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Permalink Reply by Peter Ceccarelli on May 20, 2009 at 1:47pm

One of the best personality assessments I've ever used was the "Predictive Index". It's a very old, tried and tested tool that is still relevant today. It takes into consideration a wide range of personality and behavior preferences and how those can be matched against their future bosses profile and the job profile. It's useful because you can index the "success" traits of the job. I have found when the test suggested we NOT hire the person because of the boss or job incompatibility, but did anyway, we mostly lost, meaning they were in the job less than a year and had massive personality and performance issues on the job. When we found the "perfect" match it typically worked.

I'm not for or against personality tests. I think they are just ONE tool in the many we use to assess candidates overall. It's when red flags appear and are ignored that you tend to run into deep trouble.

I've used several personality tools over the years and again, the very best one is the Predictive Index. One of the best, easiest to diagnose and to learn to facilitate. It's simple and has an intuition factor built into it, if you can imagine that could ever be the case. It's worth checking out.

At the end of the day, if we know our culture and company personality deeply enough to sense who will and who won't work, then that is typically the very best tool any recruiter could ever use. Whenever I have a twinge and my gut that says "no" and I can't quite pin point as to why, and we hire anyway.........90% of the time they turn out to be a miss on culture and company fit and we then have to start the process of managing them out of the company which as we all know is a huge time suction and in the long run, a lot of money wasted.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on May 20, 2009 at 4:39pm

They can be very effective. The most important thing though is how accurate the test is, and if it's testing for the key skills required in the job. My brother-in-law just started using customized tests to hire salespeople and he told me a fascinating story. They were looking to add a 'hunter', someone to break into new accounts and develop new business. They had plenty of 'farmers' in-house who were great at servicing and growing existing accounts. They met a guy who had industry experience and a great personality. They liked him, and could picture him fitting in well and were about to extend an offer, but then were persuaded to hold off and do the test first.

The test results came back as 'do not hire.'

My brother-in-law was shocked and disappointed and curious as to why? The test revealed quite clearly that this candidates strengths were not as a 'hunter' but rather as a 'farmer', and the candidate confirmed that that's what he preferred as well. It hadn't come out in the interview, but the personality test made it crystal clear. So an offer was not extended and my brother-in-law is now using these tests on all hires. He was impressed!

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Permalink Reply by Phil McCutchen on June 18, 2009 at 11:24am

It would seem that most personality tests are based on some variation of the Myers-Briggs Jungian-based testing developed in World War II. Since then a lot of effort has gone into further development and enhancement of the science of personality assessment and testing process.

We've partnered with one such well-regarded personality and cognitive testing developer, whose product we integrate with our staffing and recruiting software.

Because the testing can be linked to specific job-types, the potential success of the candidate/employee can be predicted with some degree of certainty (and more importantly, less subjectivity).

A case study from one of our staffing software customers showed that the personality and cognitive testing use dramatically reduced employee turnover and improved on-the-job success. You can read the case study at: http://www.vcgsoftware.com/article-EmploymentGroup-SuccessCheck.asp

It is my own opinion and experience that such testing can and should be used only as a guide, not a final determinate of a candidates' fitness for a particular job.

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Permalink Reply by David Gillies on June 18, 2009 at 12:46pm

My brother is a VP of HR (in Europe unfortunately for me) with a PhD in Organizational Development. Personality tests are truly only accurate if the organization has been benchmarked...and benchmarked correctly. Benchmarking is terribly expensive. Here is the kicker, it is predicted that the organization changes every 6 months....soooooo, you really need to repeat the benchmark every six months. ugh.

I am not saying that they aren't useful, but way too many hiring managers want to be relieved of the pressure to make a decision and rely on the results far more heavily than they admit, or should. Afterall, we have all worked with competent co-workers who had an absolutely bizarre life outside of work. They were able to effectively modify their behaviour from 8-5 and be very effective workers.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Serafin on June 22, 2009 at 5:03pm

Almost all the mid to large size companies that I work with use some sort of the Chally test....All I recruit are sales people though, hope this helps for your survey.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Serafin on June 22, 2009 at 5:06pm

This is what the Chally does in many cases, that is a very serious distinction too...So in this case, it definitely creates value.

pam claughton said:

They can be very effective. The most important thing though is how accurate the test is, and if it's testing for the key skills required in the job. My brother-in-law just started using customized tests to hire salespeople and he told me a fascinating story. They were looking to add a 'hunter', someone to break into new accounts and develop new business. They had plenty of 'farmers' in-house who were great at servicing and growing existing accounts. They met a guy who had industry experience and a great personality. They liked him, and could picture him fitting in well and were about to extend an offer, but then were persuaded to hold off and do the test first.

The test results came back as 'do not hire.'

My brother-in-law was shocked and disappointed and curious as to why? The test revealed quite clearly that this candidates strengths were not as a 'hunter' but rather as a 'farmer', and the candidate confirmed that that's what he preferred as well. It hadn't come out in the interview, but the personality test made it crystal clear. So an offer was not extended and my brother-in-law is now using these tests on all hires. He was impressed!

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