The Role of Testing of Employees as it Relates to the Selection Process - Research Paper Example

 According to Garrett, use of personality testing in the hiring process helps an employer select the best employees that fit his or her organization. Generally, Garret maintains that if personality testing is performed effectively, it can very well enable an employer to select the suitable workers that best suit the given type of work (Garrett, 2006). Additionally, pre-employment testing plays a very important role in selection as it helps reduce chances of an employer hiring a potentially dangerous person, a poor performer, and/or a criminally inclined worker.

While statistics cite that, the traditional methods of hiring such as reference checks and interviews are still vital, they are largely subjective. However, with the standardized personality testing, benefits are recurrent as this process adds an objective instrument that when utilized to the maximum, it can help do away with or minimize cases of bias in the process of hiring (Gerald, 1993). Personality tests are variable. As such, they are able to give a great variety of results believed to be inaccurate when other modes of employee selection are used.

Personality testing plays a major role in determining the respective form and content of a principal employee. In pre-employment testing, an employer gets a fundamental opportunity to test employee skills, integrity, handwriting, intelligence quotients, and other crucial characteristics (Garrett, 2006). These are essential to an employer as they help eliminate undesirable candidates. Furthermore, with personality testing, an employer is able to administer tests that assist in telling an employee is lying by measuring the employee’s honesty, which leads to the predisposition of negative or unruly behaviors such as theft.

Indeed, personality testing in employee selection is very vital since it can also help in measuring comparative performance between and among candidates who appear equally considerable and good on paper. Sometimes back, many companies used to ignore the role played by psychological factors in an organization. As a result, research findings noted that compensation losses increased by a huge margin due to unreimbursed worker’s costs (Gerald, 1993). This showed that no matter how hard employers stressed on safe work practices, accidents still occurred in the workplace.

Nevertheless, with the introduction of personality testing in employee selection, ergonomic analysis point out that risk managers are finding this strategy very effective in ensuring the safe working environment for all employees. As of today, it is turning out that, a huge body of evidence is demonstrating that pre-employment testing or psychological screening is an efficient tool that enables companies to select the best-suited employees for particular jobs. Based on that fact, it is however very important for risk managers to ensure that the administered tests meet the companies established the criterion for selecting the appropriate employees (Garrett, 2006).

Personality testing helps determine the behavior traits of the job applicants. In general, some behavioral and personality traits of the applicants vary widely.