Evaluation of Personality Tests and Interview Questions - Assignment Example

 HRM Part 1: Evaluation of Personality/Psychometric Tests While an individual’s personality can have an effect on the way they interact with others and react to given state of affairs, it can also affect how they respond to the stresses of work and the demands of productivity. More importantly, the idea of certainly personalities being more productive in some positions brings up the idea of the utility a person can bring to a company by being in a managerial position as opposed to being a line worker. Of course the concept can be further complicated due to the demands of and the nature of the work. For example, Theory X and Y of management may be used within the same company in different departments depending on the type of the work involved. Theory X of management assumes that most people have personalities that dislike work and must be controlled by managerial means if they are to remain productive. Further, people need direction as well as order and not independence while they work (NetMBA, 2005). Theory Y is the complete opposite of this since it suggests that people are naturally inclined towards work as they are towards play. Additionally, people find satisfaction in work and will use their imagination, creativity and their personal skills to solve work related problems if they are allowed to work as they please (NetMBA, 2005). A manager who has a personality which is a good fit for managing with Theory X would find it difficult to create high productivity in a department which should be governed with Theory Y. In such situations, personality itself can be defined as the collective emotional, thinking, and action patterns which are exhibited by an individual which are more or less very consistent over a period of time (Miner & Dachler, 1973). Psychologists and those who study human personality have defined various types of personalities and presented theories which help in placing individuals on certain scales of personality (Joy, 2004). The idea of personality as a set of individual traits is fully supported by Cattell (Statt, 2004). It is also suggested that there are quite a few elements which affect human personality and the interaction of these traits as well as the reactions they produce to stimuli result in a fully formed personality (Plucker, 2007). The Right Personality for the Right Job The work done by Cattell is important for the study of personality and productivity since it lets us gauge an individual’s personality and then correlate it to their performance at a given position in the company. At the same time, we have theories that suggest that certain personal traits like aggression, temperance etc. could be more useful in one position as compared to another. This is particularly true when it comes to the nature of the job a person is going to perform. For example, it would be better for a customer service representative to have a higher level of patience while it would be good for a salesperson to be more aggressive. However, the legal consideration for recruitment and retention of employees must be kept in mind while the personalities and skill sets of individuals are being evaluated (CIPD, 2007). The CIPD (2007) further reports that psychological testing and skills evaluation is a part of the general abilities tests which many companies carry out. Almost 40% of all companies in the UK conduct general abilities test while more than a third conducted personality tests before recruiting. However, the CIPD also reports that eliminating employees from recruitment based on the results of one test alone can be dangerous and legally questionable. The productivity demanded by a manager and the motivation provided by a company can be seen as an outside influence which makes people seek pleasure in work and avoid the pain which can come from being out of work. Certain personality factors which guide behaviour can influence how people react to productivity enhancing methods but the bulk of motivation comes from the reactions to the environment a person is placed in (Brown, 1999). At the same time, the cognition of future rewards or punishment is what keeps people behaving in a productive way. The factorial model, commonly used in Organizational Behaviour studies, assigns certain factors which have a scale to define an individual’s personality (Clarke & Robertson, 2005). These personality models can be used to show a person’s aptitude for, and expected performance levels in work related situations. Job performance is relatively easy to define since it simply means how well or how poor a person performs within an organization (Lee, et. al., 2005). However, personality and personality traits are more difficult to define by generally accepted as being a dimension of: Neuroticism - A trait which makes a person easily get to unpleasant and negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, or depression. Extroversion – The trait which leads a person to be high on energy and to seek out other people. Agreeableness - A propensity for being sympathetic and helpful as opposed to being suspicious of other people. Conscientiousness – Being self-disciplined and acting with responsibility towards other as well as the organization. Openness – Being imaginative and open to new ideas as well as open to the possibility of change. There is a significant amount of research and information which shows that there is a definite link between personality and certain jobs. Of course much of the evidence presented is based on anecdotes and observations by individuals but scientific research into the field also supports this idea (Nikos, 2004). For example, on an individual level, it has been shown that having a proactive personality can have a positive effect on an individual’s performance and career (Erdogan, 2005). In this manner, a individual’s personality can be also seen as one of the internal motivators as opposed to the external motivation from societal forces which increase productivity. Usefulness in Recruitment Personality testing and skills evaluation is an essential part of the recruitment and it has recommended by Murphy (2005) as a good method for making sure that the personality of the individual matches the personality of the company. The Institute for Employment Studies Research and the Council for Industry and Higher Education have mentioned that there are often gaps left in the education provided to graduates in the UK therefore an evaluation of their skills before employment can be useful. While evaluating these skills, a personality test can also be conducted to ensure that not only the candidates’ skills match up with the job they are seeking, their personality does also. For this purpose, an online test is often a quick way to sort out the personalities of the applicants into a rough order (Murphy, 2005). Of course such a test should not be the primary part of the evaluation process since controls on such tests can only be minimal at best. A more controlled test as recommended by the CIPD (2007) can also be conducted but it would surely add to the cost of recruitment and even then the reliability of the results will carry some errors. Furthermore, the personality evaluation test and testing procedures can change depending on the position and the nature of work which is to be performed. For instance, a sales position may look for a person who has high confidence and people’s skills while these may not be as important for a technical worker. The variety of online tests and the methods of Computer Based Testing (CBT) are particularly effective in this situation since online tests can be taken from the company website by many prospects without them coming into a testing centre. Conclusion Using the internet and online methods for testing and evaluation purposes is one of the key recommendations given by Murphy (2005) who also suggests that the company website can function as an important recruitment and testing tool. It can be used to provide information about the position, the requirements of the company and other information which can attract the people with the right personalities or guide away those who may not be suitable matches for what the company needs. In Conclusion, Personality testing and evaluation can be useful as a rough guide to the productivity of an employee but as we have warnings from experts in the field, they are not the sole criteria. The motivation provided by the company and the personal charisma of the individual leading the company can be more important factors for improving the productivity of the employees. While the future will surely bring us improved scales and judgements of the productivity of an individual as it connects to their personality, the ethical issues surrounding the problem must never be ignored. Part 2: Interview Questions What would your personal philosophy be towards work? My personal philosophy towards work connects deeply with my idea of working in a way which is utilitarian. In fact, I believe that the utilitarian philosophy of doing what results in the greatest good for the greatest number of people can be easily applied in business. Of course it does not mean that a company should stop seeking profits or should start giving advantages to a company which is larger than themselves just to ensure that a greater number of people are happier. In fact, the company should do what is best for the greatest number of its own stakeholders. While working, I use the same philosophy for my long term objectives in order to understand what will bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people connected to my company. In these terms, it becomes easy to balance a personal life with a professional life since letter either one of the two suffer because of the other will not be good for both. On the other hand, being professional and using an ethical business philosophy will lead to benefits both for me and the company. Explain what irritates you about colleagues? How would you deal with it? Irritations and annoyances between colleagues is a natural phenomenon which is likely to happen in any given company as well as any given industry. However, irritations and conflicts between employees can be minimized with communication and effective management techniques. What often irritates me about my colleagues is when they try to give advice about subjects they have little information or knowledge about and become totally convinced that their approach is the only right one and others have no valuable input to give. Such a situation stems from a lack of positive communication between employees and it can often be damaging to the work environment leading to a situation where politics and grouping of employees become far more important than the work which is performed. The method I would use to deal with such a situation is to discuss my position with my supervisor and bring to his/her attention the problems which I am facing with working with certain individuals. At the same time, I must accept that it is perhaps my behaviour which is having a negative effect and I should be fully willing to bring about changes in my own behaviour if that is the case. Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way. An incident which comes to mind in the given context is when I was placed in a work situation with a person coming from a completely different cultural background that worked very well in a dogmatic, autocratic, hierarchical company where she had worked previously. However, her style of working was not very successful in our company which being run as a smaller enterprise had shorter chains of command as well as a more fluid organisational structure. This person was facing tremendous difficulties in coming to terms with how the individuals working with her could easily assume an air of informality where she was used to using formal addressing and working behaviour. I managed to persuade her through my personal example and by showing her the examples of other people in the company that were in similar work situations that it was possible to be informal while getting a lot of work done at the same time. Works Cited Brown, K. 1999, ‘Social Cognitive Theory’. University of South Florida, [Online] Available at: http://hsc.usf.edu/~kmbrown/Social_Cognitive_Theory_Overview.htm CIPD. 2007, ‘Psychological testing’, [Online] Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/recruitmen/tests/psytest.htm Clarke, S. and Robertson, I. T. (2005). A meta-analytic review of the Big Five personality factors and accident involvement in occupational and non-occupational settings. Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 78(3), Pg. 355-376. Erdogan, B. (2005). Enhancing Career Benefits of Employee’s Proactive Personality. Personnel Psychology, 58(4). Pg. 859-891 Huitt, W. 2001, ‘Motivation to learn: An overview’, Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta State University [Online] Available at: http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/motivation/motivate.html Joy, S. 2004, ‘Innovation Motivation: The Need to Be Different’, Creativity Research Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 313-330. Lee, K. et. al. (2005). Personality Correlates of Workplace Anti-Social Behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 54(1), Pg. 81-98. Miner, J. and Dachler, P. 1973, Personal attitudes and motivation. Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 379-393. Murphy, N. 2005, ‘Graduating from selection’, IRS Employment Review, vol. 832, no. 1, pp. 42-43. NetMBA. 2005, ‘Theory X and Theory Y’, Internet Centre for Management and Business Administration [Online] Available at: http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/mcgregor/ Nikos, B. (2004). The relationship between disposition and career success. Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 77(3), Pg. 403-420. Plucker, J. 2007, ‘Raymond B. Cattell’, Indiana University, [Online] Available at: http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/rcattell.shtml Statt, D. 2004, Psychology and the World of Work, Palgrave. Word Count: 2,259 Read More