This just in: Personality assessments spur strong debate among HR professionals and job candidates alike.
Okay, so maybe that's not news.
In the debate, personality assessments, such as those based on Myers & Briggs Theory, are often accused of being misused in the hiring process.
But here’s what I don’t understand:
How is an assessment that was created to help women find satisfying careers in the World War II era and beyond not an acceptable tool for the hiring and management challenges we face today?
The truth is that the personality profiles can be an extremely helpful tool in hiring decisions -- if it is used correctly.
A Short History of the Myers & Briggs Theory
Isabel Myers observed two problems during the World War II era that she wanted to solve. First, she was deeply affected by the hatred and discrimination she witnessed. Second, she noticed that many people took jobs they hated out of patriotic duty.
Myers believed that if people had a better understanding of themselves and one another, many of the prejudices of the world could be solved, and people could find jobs they actually enjoyed on the homefront.
She turned to Jung’s theories about type and, with the help of her mother (and many others along the way), developed the Myers & Briggs type indicator (MBTI). Isabel Myers set the pace for constantly studying, adapting, and improving the tool she created–a legacy that the Myers-Briggs Foundation has carried on to this day.
How Should Personality Profiles Be Used Today?
Many people misunderstand and misuse personality profiles, opening it up to a lot of criticism and skepticism.
Some organizations have responded by throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. But is that the best response? Or would it be better to first take a closer look at what personality profiles can and cannot do and see how it fits in with your organizational hiring needs and goals? Only then can you make an accurate decision about the assessment.
For some, the answer will be to use it while incorporating productive solutions that can counter some of the weaknesses of the assessment. As an example, our MAP assessment uses Myers & Briggs theory as one of three key components in order to get a well-rounded picture of a job candidate.
For others, setting the theory aside is a better choice.
Either way, information, consideration, and evaluation are absolutely essential. So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
Three Things Personality Profiles Indicator CAN’T Do
1. Give fool-proof, ironclad, perfect results
At the end of the day, a personality profile is a self reporting tool, much like an interview, that assumes respondents are self-aware and honest in their answers. There are a couple of factors that can cause this assumption to go badly.
The first factor is that, even if questions are worded perfectly, job candidates can still choose answers that they believe the potential employers want to hear and that are most likely to produce job offers. Research on this issue says most candidates don’t manipulate assessment questions, but the possibility is still there.
The second factor, which causes many hiring managers to question the reliability of the instrument itself, is that candidates sometimes receive different results when they take the test more than once. (I, myself, a definite INFJ, once tested as an INTJ.)
The irony of these 2 issues is that in each case, the problem of reliability lies with the test taker, not the test.
We all have two natures, so to speak–our core nature and our developed nature. The core nature is the personality we were born with. The developed nature is the personality that incorporates modifications we have learned, for good or ill, based on the experiences we have had. (My INTJ moment happened after working closely with a significant number of NTs for an extended period of time. To work with them productively, I learned to use fewer, more direct words that represented data rather than feelings. It showed up in the test.)
Solution: Incorporate the personality results into a candidate’s interview through personalized questions. These questions should include the candidate’s feedback on the accuracy of the description of their personality as well as other questions that allow you to ascertain the likelihood of accurate results.
2. Predict or guarantee job performance
According the the Myers-Briggs Foundation, a person’s 4-letter code indicates his or her preferences, not ability or character. It is not an aptitude assessment. You need to use a different portion of the hiring process to verify particular skills or abilities that predict success at a certain job.
People have free will. As every red-blooded American who has ever cheered “Rudy...Rudy...Rudy” knows, any person who is willing to invest the blood, sweat and tears to do something they are not wired to do can eventually reach some level of accomplishment.
This fact does not mean, however, that putting someone in that position is a good choice–for them or for your organization. Some job assessments are able to make the claim of predictive validity because they have met a certain set of regulations. While this label provides a free pass of approval from the EEOC, it does not grant the hiring decision guarantee some might like to think it does.
The success or failure of an employee has so many variables attached: knowledge, skill, ability, previous training, character, company culture, interpersonal dynamics, personal life issues, etc. Assessments with predictive validity measure the first three items on that list at best.
Solution:: Pair a personality assessment with a method of measuring job aptitude–an assessment, a scenario, a test project, or a combination of these methods–to identify the candidates who possess both the ability to do the work you need done and the potential to enjoy it.
3. Make your hiring decision for you
I’ve hinted at this already, but now I’ll just come right out and say it:
Personality profiles were never intended to be used as an exclusive method of making a hiring decision for you. Nothing can do that.
Although employee assessments can provide great insights into a candidate’s perspectives, motivations, values, work styles, knowledge, and skills, none should ever give the final verdict on which candidate is right for the job. Hiring decisions will always require a lot of thought, scrutiny, evaluation, and calculated risk.
The goal should not be to find the perfect tool that does your job for you. Rather, you should find several hiring tools that will help you gather key information to assist you in making the best decision you can.
Solution: Take some time to consider what you are specifically trying to achieve in each step of your hiring process. If it makes sense within your context, use a personality profile as a piece of a much more extensive and purposeful hiring process.
The truth is, there are no assessments in existence that could live up to the expectations listed above. But that does not mean that assessments are useless or without merit in the hiring process. Let’s take a look at what personality profiles CAN do.
4 Things Personality Profiles CAN Do
1. Help you anticipate what will be necessary for success
Personality profiles can help you understand what a potential employee will need from you as they fulfill their role.
Let’s say your salespeople need to meet a higher bar of success. Personality profiles can help you answer the following questions:
- Which ones will be motivated by financial incentives, social recognition, or true stories of positive impact on clients?
- Which of your managers will drive toward stability vs. innovation?
- Will the promotion you are considering for a high-performing employee be the next chapter of growth and success for your organization? Or will it be detrimental to both the employee and the team?
These are real-life questions business managers must answer on a regular basis. It is possible to answer these questions with time, experience and familiarity with each individual involved. Personality profiles just help you get there faster, which is good for you, your team and the bottom line.
But wait. Isn’t this a management question? Yes. It is. It is also a pre-hire question.
For example, if you know your organization is in a stage of the growth cycle that requires some stability, hiring a naturally innovative manager could have significantly adverse effects.
However, if your organization is struggling against stagnation, that same professional, thoughtful, dependable candidate–though likeable–might be a real mistake.
These are pre-hire considerations a personality profile can help you address.
2. Help the team work together more effectively
You can almost always improve teamwork and communication just by understanding some basics about personality types.
How early is too early to begin this consideration?
The ability to prepare a new hire’s manager for getting off to the right start on day one can be invaluable. After all, an NF manager (ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP, or INFP) will naturally speak in more abstract terms and will make decisions through the filter of harmony within the group. If a new hire is an SP (ESFP, ESTP, ISFP, ISTP), who expects concrete communication and makes pragmatic decisions, things could get off to a rocky start very quickly.
Now multiply this issue times the number of people on a particular team–two, six, ten–and you can see just one of the many reasons high-performing teams are so difficult to build without the help of personality assessments.
3. Meet all of today’s requirements for psychological tests
Some of the silliest criticism of personality profiles is that they are based on old and outdated theories. Human and organizational development practitioner, Linda V. Berens (Ph.D.), states:
“Temperament theory has been around for over 25 centuries in one form or another. Not only the early philosophers but modern scientists recognize that every living being has a temperament, often described in terms such as easygoing, high strung, calm, etc.”
Many employee assessments--including those with predictive validity--are based at least in some part on this theory. Yes, many things have changed over the years, but people are still people and temperament theory is still a good method of predicting human behavior.
Additionally, the personality profiles based on the Myers & Briggs Theory have been modified and improved over the years. According to the Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP), personality profiles, like those based on the Myers & Briggs Theory, have proven their worth and, along with many other accepted pre-hire assessments, meets all the requirements for psychological tests.
4. Help your organization diversify rather than discriminate
Many criticize the use of personality assessments in hiring decisions because they fear the risk of discrimination based on personality type. However, this risk arises from the person using the test, rather than the test itself. One can just as easily use the test to ensure that each team is made up of different personality types to balance one another out -- an approach that is much more beneficial to your organization.
Another way to counterbalance the risk of discrimination is to do just what we’ve been suggesting in this entire post: use personality profiles as one factor among many, not as the sole determinant in your hiring decisions. Weighing if someone has the skills for the job, fits your culture, and displays motivations and behaviors consistent with the job description helps keep the big picture in perspective and helps you avoid overemphasizing a particular factor.
Preferring to surround ourselves with people just like us comes quite naturally and is not bound to only personality tests. It’s second nature. But in doing so, we often miss the different and helpful perspectives of others.
To go back to my own personal experience, the NTs in my life don’t accept my gut feeling, but require me to prove it with real data. The SJs in my life constantly point out the intuitive assumptions I am using in my decision making. And the SPs are always pace-setting for me with their adaptability and willingness to fail fast, learn, and improve the next time.
We need diversity in our organizations. Personality assessments can actually help us accomplish that goal rather than hinder it.
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Myers-Briggs type theory is that every type has value.
Bringing It All Together
Clearly, personality profiles are not a money-back guarantee solution for choosing who to hire. Despite all of its possibilities, the starting point lies with the participant and is dependent on him or her to openly, honestly, and accurately report core nature preferences. Everything else flows out of this starting point.
Because of this caveat, personality profiles should never be used as an exclusive and ironclad pre-hire mechanism that allows potential employers to sort candidates like cattle. But that does not mean the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater. This is why we use personality profiles based on the Myers & Briggs Theory as only one component of our multifaceted hiring and management assessment.
More important than training, experience, and perhaps even ability is the premise that working with nature is more productive than working against it. Just as an international airplane flight is likely to arrive ahead of schedule with a headwind and behind schedule with a tailwind, so a person who is “wired” to enjoy a particular type of work is likely to be more successful doing that work than one who prefers a different focus. This information has a rightful place in the hiring decision.
We want to hear from you! What benefits have you experienced with the use of personality profiles in your hiring process? How do you manage its potential weaknesses? Tell us in the comments.