The Use of Personality Tests in Business - Essay Example

Can the use of personality tests in business be made free from faking, distortion and less of an intrusion into personal liberty? 2007 Introduction Personal qualities of a worker are crucial for his or her effective performance in the company, and as a rule, they reveal themselves within a period of several months. The price of a mistake is very high, so it is definitely better to initially select people whose personal traits and potential correspond to their duties at the workplace. And surely, a question arises how to make this choice without making a mistake. For an employer, every employee is an important asset, and along with his or her working experience, recommendations, and professional characteristics, it is very important to know what kind of person he is she is, since it determines his behaviour at the workplace as part of the team. Would it be possible to rely upon him/her? Would s/he get along well with the existing team members? It has been proved that “declarative knowledge is predicted primarily by cognitive ability, whereas the motivational element of performance (indexed by ratings) is linked to personality”.1 Moreover, unless there are strict criteria of selection, some good candidates can be overlooked, while some irrelevant ones go to the second tour of recruitment process. Testing candidates is traditionally considered a good way out of the situation. However, a question arises whether or not the use of personality tests can be completely free from faking, distortion and less of an intrusion into personal liberty. A professional HR specialist can dig out a lot of information concerning the candidate’s personality from personal interview; however it cannot give a full account of a potential employee – in fact, it will only give the first impression of him or her. Besides, during an interview, there can be certain circumstances which would affect the objectiveness of HR manager’s judgements (personal bias towards or against a candidate, tiredness, headache, bad mood, intrusion of the third parties, etc.). On the other hand, same is valid for a candidate: s/he can feel bad, or come to the interview after a sleepless night, or after having a conflict, etc. All these would make testing results very far from reality. That is why, many professional HR-specialists are very prejudiced against using personality tests, as they think that the use of these tests can prevent them from understanding a real potential of every candidate. They prefer individual interview with candidates saying that it allows to determine the real motives of each of them, and simply have a good look at the potential employee. Nowadays, there are many automated (computerized) tests that do not require a professional HR-manager to interpret them. However, testing is merely one of the instruments of a recruiter that can contribute to evaluating the potential employees, and not the main one. It is impossible to decide whether or not to employ a candidate basing exclusively upon personality tests. Such testing does not allow making categorical conclusions as for whether the person suits the position that s/he is interviewed for or not. The use of personal tests in recruitment process: pros and cons According to the HR specialists, the results of testing candidates can increase the objectiveness of evaluating them, and therefore personality tests certainly deserve consideration. Surely, important factors influencing this objectiveness are the characteristics of the tests used, and degree of qualification of a specialist who interprets them. To achieve the fullest and the most objective results in the recruitment process, it is usually recommended to use complex system of finding out as much information about each candidate as possible: personal interview, checking professional skills, and possibly testing. However, some claim that personality tests should only be used in cases when it is necessary to select an employee out of several potential candidates with approximately the same skills, experience and talent – otherwise, the personality tests which can at times be biased, will “help” the company loose a good specialist. What factors should be taken into account while testing job candidates? First of all, every position presupposes using a particular selection of personality tests that should correspond to the main competences of the employee. A HR-manager should have an elaborated system of criteria used when selecting people for each vacancy, and basing on these criteria, a row of necessary personality tests should be compiled. Testing should by no means be performed by a non-professional, and if an organization does not have its own high-class specialist in the sphere of personality tests, it is much better to turn to a professional recruitment agency or at least a qualified psychologist. It should be taken into account that psychological tests are not a cure-all since they have quite limited possibilities, and their results can by no means be viewed as absolute, without taking into account the situation, surrounding, psychological climate of the particular organization, etc. Besides, the performance of the staff members is determined by multiple factors – from skills to motivation, from relations within the team to corporate culture, etc. E.g. the research of F. Fiedler have shown that in organizations with authoritative leadership and management style, in the conditions of constant “stress from the Boss”, the best performers are the employees with not too high IQ and skills level.2 On the other hand, if the top-management prefers democratic style, the obvious advantages of the potential employees are high level of intellect and creativity.3 Therefore, selecting and recruiting personnel without taking into account the environment they will have to work and act in is unreasonable – since the above said presupposes that there are no eternal and unchangeable criteria of selection. Potential dangers of using personality tests: faking, distortion, and violation of personal liberty Talking about faking and distortion while applying personality tests, it is normally meant that employees are often conscious of what personal traits and qualities the employer is looking for, and they therefore attempt to prove that they possess these qualities. A slew of recent studies has investigated intentional distortion effects on criterion-related validities. Many assert that distortion does not tend to moderate, mediate, suppress, or attenuate the criterion-related validities of personality scales . Others contend that distortion seriously reduces criterion-related validity. In directed-faking settings, self-report scale scores have dramatically lower criterion-related validities than those obtained in applicant or incumbent settings; in applicant settings, self-report scale scores have the same or slightly lower criterion-related validities than those obtained from job incumbents in research-only settings. Similarly, construct validity may be negatively affected in directed-faking studies , but the effect does not seem to be as serious in applicant settings…4 There are a number of “standard” qualities an “ideal” candidate should possess – being physically and mentally healthy, intelligent, honest, reliable, communicative, motivated to work, well-organized, optimistic, emotionally stable, etc. Therefore, the candidates try to demonstrate the presence of all possible virtues and sometimes just guess the “correct” answers to the questions contained in the proposed test. A human being can easily “deceive” the tests if s/he knows what qualities s/he is expected to show, and will demonstrate the presence of these qualities and produce the necessary impression. Many candidates nowadays read books on psychology, consult specialists, browse the Internet in search for the methods to show themselves to the best advantage during the recruitment procedure – and therefore a HR-specialist should be most careful. Many of the professional tests that are often used while assessing the recruited candidates are available from public libraries or online resources, and theoretically, everyone can “train” to complete these tests in the way that would help them produce a most favourable impression during the selection procedure: Coaching individuals on personality tests potentially threatens the effectiveness of traditional social desirability scales. Subtle items can be more resistant to coaching and distortion than obvious items (Alliger et al 1996). Theory-driven approaches to scale development and validity data to refine items produce subtle items resistant to distortion and with excellent validity (Gough 1994).5 It is not a rare phenomenon when a candidate, answering the test questions, is guided by the mechanism of self-presentation, and in many cases it is a subconscious action – i.e. s/he answers the questions not from the position of the “real me” but from the viewpoint of the “ideal me”, imagining what s/he would like to be, and consequently unwillingly distorting the results of the test. The recruiters therefore face a problem of developing a system of measures able to reveal faking and distorting the information by the candidate in the process of his/her testing. There are different ways to solve the problem of faking the answers: using integrity tests based on personal motivations (the answers in such personal tests, where the parameters of testing refer to the sphere of ethics, are less evident, and therefore it is much more difficult to distort them); using the scale of social expectancy (i.e. if the candidate provides the information that is “too rosy”, it should be regarded with a certain degree of criticism); using indirect measurements in the process of testing, such as the time that a candidate requires to answer the test questions, a tendency to avoid the direct answer, or vice versa being too fast to reply, consistency of a candidate’s reply, the number of words used, etc. Other methods that may be of use are warning the candidates that all the answers to the test will be double-checked using some special mechanisms (this helps decrease the distortion of answers), demanding from the candidate to give a detailed answer to the questions, etc. Sometimes it helps to set a strict time limit for completing the tests, because like that a candidate will not have any extra time to think what s/he is required to demonstrate and will be honest while answering the test questions. However, in case the candidate is exceptionally smart or s/he has already been trained for this particular testing, still faking is quite possible. Sometimes a potential candidate refuses to complete any personal tests motivating this decision by violation of his personal rights and liberties, and therefore there is often a question of whether such testing is allowed by law and ethics. All in all, the very procedure of testing is completely legal, though there are certain norms and regulations that prohibit recruitment discrimination based upon psychological testing. However, the employer can always claim that the candidate does not have sufficient skills or experience, etc. In some cases though psychological testing is a necessity, i.e. when recruiting into the military structures, the police, or similar, where total mental health and having particular psychological characteristics are crucial attributes. Also, it is not a rare occasion that a lie detector is used during the testing, and of course this gives rise to even more accusations of intrusion into the personal sphere. Here is an example cited by Adler: …the use of traditional personality tests in selection is likely to face a novel legal challenge on the basis of specific test items. In a recent case in California (Soroka vs. Dayton Hudson, October, 1991) that ultimately involved a large financial settlement (July, 1993), the court found that items on two widely used personality tests illegally inquired into sexual preferences and religious beliefs. These items were found to be an invasion of privacy, discriminatory, and unrelated to job performance. Should this objection to personality items be upheld in future court decisions, personality tests in sales selection would not only have to measure traits that predict job performance; How these traits were measured would have to be non-invasive, non-discriminatory and job-related. These are standards that most paper-and-pencil personality tests used for sales selection do not meet. Note, though, that behavioral assessment measures of critical traits may indeed comply with these stringent legal standards.6 There are different personality tests, and some of them are believed to be irrelevant to the modern HR practice. One of the brightest examples is ММРI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) that comprises 550 statements concerning how a tested person feels, what his or her relationships with people around are, if s/he has any neurotic, psychotic or psychopathic symptomatic, etc. The problem with this test is that it was elaborated especially for the patients of psychiatric clinics, and is widely used in personal psychoanalysis practice. Moreover, the procedure of testing using MMPI is claimed to be an intrusion into the personal sphere of the candidate and violation of personal rights, because whoever is interpreting the results of this test can know from it more than a tested person can presume. That is why, testing mentally healthy people using MMPI during the recruitment procedure in some companies has already resulted in several lawsuits on the part of the job candidates, and the companies had to pay them huge sums of money compensating moral damage. However, there are other tests, such as, for example, CPI, Mayer-Briggs Type Indicator, EPI, OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire), or 16 PF (16 Personality Factor Questionnaire) that allows to evaluate a candidate on 16 factors of his or her personality, such as emotional stability, intellect, dominant character, self-control, stress resistance, etc.7 8 However, it should not be overlooked that any test needs adaptation to the specific conditions of the country it is going to be used in (in case it is used not in the country it was developed in), and sometimes to the candidate’s background, especially cultural. It should be noted, however, that the correct use of personality tests increases the effectiveness of selection and recruitment, ideally – eliminating fully or reducing to the minimum such negative aspects of testing as faking, distortion and an intrusion into personal liberty. Moreover, a many-year experience of using these methods in the conditions of a constitutional state allowed to elaborate certain rules that regulate the selection practice so that it goes in line with the values of the modern democratic society. These rules are contained, for example, in the APA Code of Ethics and some law documents. As early as in 1978, in the USA the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures were elaborated that demands from an employer to prove that his or her criteria of selecting and recruiting staff are relevant to the future activity of a candidate at the workplace, and the procedure of testing are free from bias or intrusion into the personal sphere of the tested applicants. Besides, according to this document, the quality of tests is determined by its dependability, reasonable character, and lack of any bias. Apart from law aspects of testing, an important issue to be considered is – why use a test if it does not give any relevant or correct results? Testing should also not be abused: i.e. if an organization needs a high-class accountant, it would be irrelevant to apply to the candidates the tests on such personal qualities as, for instance, kindness or compassion. In some cases it is much better to give a potential employee a practical task and see how s/he can cope with it. For determining whether the tests used by recruiters for selecting employees correspond to the above mentioned criteria, it is necessary to conduct special research using psychometric methods. Also, it should only be allowed to the recruiter to use personality tests in case s/he possesses special certified qualification for using certain methods that require specialized education. Conclusion In recruitment practice, different instruments and methods are used in order to ensure that the right candidate be employed who will perform at high level, fit into the already exiting team, and have a good potential for development. One of these instruments are personality tests. If used correctly, they help to determine if a candidate possesses certain personal traits and characteristics that are important for the future staff member, and make the right choice. However, certain aspects should be taken into account. First of all, the use of personality tests should be free from intrusion into personal liberty of the candidates, and that is why there is a necessity to use only those tests that correlate with the country’s legislation and professional ethics of HR-specialists and psychologists. It is also important to reduce to the minimum the possibility of the candidate’s faking the test. All in all, judging about the outcomes of the test and interpreting its results should only be allowed to certified professionals who have been specifically taught and know how to work with every test they are using. To crown it up, it is not even enough to be a good and well-trained HR specialist to carry out testing – experience is vital in this sphere. Moreover, it should be kept in mind that even the best personality tests are 100% reliable, and therefore a decision of whether to employ a candidate or not should not come merely as a result of personal testing. It is very important as well that the personality tests used by a recruiter be relevant to the vacancy that a candidate wants to occupy. The popularity of personal tests is growing in modern HR management, and their main goal is to reveal whether or not a candidate will be satisfied with his or her job, and whether s/he work productively occupying certain position in the company. Such tests determine very important aspects of the personality of the potential employee – to learn the new material, achieve success in his or her work, flexibility, etc. Since having a set of knowledge and skills are not enough in the conditions of dynamically developed market, it is very important that a worker be able to learn, adjust and obtain the new skills and knowledge. Yet many HR-specialists are sure that the results of personal tests fail to give an adequate picture of a candidate because they only refer to the characteristics of the person at the given time and place. There are many factors that can influence the result of the testing – from personal hardships to physical pain, etc. As far as deliberate faking and distortion of the testing results are concerned, this problem surely exists, and it will always be topical for the HR-specialists as long as the candidates are motivated to get the job while not having enough knowledge, skills and other characteristics necessary for efficient performance at the workplace. In order to get the most objective opinion of the candidate possible, the HR manager should know how to analyse the results of the test, what tests and methods to use, and how to reduce the possibility to fake the results of these tests to the minimum. Contrary to the popular opinion that it is enough for a recruiter to talk to a candidate or call his or her former boss so that to understand everything about his or her professional skills and potential, in fact more circumstances should be taken into account, one of which is the candidates’ self-preparation to the job interview. All in all, using personal tests in the recruitment process is a normal and generally accepted practice that has already proved quite efficient. As a rule, in the process of development of these tests, the latest findings of psychometrics are used, and their professional utilizing is always an additional benefit to the HR-manager, organization and relevant candidate, However, it is necessary to ensure that testing is carried out in accordance with ethical norms and standards, so that the private space of the candidates be not violated. Testing is an additional method in the recruitment process, and of course it cannot and should not be the only or the determining factor. Read More