Types of Personality Tests - Term Paper Example

PERSONALITY TESTING Student’s Nаmе Fаculty Dеpаrtmеnt 11 May, 2011 PERSONALITY TESTING Introduction Personality testing is a criteria that is used to bring out aspects in the character of a person that do not change in the person's lifetime, the person’s character pattern of behavior, thoughts, and feelings (Blinkhorn et al.,1988). There are many types of personality tests but most of them consist of a many questions that respondents answer to bring out how the questions apply to them. Why use the personality test? The reason why personality tests are used is because interviews do not show some facts or traits that an individual possesses. In addition to that interviews do not predict the future character of an individual even when conducted by professionals. Efficient recruiters thus make use of personality tests ensure that they arrive at amore informed decision on the applicants. Every recruiter wants to get the best applicant who has a lot in his character that can translate to more productivity. The more the recruiter knows about the applicant the more they are able to make decisions that are more accurate and efficient regarding the applicant. During the selection process there are three important aspects that the employer has to establish. To begin with the employer has to establish whether the applicant has the requisite skills and know-how to carry out the job effectively. A second aspect that has to be established is whether the applicants have the required gusto and incentive to do the job incase they are given a chance to do so. The final aspect is whether the applicant will adapt to the system in terms of their individuality, approach and the manner in which they do the job. In arriving at the answers to the second and third concepts the individuality or personality of the applicants has to be taken into account. In fact in real day to day activities at the work place the personality of the individuals one works with and the supervisors and managerial staff play an integral role in the success or lack of success in the organization or corporation or organization. The output in an organization where the managerial staff do not inspire their juniors will be lower than one in which the managers inspire workers and relate well with their workers. In this respect therefore personality translates directly to efficiency and superiority of the services that are provided. In the current market there are so many personality questionnaires which have been created to be used to test the personality of applicants. Every year different companies come up with different tests in the market. These tests show a discrepancy from company-to-company and also vary in terms of the type of questions they entail. There are those that are intended to categorize fundamental personality types. Others are intended to find out how applicants are suitable for specific jobs. There are also those that are intended to test the character of the applicant and thereby bring out the behavioral qualities of the applicant. Scholars of psychology often give personality testing much credibility. Others however feel that personality testing is accorded more credit than it actually deserves. Majority of the mainstream companies who come up with personality tests try to achieve the best ethical and professional standards. That notwithstanding, there are also companies which have come about with tests that are not a hundred percent. This is mainly because this is an industry that lacks official regulation (McGhee et al., 2008). The situation is made even more complex by the fact that majority of the companies that come up with personality tests are usually reserved about their kind of techniques they use to come up with the tests. They do not make public vital information regarding the manner in which their tests were made or their efficiency, claiming that this information is ‘proprietary’. The effectiveness and precision of even the top established personality tests remain highly contentious among psychologists (Blinkhorn et al., 1988). Another reason why personality tests are preferred is because personality tests predict the manner in a person will work. It brings out aspects such as diligence and cheerfulness at the work place. Personality has a bearing on the style in which a person does his/her work. Since an individual has to work in conjunction with other people at the work place individuals who are moody or angered easily are least likely to co-operate well with the other people at the work place. Another reason why they are used is that cognitive test scores do not show all aspects of an individual. Instead they test only the intellectual capacity of the individual.. They do not bring out other aspects of the individual. For instance you cannot tell whether the individual is creative or punctual and how he or she can relate to customers and fellow work mates. Criticisms of Personality Test In the U.S., lawyers were against the use of cognitive tests as a tool for recruitment since certain minority groups usually score lower than the others. They argued that this was discriminatory to such groups. It was then that many employers started making use of personality tests for recruitment since they do not discriminatory in terms of race and gender. Many test publishers have come up with poor quality tests in the market. This can be attributed to the fact that there are no barriers to entry and clients are not able to evaluate the qualities of tests—creating a commodity market stocked with products that don’t predict job performance. One major criticism of personality tests is that they do not forecast the job performance of the employee. This is partially true because there are so many types of tests and some of them actually fail to predict job performance. However there are those which predict job performance really well. Another criticism is that they can easily be faked. Since personality tests are self-report measures the respondents can actually lie in their responses. This presents a problem at in pay contexts and other circumstances where vital results are being prepared and there is an inducement to present oneself in a constructive manner. In reponse to this a number of strategies have been adopted to reduce respondent faking. One such technique strategy involves giving a warning that there exists amethodology for detecting lies and that detection will result in negative consequences for the respondent. Another such technique is giving the respondents choices of equal social desirability to choose from. (McGhee et al., 2008). In addition to that other recruiters use social desirability and lie scales which can check the patterns of responses to establish whether the respondent is telling the truth. In recent times, recruiters have come up with item response profiles that can actually tell if the individual is faking. Another technique that researchers are working on is the timing of responses from the applicants with a view of assessing if the individuals are lying. Research has however shown that although people can lay in practice they extent is relatively low. For one to successfully fake he or she has to know what the best answer would be. Even with rather as simple as assertiveness public that are not assertive and try to come out assertive frequently endorse the incorrect items. This is for the reason that unassertive people perplex assertion with hostility, anger, oppositional performance (McGhee et al., 2008). Notwithstanding the controversy that surrounds some of these personality tests, there has been a remarkable increase in the use of personality tests over the past decade. One of the reasons attributed to this is that there is call for having a selection process which can endure legal confrontations. The rise in experiment use can consequently be seen in fraction as a suspicious strategy, adopted in rejoinder to instruction and legislation. This is because it is seen as gender and race neutral. Furthermore personality tests have many advantages over interviews.   THE CASE OF CARLY FIORINA Fiorina was always charismatic and aggressive at the time when she was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) in 1999. She was a woman full of energy, enthusiasm, charisma, vision, tenacity and aggressiveness. The tides have now changed for her after being fired for her failure to perform in her position of leadership. This paper looks at the personality of Carly Fiorina with a view of determining whether personality testing is really of any value. Fiorina underwent a rigorous personality test before she was employed. The fall of Fiorina elicited different views. To other they felt that the personality test was not of any value since she had been subjected to one but it failed to translate to job production. To others her personality was ‘too big’ and that she becomes more focused on her own than on the nuts-and-bolts of the business. Others that argued that Fiorina's firing is a good example of the double-standard that being belligerent and vigorous works for the men but backfires for the women. Carly Fiorina was the most powerful businesswoman in the United States (Nocera, 2006). In 1999, she was appointed as the CEO of expertise giant Hewlett-Packard (HP), becoming the foremost woman leader of a Dow 30 company. During her time there she appeared in company adverts with entertainment stars to market the HP products at electronics shows (Stone, 2005). Carly was often a common face in the cover pages of business magazines. This paper explores her personality with a view of determining whether personality testing is of value. Carly Fiorina Personality Trevino described Carly Fiorina as an ethically neutral leader (Trevino et al., 2000). On the contrary many perceived her as self-centered and so full of herself. As a leader she lacked three important traits that are important for any leader. These traits are compassion, integrity, and humility. Compassion is a trait possessed by an individual who puts others before himself or herself. Whilst ethical leaders exercise power on behalf of followers; unethical ones follow their own selfish ends. As for Fiorina she lacked compassion during the time she was in HP. Firstly, when she came to the company even her contract seemed to put her needs first. However she alleges that she lost $85 million when she left Lucent. During her tint at HP Carly created a gap between herself and the other employees. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard often roamed the halls at HP interacting with the employees. Employees even at the junior level had access to the founders. Lew Platt even ate at the company’s cafeteria two times every week. On the contrary, Fiorina rarely mixed with employees. In fact she even hired a bodyguard. This distanced her more from the employees. By so doing she sent a message that she expected to be treated not just like an ordinary employee but as the CEO of a major corporation (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Carly’s lack of compassion was also brought about during the Compaq merger. This fusion resulted in the trouncing of a lot of jobs. This did not seem to concern her though. Another reason for Carly’s fall was her inconsistency. During her time she came up with policies that were hard to achieve. She thus ended up making promises that she sometimes failed to fulfill. When this happened she failed to take responsibility as a leader and blamed the other managers and took issue with the company culture. Employee faithfulness and pledge suffered as a consequence. Humility is another trait that Carly lacked. Humility can be defined as a realistic appraisal of the self of strengths and weaknesses. Humility is an integral trait for any leader. Although in her memoir Fiorina (2006) claims that she rejected many requests for interviews yet, she enjoyed the media attention. Her appearance in commercials alongside actors and other stars was a publicity stunt that seemed to publicize her more than HP products... Another aspect of Fiorina which worked against her was that she was very rigid in terms of embracing new ideas. For instance when the board suggested that there should be a post of a chief operating officer,she rejected this idea saying “a CEO had better have his or her hands on the wheel” (Loomis & Ryan, 2005). She failed to ask for help even when she needed it and this played a big role in the decision of the board to sack her eventually. Due to these aspects of her character the communication chain from the junior employees to her could not be effective. The feedback couldn’t get to her from the lower offices resulting in low output of the junior staff and the company in general. Conclusion Although Carly underwent the personality test it is clear from the foregoing argument that the personality test did not bring out all the aspects of her character. However it is the position of this paper that personality tests should be conducted although they don’t always bring out the true personality of the individual. The type of personality test also has a bearing on the nature on the results of the test. References Trevino, K., Hartman, P., & Brown, M. (2000). Moral person and moral manager: How executives develop a reputation for ethical leadership. California Management Review, 42:128-142 Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Fiorina, C. (2006). Tough choices. New York: Portfolio Malone, M. (2007). Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard built the world's greatest company. New York: Portfolio. Blinkhorn, S., Johnson, C., & Wood, R. (1988). Spuriouser and spuriouser: The use of ipsative personality tests. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 61: 153-162. McGhee, R., Ehrler, D. & Buckhalt, J. (2008). Manual for the Five Factor Personality Inventory - Children Austin, TX: PRO ED, INC. Porter, H. (2001) Strength Deployment Inventory, Pacific Palisades, CA: Personal Strengths Assessment Service. Burrows, P., & Elstrom, P. (1999, August 2). The boss. Business Week. Retrieved May 11, 2011, from Business Source Premier database Stone, B. (2005, February 21). The music stops for a rock star. Newsweek, pp. 38-40. Nocera, J. (2006, October 14). Carly Fiorina's revisionist chronicles. New York Times, Read More