Human Resources Individual Assignment

FULL-TIME MBA
2021-2022
Personality tests in hiring? Or
maybe just, astrology.
Course: Human Resources Individual Assignment
Professor: Koen Dewettinck
By: Ghekiere, Cyriel
Engaging in irregularities is severely sanctioned in correspondence with article 34 of the Examination rules.
We hereby declare that we have not engaged in any such irregularities.

Introduction
Over the years the use of personality tests has become more and more prevalent,
today around 22% of companies use them as part of their hiring process to estimate
whether the candidate is the right fit for the organization (SHRM, 2014). Over the
years a plethora of self-reported questionnaires have emerged, ranging from well-
established names like Myers–Briggs, Disc, and Big Five, to a multitude of cheap less
reputable tests like the Four-Quadrant. As corporations become more and more
aware of the importance of culture on the performance and retention of employees
it seems only natural that they look for ways to test their new hires’ compatibility
with that culture. However, the reliability of personality tests and their ability to
predict job performance remains a subject of debate among scholars (Morgeson, et
al., 2007; Tett & Christiansen, 2007). Despite the remarkable increase in the number
of articles and presentations on the subject (figure 1), there seems to be no
consensus on whether personality tests should be used in hiring at all. On top of that,
the increased use of personality tests has also raised some ethical questions as they
may bar people with certain disabilities from obtaining job opportunities (Claypool,
2021). In this brief article, we will touch upon the history and scholarly literature
regarding the use of personality tests in hiring. we will discuss why corporations opt
to use personality tests and some of their pitfalls Lastly, we will end with some
conclusion’s recommendations.
History of personality tests and scholarly debate
The study of personalities and attempts to categorize Caracter traits into personality
constructs dates back to de days of Hippocrates who formulated the four-
temperaments theory. However, the rise of personality tests in hiring practices finds
its origin in the 20th century where the world wars and increasing industrialization
pressured companies and governments to find ways to efficiently allocate people to
the right roles. Most famously the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) a 16-type
indicator test is based on Carl Jung's Psychological Types, was created during WWII
to help the large amounts of women entering the industrial labor force to identify
their ideal roles. However, in terms of academic credibility personality tests got off

to an ignominious start as summarized by Guion and Gottier (1965) “It is difficult in
the face of this summary to advocate, with a clear conscience, the use of personality
measures in most situations as a basis for making employment decisions about
people”. This proved to be the dominant sentiment up until the ’90s as personality
tests were regarded as too unreliable to provide any basis for a hiring decision.
However, during the ’90s with the coming of the new “Big Five” personality
dimensions (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
and Openness to Experience), and studies increasingly pointing at its predictive
power in terms of job performance, personality test gained a second wind as
researchers interest rose exponentially (figure 1) (Barrick & Mount, 1991).
Today much of the framework used for personality testing in personal selection is
derived from the Big 5 model. However, despite the huge increase in the application
of these tests and the large number of studies conducted, there seems to be no
consensus on the value of personality testing in the acquisition of new employees. As
proponents argue that that commercial self-report personality tests yield useful
validity in relation to job performance when used appropriately and the right
considerations are made such as personality scales which have been found to
correlate .26 with job performance (Tett & Christiansen, 2007). They further argue
that the mean validity likely underestimates the true validity due to factors such as
the advantage of narrow over broad personality traits, rudimentary job analysis, and
the use of a single personality trait scale. On the other hand, detractors argue that
the real validity remains low and will correlate around 0.10 with job performance,
they point out that the elevated levels of the opponents are due to overcorrections
(Morgeson, et al., 2007). They further highlight that the effects of faking on a self-
reported personality test are still unclear. However, they state that faking is to be
expected on any type of test, and correcting for it does not seem to improve viability.

Figure 1: Journal Articles and Presentations on Personality Research Related to
Selection or Job Performance. (Morgeson, et al., 2007)
Why business opt for personality tests
Recruiting and training new personnel is an expensive endeavor for businesses. Even
more so when it turns out to be a bad hire as not only has the company lost its
investment on the initial hire it now has to restart the entire process of searching for
a new hire, evaluating the candidate, as well as investing time and money in the
training and onboarding process. Coupled with that is the negative impact a bad hire
has on team performance, morale, and company reputation as well as the opportunity
cost of having hired the right fit. The US department of labor estimates that a bad
hire on average costs about 30% of that individual’s yearly salary (Northwestern,
2019). The huge costs of bad hires have led companies to develop a more rigorous
hiring process including behavioral-based interviewing, skills assessments, reference
checks, etc. However, despite increasingly stringent hiring practices according to a
2005 leadership IQ study around 46% of new hires fail within 18 months (2005). The
study further showed that not technical, functional, or cognitive ability which
amounted to 11% was the driving force behind the failure rate. Rather factors
pertaining to one’s attitude and personality such as coachability 26%, emotional

intelligence 23%, motivation 17%, temperament 13%, are the driving factors why
new hires fail. Other articles further point out that the failure of the new employee to
gel with their new bosses, colleagues, and organization is a major contributing factor
to bad hire rates (Hyman, 2019).
Faced with the high cost of bad hires and the fact that these failures can be largely
attributed to personality-related factors, there seems to be a is a very clear business
case for any tool or test that could help predict how a person will fit into an
organization. In theory, a personality test could help recruiters, weed out candidates
whose personality traits will not mesh up with the company culture while identifying
candidates who will be a good fit. The use of personality tests could also give Hr.
professionals insight into personality traits of different corporate teams and select
candidates that fit well with the group or could provide different roles. On top of that
recruiters could identify personality traits that are critical to high performance in a
specific role and select for them. Without a doubt, the promise of these factors
provides powerful incentives for companies to start adopting personality tests as part
of their hiring process.
Issues with the use of personality tests in hiring
While the promise of the use of personality tests in hiring decisions is great, recruiters
should tread carefully when employing them. Despite the furious academic debate
between proponents and detractors of its use, the observed viability of a personality
test remains low compared to other forms of assessments as seen in table 1
(Schmidt, 2016). Even with a validity of 0.32 which could be considered optimistic
personality tests are at the bottom of the pile slightly above personal interest which
would never be considered a serious perimeter for candidate selection.

Table:1 The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology:
Practical and Theoretical Implications of 100 Years of Research Findings (Schmidt,
2016)
In general, the results of personality tests will shift over time as the applicant takes
the same test again and again. This seems to certainly be the case when using the
Four-Quadrant test (Martin, 2014). The shifting results over time beg the question of
how the test can predict job performance over time. There is also the further issue
that when the personality test is transparent enough people might be able to try and
cheat them to manipulate the result in their favor, decreasing the reliability of the
result further. However, it must be added personality tests are certainly not the only
way candidates can try to deceive an employer.
Advocates will argue that personality tests should be used in conjunction with other
tools eg: cognitive tests and structured interviews in order to mitigate the effects of
low validity and that a personality test should never be the determining factor in a
hiring decision. However, the use of a personality test could induce confirmation bias
in an interview as recruiters look to confirm what they have already read in the report.
In a very similar sense that people who believe in astrology will go look for the signs
turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this sense, recruiters could be blinded by

the personality report to additional information that might come up in an interview
and in the best-case scenario discard a suitable candidate or in the worst case hire
an unsuitable one.
Lastly, while personality tests generally enjoy a decent reputation went it comes to
discriminating on the basis of gender and race. A multitude of questions has arisen
regarding discrimination on the basis of disabilities that could be embodied in
personality tests (Weber & Dwoskin, 2014). As questions like: "Over the course of
the day, I can experience many mood changes." or "If something very bad happens,
it takes sometime before I feel happy again.", can be targeted at weeding out people
who suffer from mental illness such as depression or bipolar disorder. Ill-considered
use of these tests by recruiters could lead to civil lawsuits. Moreover, excluding
certain personality traits from your hiring process could in its own way lead to a lack
of diversity in the company.
Conclusion & recommendations
In the light of the evidence presented on the reliability of personality tests and the
various problems with their use should recruiters fully abandon them? In short: no.
The practice of hiring people is not an exact science, and most likely never will be.
While personality tests remain a very unreliable tool to predict a new hire's
performance, no other method of assessing a new hire can exactly be considered as
reliable. Temperament & personality are critical to a new hire’s success, it would thus
be foolhardy to cast aside personality tests as a whole, seeing that there are limited
alternatives available. Recruiters should not desist from trying to ascertain insight
into someone’s character because it's difficult. However, Hr. professionals and hiring
managers should be aware of the pitfalls and dangers of relying too heavily on the
results of these types of tests. Rather they should focus on creating an integrated
hiring procedure where cognitive & personality tests are combined with structured
interviews, live assessments, peer reviews, and references. Through the use of
combined tools, the personality test can provide useful support in creating a better
picture of the candidate.

Recommendations:
• Refrain from using low-quality tests like the four-quadrants and opt for more
reliable options like the Big 5.
• Develop clear insights into which character traits correlate with high job
performance in that specific role. Ensure that that the personality tests are
geared towards testing these traits. Be mindful not to let bias enter at this
stage of the process, e.g., not every successful salesperson is an extrovert.
• Make sure that the questions asked to candidates are non-discriminatory in
nature. Questions like “I am always happy” have no place in a personality test.
• Make use of a candidness or lie detector scale in order to test whether the
candidate is honest.
• Do not reject candidates out of hand on the basis of a personality test. Use the
personality test as a basis of conversation in structured interviews or reference
conversations. Here a recruiter can test whether the results correlate with the
candidate's past experiences and behaviors.
• Do not neglect the onboarding process of new hires as it can be crucial to their
success at the company.

References
Barrick, M., & Mount, M. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job
performance: a meta-analysis . Personnel Psychology.
Claypool, H. (2021). Job hiring increasingly relies on personality tests, but that can
bar people with disabilities. Retrieved from NCBS News:
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/job-hiring-increasingly-relies-
personality-tests-they-can-bar-people-ncna1259466
Guion, R., & Gottier, R. (1965). Validity of personality measures In personnel
selection. University of California.
Hyman, J. (2019). The Number One Reason People Fail In New Roles (It's Not What
You Think). Retrieved from Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffhyman/2019/02/21/dna/?sh=5628d4c6180
5
Leadership IQ. (2005). Leadership IQ study: why new hires fail. Retrieved from Cision
PRWeb : https://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/09/prweb287275.htm
Martin, W. (2014). The Problem with Using Personality Tests for Hiring. Retrieved
from Harvard Business Revieuw: https://hbr.org/2014/08/the-problem-with-
using-personality-tests-for-hiring
Morgeson, F., Campion, M., Dipboye, R., Hollenbeck, J., Murphy, K., & Schmitt, N.
(2007). Are we getting fooled again? Coming to terms with limitations in the
use of personality tests for personnel selection. Personnel Psychology, 1029-
1049.
Morgeson, F., Champion, M., Dipboye, R., Hollenbeck, J., Murphy, K., & Schmitt, N.
(2007). Reconsidering the use of personolitytests in personnel selection
contexts . Personnel Psychology, 683–729.
Northwestern. (2019). The Cost of a Bad Hire. Retrieved from Northwestern:
https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/about/news/february-2019/the-cost-of-a-
bad-hire.html

Schmidt, F. (2016). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel
psychology: practical and theoretical implications of 100 years...
Researchgate.
SHRM. (2014). SHRM. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-
magazine/pages/0615-personality-tests.aspx
Tett, R., & Christiansen, N. (2007). Personality Tests at the crossroads a response to
Morgenson et al. Personnel Psychology, 967-993.
Weber, L., & Dwoskin, E. (2014). The Wall street Journal. Retrieved from Are
workplace personality tests fair?: https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-
workplace-personality-tests-fair-1412044257