News

While interviews and résumés will probably always be the bread and butter of the recruiting world, more employers – some studies say upward of 70 per cent – turn to personality tests to prescreen candidates and uncover who's a self-starter and even who thinks it's okay to swipe $5 worth of pencils from the office stash. Not the type of information uncovered during a face-to-face interview.

“Assessment tools can help us understand what makes people tick – and what ticks them off,” says Merle Ballaigues, president of Thomas International Canada in Mississauga which offers the tests.

______

No experience expected

Different than aptitude assessments that measure knowledge, personality tests, or behavioural assessment tools, are set to become even trendier in human resources circles as baby boomers retire and younger managers climb the ranks, says Andrew Case, managing director for Caliper Canada in Toronto, which has supplied and administered personality tests for more than four decades. “Traditional ways of vetting talent are becoming less useful,” he says.

The thinking goes that human resources professionals will have to rely on these behavioural tools to test young new managers because they won't have enough job experience to gauge their future performance. Without that background, the only thing left to evaluate is whether they have natural potential.

______

Making it tough

Sometimes though, personality tests keep even the keenest employees from landing an interview – or even from dropping off a résumé. Alex Frankel, author of Punching In, spent the better part of two years applying for and working at front-line jobs for companies such as Enterprise Rent a Car, Best Buy Co. Inc., Whole Foods and Home Depot Inc.

Of these companies that required him to take a prescreening online personality test, only Enterprise called him for an interview. He fared much better with organizations that used a paper-based system, such as Starbucks Corp., Gap Inc. and Apple Inc.

Home Depot was the gig he really wanted. Yet after applying online and getting nowhere, Mr. Frankel went to his local outlet to talk to a real person.

“The guy there said, ‘I think you're failing the behavioural component of our test and I can't even look at your résumé on my computer. It won't forward the material to me,'“ says Mr. Frankel.

______

After the fact

While large corporations use the tests to prescreen candidates to deal with their mountain of résumés, companies of all sizes turn to them to understand the employees they already have.

Take Sandstorm Design in Chicago, a small marketing and design firm. Sandy Marsico, the company's chief executive officer, says she's a fan of DiSC, a personality profiler.

D stands for dominance and I is for influence. Then there are the S and C people. S workers are steady, sympathetic and co-operative, while Cs are conscientious, concerned and correct. Under the DiSC system, people are given their two strongest letters. Ms. Marsico is an ID, which means she's driven, strong-willed and good with customers.

Once hired, every employee takes the DiSC test, shares the results and even posts their letters on sticky-notes to their computers. Ms. Marsico says labelling her employees helps them understand each other.

“I used to get frustrated with my staff when they didn't think the way I did,” she says. “But when I understood who they were, everything suddenly clicked and fell into place.”

______

Keeping perspective

Knowing that personality tests are only one piece of the puzzle for successful employment is a good idea, says Ms. Ballaigues of Thomas International. In fact, it can keep you out of legal hot water. Weigh too heavily on a test – or ask the wrong kinds of questions – and it could open the door to a host of litigation nightmares.

The trick is to make sure your questions relate to the job you're hiring for. Guidelines for the use of assessment tools in Canada and the U.S. say all tests must be reliable and valid.

“You don't want that assessment tool to ask questions that might be perceived as biased in any way or breaching privacy,” says Ms. Ballaigues.

As the adage goes, it's okay to test an airline pilot's vision. It's not okay to test her commitment by asking if she plans to get pregnant.

______

Job requirements

How do you know what personality traits a job requires? Some testing firms have tools to help you figure that out.

Caliper studied thousands of top executive profiles to determine what makes a successful top dog. They are direct communicators, persuasive, risk-takers, gregarious – and horrific with details. They're not necessarily emotionally attached to people either.

“They have to make some pretty difficult decisions and they can't let some of those personal things get in the way,” says Mr. Case.

Personality can manifest itself in many ways. One study from CDR Assessment Group in Tulsa, Okla., found that high-rolling energy traders, including former Enron Corp. employees, shared a remarkably high number of personality traits with convicted felons. Both groups pushed boundaries, were tough-minded, and were emotionally detached.

The best tests let you tailor exactly what you're looking for, says Eliot Burdett, co-managing partner for Peak Sales Recruiting Inc., with offices in Ottawa and Toronto. For example, a good sales test hones in on what they're selling. Is it a large-ticket item, low volume with a long sales cycle? You'll need a patient go-getter.

______

Cheating and lies

When Mr. Frankel went looking for a job, he did what some other test-takers do. He tried to beat the system and skew his results. Did it work? No.

Of course it's easy to “game” a test. You just fudge your answers. But many personality tests have built-in lie detectors. Ironically, answering ‘yes' to the comment, “I always tell the truth,” will set off bells. Not only that, a good test asks questions so candidates have no idea what it's looking for or in a non-threatening way so a test-taker reveals something she probably would have preferred to keep hidden, says Jon Haber, senior vice-president at First Advantage in Bedford, Mass., an employee screening and investigation firm.

For instance, the question, “Everybody uses drugs, they just don't admit to it,” sounds like a comment on the general population, but it's not.

“People will say things about others, but they're really thinking about themselves,” he says.

Outright cheating is thought to be a small problem compared with other reasons a candidate might muddle their test results. Some test takers simply don't understand questions while others face language barriers. Then there are aspirational answers. In response to the question, “I am a leader” a candidate might answer yes, not because he is, but because he wants to be.

The best piece of advice is to be yourself, says Randy DePiero, managing director for Hudson, a retained executive search firm in Toronto.

“If there's a mistake people make, it's that they try to out-think the test,” he says. “Whatever comes to mind, your first instinct is usually the right one.”

Besides, if you have to pretend you're someone else to get the job, chances are, it's not the right fit anyway.