The Use of Personality Inventories in Personnel Selection - Essay Example

The authors conclude that at this time personality measures would probably not reach the degree of acceptance accounted for cognitive tests. The reliability of cognitive tests is in the differences in the environment, in the domains and the specificities. 2- Key concepts and issues: a critical evaluation of the key concepts/ issues/ theories covered in the article. The key concepts discussed in the article are linked with personality inventories, their measurement, and reliability. The theories, methods, and measures are exhaustively analyzed by the authors.

They do not offer new perspectives into the personality inventories, however, and due to the controversial nature of the subject, the article appears to be a concise summary of what has already been written. 3- Links with the topic or theme of the text reading and/or the lecture: what the key findings and conclusions reached by the article were. The key findings of the article are that most of the common personality inventories applied in organizational settings are not adapted to measure the Big Five factors.

Even though there are disputes in the application of cognitive ability tests in personnel selection – for example, test fairness, racial discrimination, banding, in general, cognitive ability tests are accepted by personnel psychologists are accurate and valid predictors of job performance. Murphy and Dzieweczynski conclude that it is easier to create a psychometrically sound ability test than to create a comparably sound personality inventory. The reason for this is that there are more motivators to center on valid measures when creating ability tests than when designing personality inventories.

Validities of personality inventories are generally small and quite unstable, often changing results when one moves from one situation to another. In spite of the enthusiasm around personality research, the results should be interpreted with caution when they are applied in personnel selection.4- Originality/value: what you think the contribution of the article is to organizational behavior and management practice.Murphy and Dzieweczynski’s article contributes to organizational behavior in that they clarify that personality inventories are unreliable in the selection process and job performance measures.

The validity of these tests is questionable due to the different methods and accountability. Pointing out the shortcomings in the underlying theories, the authors helped Human Resources departments link personality characteristics to jobs and make consistent decisions between personality features and job performance and other work-related outcomes. Management practice should concentrate on developing its own organizational psychology tests since the environment is the primary instrument in constructing reliable measurements.