PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT TESTING
Behavior is observable and in most cases aligns with core personality. But behaviors are often a “mask” we wear to cover up our core personality traits. This is why you sometimes get a shy extrovert or a careless perfectionist. For the longest time, turnover costs were low and qualified candidates were lined by the dozens. However, talent management has changed, cost of hiring is enormous, and the time it takes has skyrocketed.
Fortunately, employee personality testing can help match candidates to the proper career.
WHY BEHAVIOR IS A PROBLEM
Hiring managers can see only behavior. They can’t see personality when the two aren’t aligned. A candidate can also learn to modify his behavior at the career interview but his personality still remains intact. As soon as he walks out the door, the mask comes off. In other words, I may love the way the Porsche 911 looks sitting in the parking lot but I really have no clue how it drives. For all I know, someone might have replaced the engine with one from a Prius Hybrid.
And that’s exactly what happens every time a recruiter or manager interviews a candidate for a career. The candidate puts on his game behavior and the manager tries to figure out if this is really the person who will show up for work. Unfortunately, candidates seem to be much better at playing the game than managers are at decoding the playbook.
Many of today’s hiring decisions are based on the above mentioned masks. After the mask is lifted and the proverbial honeymoon is over, all that is left is what’s inside – the personality. But by the time everyone realizes what happened, you’ve already spent money, time, and effort into hiring the wrong person for the career. Using an employee personality testing system can help you make better hiring decisions.
HOW WE HELP YOU
Employee personality assessment tests save companies the enormous expense, heartache and embarrassment of hiring a “great personality” that turns out to be a performance disappointment. Personality assessment tests for employee selection, based on what is known as the five-factor model, are widely validated and proven by researchers. They are approved by respected psychological associations like the American Psychological Association and British Psychological Society and even agencies like Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Department of Labor.
Employee personality assessment tests are proven assets in the war for talent. Attitude testing helps to uncover who a person really is and how they will fit into a company culture, on a team, and perform at a career.
THE TESTS
Five-factor employee personality assessment tests are a convenient, affordable, and proven solution to help hiring managers easily separate the achievers from the laggards, the risk-takers from the risk-averse, the outgoing from the reserved, and the relaxed from the impulsive. Employee personality assessment tests help predict if an individual will adapt and lead change, display leadership or sales ability, and benefit from coaching and development.
Most everyone acknowledges that the world is changing faster than ever. But one thing managers do remains stuck in time – they continue to hire on skills, fire on attitude. Attitude testing transforms that paradigm into one that works for employers and workers – hire on skills and attitude.
Two Types of Attitude Testing
Before you can test for attitude, you must differentiate between a “good and bad” attitude and attitudes are just different than your own. “Bad” attitudes are often called counter-productive behaviors; they fall outside what most consider normal social behavior. Attitudes that are different but fall within socially acceptable norms fall within the scope of personal values. With employee personality assessment tests, managers can differentiate between the two and possibly predict bad attitudes in the workplace before they do harm.
Counter-productive behavior testing
Without a doubt some people have bad attitudes. Attendance and timeliness seem to be the last things on their minds. They may feel entitled to steal from an employer because they are underpaid. They justify retaliatory behavior because if “you don’t stand stand up for yourself, no one else will.”
These type of “bad” attitudes can easily be measured by attitude testing, also referred to as honesty and integrity testing. One such tool is called PeopleClues Attitude test. It measures three core attitude scales – conscientiousness, honesty, and frustration tolerance. Two additional scales are options – sexual harassment and computer misuse. This attitude testing is completed online and takes between 5 and 8 minutes to complete, depending if the questions for the optional scales are used. The results of this employee personality assessment test are available as soon as an applicant submits a completed questionnaire.
Motivational attitude testing
In 1920, Dr. Eduard Spranger originally identified six attitudes that are keys to our personal outlook and response to the world. He published his insights in the book Types of Men. Additional research by Gordon Alport and Philip Vernon further developed Spranger’s model. These six attitudes can be measured in Business Motivators.
They are listed in no particular order or priority:
- Conceptual
- Aesthetic
- Economic
- Power & Authority
- Social
- Doctrine
Unlike counter-productive behaviors, these attitudes do not lead to an inherent good or bad behavior. They are merely factors that describe how we view the world. They are neutral and judgment-free. But just as a hammer can be used to build or destroy and has no “morality” on its own, attitudes can be used for both good and bad. Good or bad just depends on how you view the world. The real question is then: which of these motivators do you value most. Think of “value” as a verb, not a noun – “What do you value?” as opposed to “What are your values?”
This type of attitude testing reveals potential synergy and conflict between a candidate and let’s say company values. For example a candidate who sees the world through Economics and Power attitudes may struggle within an organization driven by a Social or Doctrine-driven purpose.
One of the great benefits of using attitude testing is that managers can learn which candidates might exhibit counter-productive behavior and/or what “hot buttons” might engage them before they are hired. Thus, our employee personality assessment tests can help to place new hires in the best position to succeed at your company.