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Top 5 Personality Tests to Find the Right People for Your Company

In Interviews — by Joan Herbert

While skills, qualifications and professional experience are important factors recruiters take into account when searching for candidates to fill a vacant position, a candidate’s personality can be just as essential.

One of the most important elements that influence the hiring decision is whether a candidate is a good fit for the company’s culture. A candidate might have all the necessary qualifications but if they’re used to different styles of working or organizational hierarchies, they won’t be a good match for the company.  

When searching for candidates, be sure to first prepare a profile for the kind of employee you want. Once you bring them in for an interview, you can conduct personality tests to learn if they’re the right fit.

Make the best hire with our “Candidate Evaluation Guide”

Here are five great personality tests to help you learn if a candidate is good for your company culture.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

This test assesses the candidate through a series of questions asking them to choose between two answers. There are 88 questions in the European version and 93 in the American version. The results determine what kind of person the candidate is in four areas:

1. Extrovert or Introvert – how they interact with others
2. Sensing or Intuition – how they access information
3. Thinking or Feeling – how they make decisions
4. Judging or Perceiving – how they deal with the world

For example, an ENFJ candidate would be extroverted, use intuition, feel their way through decisions and judge others. They tend to be good leaders who inspire their teams and work closely with them. There are a total of 16 possible personality types resulting from this test, all of whom are better suited for different workplace roles.

Learn to make fair hiring decisions with our “Bias-Free Hiring Guide”

Open-ended questions

Rather than being laid out as a test, these questions should instead be asked in the interview. The fact that they are open-ended leaves the candidate room to answer from the heart, and they must do so without too much thought because of the pressured environment of the interview. Some examples of questions could be:

1. How would your friends describe you?
2. How do you deal with workplace conflict?
3. What are you passionate about?
4. Do you like to socialize outside of work?
5. What are your hobbies?

Make sure to tailor the questions to the profile you are looking for. For example, if you want a serious worker who keeps their head down, you might want to rule out those who are very sociable or like to spend a lot of time talking.

The Caliper Profile

This assessment asks candidates to read a group of statements and decide which one they agree with the most. The results show key personality traits related to skills within the job environment. These include areas such as:

1. Empathy
2. Assertiveness
3. Thoroughness
4. And so on

This test is great for finding out what drives someone and can also tell you what sort of roles they are suitable for.

The Gallup Profile

This is a very similar test to the Caliper profile but with one key difference: it focuses on strengths and markers of success, rather than negative points. This means you are more likely to discover an area where your candidate might excel, as opposed to finding out where they will struggle. The results can be very interesting in different ways.

Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

Also referred to as 16PF, this test identifies 16 personality traits and uses 170 questions to assess them. Rather than talking in general terms, these go right to the heart of the matter by asking how you would react to certain situations on the job. This will give you some idea whether or not a candidate will be an employee you can rely upon. While there is a chance they may falsify their answers, the same is true for other personality tests too.

Assessing personality is a delicate process but one that needs to be mastered if you are to find the right talent for the job.

About the Author:

Joan is an Assistant Manager at Bank-Opening-Times.co.uk, a curious individual, avid reader and a passionate creative writer.

 

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