In their efforts to make effective, efficient hiring and promotion decisions, many companies and consultants have devoted considerable effort to developing sophisticated psychological assessments. It is hoped that such tests can ultimately predict general employment success, or the potential for performance in particular assignments. At the least, responsible managers attempt to use the results of such tests to inform their final decisions.
Sometimes psychological studies reveal useful information, such as the idea that people don’t become good employees by your making them happy, but rather that happy people simply make good employees. Indeed, this general concept has now, according to Management-Issues, been developed into yet another employment screening test.
This one is directed at helping companies reduce post-hire turnover. The trick is to identify people whose personality traits are associated with being quitters, and those whose characteristics have been determined to be those of stable, conscientious employees.
This sounds rather promising at first glance. But it does suggest some questions. One has to wonder what these traits are that are argued to be predictive in these ways. What is the organizational consequence of consciously peopling your company with pre-screened personality types? What are the societal consequences of having those that psychologists have identified as quitters being routinely denied employment?
Once you’ve spent some time with all of that, consider another article from Management-Issues which discusses additional research (published in the same journal as that referenced above) which flatly questions the predictive ability of personality tests used by HR departments around the world. So here’s another question for you: if the psychologists can’t agree on the predictive value of their work, why are we using it?
The big problem I’ve seen is that these tests seem so rigorously researched, designed, packaged, and administered that they attain a quasi-scientific aura that suppresses questioning - even doubt - by lay people. Indeed, they are ubiquitous, used in a wide range of applications, lending them further apparent credibility.
And so, what happens is that if a test suggests negative potential in someone who has knocked the hiring managers’ socks off during the rest of the assessment and interview process, it can become extraordinarily difficult for mere human decision-makers to overrule the judgment of those test results. This appears to me to be just another instance in which managers tend to allow quasi-scientific formulae to supplant not just their own judgment - but their fiduciary responsibility.
What has been your experience with personality testing or other psychological screening of employees - from new hires to CEOs?
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Today’s tip: Speaking of trying to figure out what’s going on within our own ranks, please see this interesting item about unnoticed achievers by Michael Wade at Execupundit.com. This is a real poser for managers that is too often simply ignored.
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8 Comments
I never had to take a test for employment, but I used to do some graphics work and training for one of these types of companies. Consequently (and mostly by osmosis), I became a little familiar with the types of questions they asked and what benefits they promised to companies.
As you say, it all seems very scientific, but because it takes so much work to understand and validate (or even more — to prove wrong), it’s awfully tempting to accept the reporting uncritically.
Polls work much the same way.
Hello Cam,
Polls, indeed! I am not among those surprised by the pollsters giddy errors in NH the other day. If any quasi-scientific field is riddled with personal, ideological, and political bias, it’s the polling industry.
Thanks for stopping by!
Jim, you’ve touched on one of my favorite topics. And the area of consulting in which I actually spend the most time: assessment of new executive hires and effectively identifying unseen talents within an organization.
I’ve actually been trying to get the courage up to do a post on this. I think you’ve lit the fire.
When it comes to “predicting” success, the variables are so numerous that I know of no single assessment, interview technique, background check or assessment center activity that will give you “the answer”. Those can each be a useful ingredient when used in the way originally intended and by people with wisdom and discernment. Used as a boilerplate solution, you might as well try tea leaves.
Putting the right person in the right place at the right time, by definition implies a situational context. There are numerous variables–including organizational ones–that will be a greater determiner of individual performance than personality, intelligence, or past performance.
Jim, I’ve been jotting down some topics for future posts. I think this is one that I’d like to pursue, and you have done a wonderful job of setting the framework.
Let’s see where we can take this, eh?
Hello Steve,
Thanks for stopping in with this - it’s good to have you back!
Along the lines of your comment, my wife is a clinical psychologist, and she goes crazy (excuse the pun) when psychologists base diagnoses solely on personality or psychological tests. She says that those only measure a person at one moment in time - and a moment during which they are consciously taking a test, no less. In her view, they may inform a diagnosis, but a complete and valid one must be based on a clinical interview.
She further says that tests tend to be used (that is, relied on almost exclusively) by practitioners who either lack clinical judgment or confidence in it. Others think that using test results protects them from litigation.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
I look forward to continuing this discussion!
Ah, testing. We create most of our problems there when we do any or all of the following.
We believe tests are scientific when they have not been fully validated.
We use a test for something it’s not intended for, most we use a test that’s intended to produce a description is if it produced a recommendation or prediction. The MBTI is often used this way.
We believe a test produces answers when it should produce questions.
Perhaps we should view tests the same way John Wanamaker viewed advertising when he said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.”
Hello Wally,
Those are great points! Validation is something that, I believe, test consumers should not take for granted. The test population can reveal great weaknesses in the notion of using a test in specific populations.
Using tests for unintended purposes is also a real problem, and, it seems to me, points pretty robustly at the desire of some managers to find mechanical ways to assess situations, and to escape the need to apply - and be held accountable to the strength of - their own judgment.
Your last point is how my wife, who, as I mentioned just above in response to Steve’s comment, is a clinical psychologist, uses them (when she does) in diagnosis - not to replace, but to inform the course of the clinical interview process.
There is plenty here for further examination - thanks!
Great post - your blog as well as those that commenting on it raise some great points.
In our consulting practice we use series of personality assessments to help organizations hire more effectively and better manage the talent they have.
With respect to the hiring process, the biggest danger is giving too much weight to the results of the assessment and not using the common sense God has given us.
While we always recommend that our clients use a personality assessment in their hiring process, we recommend that it account for no more thatn 25% of the hiring decision.
Simply put if a candidate doesn’t pass the “smell test” during an interview or phone screening, a favorable assessment result shouldn’t over-ride one’s common sense that a candidate isn’t a good fit for the position or one’s organization.
By and far we have found that using testing and personality assessments in the hiring process to be a huge success for our clients. Many refuse to hire without it as it gives them the hiring advantage they are looking for.
Wally - great point about the validity of testing. While the MBTI is great for team building and other talent management applications, we see this test mis-used and abused time and time again - especially in the hiring process.
Using an unvalidated assessment in the hiring process can expose your organization to serious legal risks. If one chooses to use an assessment or profiling tool in the hiring process it is essential that it be scientifically validated. Ask for the paper work!
Chris Young
The Rainmaker Group
http://www.therainmakergroupinc.com
Hello Chris,
Thank you for stopping in with a thoughtful comment adding to the discussion your professional experience with these sorts of tests.
I note that you recommend that such instruments be accorded no more than a 25% weight in an overall hiring decision. Do you mean to say that the test result is factored in independently of other assessment methods, themselves also put into the equation independent of the test results?
Or, as Wally suggests, are the test results used to generate questions which are then explored by the other elements of the larger process?
It’s interesting to me because of the mix of promise and caution suggested by the articles in the professional journal in which the contrasting research results were published, referred to in the main post. Your experience in the real world appears to have been rather positive, according some strong degree of reliability to the tests you use. Is there any special way you use them to protect you from the concerns of those researchers who are more skeptical of their predictability?
Thanks again for your visit - you add a bracing contrast to the overall trend of the discussion.
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