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It is important to remember that low, average, and high scores on
a personality trait questionnaire are neither intrinsically good
nor bad. A particular level on any trait will probably be neutral
or irrelevant for most activities, helpful for accomplishing some
things, and detrimental for accomplishing others. As with any
personality inventory, scores and descriptions can only
approximate your actual personality. Whilst all of this may be
true, in the real world your test results will have a significant
influence on your chances of being rejected. The following is an
example 16-factor personality profile.
The interesting thing is that the individual who completed the
questionnaire on which the profile is based has been successfully
working in sales for over 20 years. If she was looking for another
sales job, her high score on the 'trusting' scale would almost
certainly mean that her negotiating abilities would be
‘red-flagged’. How could someone intrinsically so 'trusting' be an
effective negotiator? If she was lucky and her previous track
record was taken into account, she may get the opportunity to
explain how she has managed to cope successfully in sales despite
the high 'trusting' score. More likely, in a field of other strong
candidates, it would be enough to put her out of the running.
In case you are wondering how someone with a background in sales
could be so 'trusting', it is worth repeating that the questions
in these personality tests are open to personal interpretation and
because of the time constraint there may only be a few questions
to determine each personality factor. If her interpretation of two
or three questions did not match that of the test designers then
this would be enough to produce an flawed result for that
particular factor.
Human resources professionals would argue that personality
questionnaires are not used in isolation and that they form only
part of the whole selection process. This is true as far as it
goes, but you only need to look at the arithmetic of the
recruitment process to see that the overwhelming majority of
candidates need to be rejected for one reason or another. It would
be very difficult to argue that such apparently ‘objective’
evidence would not be a factor in that decision.
Unlike the interviewer, who rarely produces more than a page or so
of often hastily written notes, commercially available personality
questionnaires produce very authoritative looking documentation.
Imagine the scenario if she did turn out to be a poor negotiator.
“You mean to tell me that we employed this person when we had
clear documented evidence that she was unsuitable.” How many
people would take that risk?
Your profile is no use to employers unless they have some way of
knowing how your profile compares to the requirements of
performing well in a particular role. Before the results can be
used to select suitable candidates for a particular job, results
of similar questionnaires must be produced in the population as a
whole and also for those people already working successfully in
the relevant job.
The
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