college for potential careers, and I remember that I didn't find the results very helpful or all that accurate. (For example, one of the top career fields that I matched for was botany, which as anyone who's familiar with my plant-caring skills can attest to, is not a good match.) I also recently took an informal assessment on leadership styles (The Leadership Orientation Instrument) where I ended up in the analytical, structural orientation category, even though I scored the highest in the human resources orientation category.* I'm assuming that the types of personality tests mentioned in the examples are more specifically targeted than the types of tests that I took in the past, but I'm still a little bit disturbed to think that some high-level positions are decided more by personality than by skills or experience, as indicated in the HireDesk article.

So my initial reaction to the way personality testing was used in the examples was that the results sounded almost too good to be true. The problems mentioned in the examples included the fact that the companies did not have a good screening process for candidates or a good way of assessing interviews. Clay Boyles at Outsourcing Solutions mentioned that there was "no real screening process" for debt collectors, and Robert Beckmann of American Residential Services admitted that the company didn't have a "detailed interview process" for their candidates. The personality tests helped the companies assess applicants, but I wonder if they would have gotten similar results if they had implemented some other method for screening and assessing applicants that didn't involve personality testing.

I also wonder if there might not be a disconnect between what a person demonstrates on a test and how they actually perform in person. For example, I used to think that I primarily enjoyed working by myself and away from the public. If I had taken an assessment test, it would follow that I would score high on those traits, and I could probably get a job that fit those characteristics. However, I've since discovered that I actually prefer working with others and that I enjoy interacting with the public. I learned this primarily through on-the-job experience (i.e., through working at my current position and then through staff sharing in the reference department), but if I had been required to take a personality test to get the position, I probably would never have had the opportunity to find out, because I didn't think of myself as a "people person," I would not have rated myself that way, and I probably would not have been chosen for the position.

Now that I understand my preferences better, of course, I can answer differently, but I still have doubts about how accurately such tests can predict performance. It seems entirely possible that some people will perform well on the tests, but then be a bad fit for the job or who will perform poorly in person, or vice versa. (For example, if asked today on a personality test whether I am energized by meeting new people or if I enjoy working with others, I would answer yes, and I would probably be considered an extrovert by the test's standards, even though I am very shy and somewhat reserved in person.)

From all that we've read, it seems that personality tests have been useful in assessing candidates, in which case, they probably can play a role in a good assessment program. However, I would just echo what Bob Hogan and Jeff Ross (as well as some of my classmates) said about using all sources of information (interviews, resumes, cover letters, references, etc.), and not just depending on one particular item. I'd hesitate to use a personality test as a means of weeding out candidates because I hate to think that some people may be denied a position that they may be really good at, simply because of a test.

*For this assessment, we ranked 6 statements based on what described us the best as a leader, and then added up our scores and plotted them on a graph. Even though I scored the highest in human resource orientation, my score for structural orientation was higher, relative to its scale, so I ended up being a structurally oriented leader instead of a human resource leader, which I don't really think is that good of a fit, or at least, is not what I would like to be.