Personality tests

Personality assessment is a tool that can be used in personnel selection to predict an individual future job performance and can show lesser potential for adverse effects. They are usually preferred in organisations since they provide a method that is data-based and non-subjective for identifying employees who have high potential and in which work environment they will fit well (Stabile, 2002). An organisation has to determine the best measures to be observed in personnel selection and the various problems that may be encountered in the process.

Question 1

Personality tests are widely used in organisation for the purpose of understanding the differences in behaviour or traits of individuals and in determining their impact in job performance. The aim of having this process in selection is to ensure that candidates with the greatest possibility of success in performance are hired (Whitney, 2014).The company may also favour personality tests over other assessments since such tests demonstrate little to no adverse effects as they normally do not allow for any discrimination against the members of protected groups. They typically only show only little differences when comparing various significant demographic groups such as age, gender or ethnicity. Hence, companies implement personality assessment in the selection process so as to rise predictive validity and decrease a potential for adverse effect (Stabile, 2002).

Question 2

The personality tests have various severe shortcomings despite them being insightful, inexpensive and widely available. To begin with, they are highly transparent and thus the test taker can influence the results so that they appear in a manner that will be seen as favourable by any administrator. Secondly, because the design of the test is such that they measure the states rather than traits that are more stable, there is a high possibility that the results will change with time as the contexts of an individual is changing (Whitney, 2014). In addition, since this assessment is done through probabilities and statistics, it is not possible to ascertain whether the candidate will be successful in job performance based only test scores. The widespread application of personality assessment in determining the right employees may raise a number of issues concerning the reliability of the results and the invasion of candidates’ privacy. The question is whether the benefits arising from these tests outweigh the cost of using them. (Stabile, 2002).

Question 3

The article alludes to a better measure in personnel selection that includes personality assessment combined with other attributes that will give remarkable value for self-realisation, coaching, team building, enhanced communication and many other developmental applications. Such attributes consists of measuring stable traits which will not have a tendency to change after the candidate has spent some time doing the job. The test should be normative to allow for comparison results for different candidates so as to the ones possessing preferred trait. The measure should ensure there is scale to detect distortion or lies in order to understand the accuracy of the results, high reliability that allow for test-retest dependability and have been known to predict job performance accurately (Stabile, 2002).

Question 4

Personality assessment cannot be relied to solely provide information for making personnel decisions. Though they have been applied widely by organisation to hire employees through prediction of possible job performance, there are various validity issues that may make their results not to be wholly reliable. Therefore, there is need to incorporated a measure that will ensure that results of the test are accurate and reliable.

References

Whitney, M. (2014).The Problem with Using Personality Tests for Hiring. Harvard Business Review. 1-6.

 Stabile, S. (2002) .THE USE OF PERSONALITY TESTS AS A HIRING TOOL: IS THE BENEFIT WORTH THE COST? 5-18. Retrieved from: https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/jbl/articles/volume4/issue2/Stabile4U.Pa.J.Lab.&Emp.L.279(2002).pdf