Why are recruiters falling in love with personality tests?3 min read

In a constantly evolving labour market, the personality test is an essential tool for modern recruiters.

Over the past decades, employers have focused on objective qualifications needed in future employees. While that remains important, recruiters now realize that the labour market is becoming more and more globalized. This means that people from different social andcultural backgrounds have to work together.

This has led to a shift from operations oriented recruitment to person-centered recruitment. This has created a need for personality testing as a recruitment tool.

Here are 5 reasons personality tests are the new trend no recruiter can ignore :

1. Personality test can provide good return on investment.   

Every manager knows high employee turnover is expensive. Once upon a time, the cost had to be balanced against the costs of personality testing software. A wide range of personality tests are now available to recruiters at a reasonable cost.

The Hire Success software, for example, is becoming more and more popular. This employment testing system creates customized tests and interprets the results for you.

Also, more online job postings means businesses are flooded with applications. As a recruiter, it is more and more difficult to select the best candidates quickly. This is where such a tool can come in handy.

2. Aligning values between employer and employee

It is now understood that companies and employees need to have shared values. This means that staff must have a shared vision and have a common company culture. When this goal is achieved, it has been shown to increase employee satisfaction and productivity.

To achieve this, recruiters can use personality tests to create diverse teams of employees or to combine compatible personalities.

3. Personality assessment increases team and individual career development

After taking a personality test, candidates can choose to receive their personality profile. It gives them the opportunity to better assess their strengths and weaknesses and can positively impact their personal development and career choices. One example of this can be found through the CentralTest website.

In the past, management focused on filling vacant employment positions. Nowadays, recruiters also need to be able to make subjective choices to determine the employee’s ability to develop their career and become high-value assets in the long term. Since those choices are quite complex, with a higher potential risk, recruiters welcome the possibility of using a tool to help validate their impressions about a candidate.

Personality tests increase the organization’s competitiveness. They help it make the right recruitment choices and they give it the opportunity to offer the best development path to its employees.

4. Personality estimation to establish the personality mix needed

According to SIOP, 34 per cent of job applicants lack sufficient skills for the positions they apply to.

Each candidate has a unique set of skills and personality traits. However, it is possible for recruiters to establish the common traits ideal employees must have to fill a role. It’s called the candidate persona and Aktor Interactive has written a white paper explaining everything you need to know about how to utilize it. For example, a technical sales manager with an extrovert personality is more likely a better communicator, which is vital for the rest of the team.

Personality tests help determine if a candidate has the right personality traits for a given position.

5. Personality tests enhance behavioral evaluation in relevance to one’s career

Candidates often don’t realize personality traits are marketable. It is up to the interviewer to question candidates correctly to determine their marketability. That’s difficult to do. That’s why, recruitment tests are a perfect tool to assist the recruiter.

Should everyone use personality test to recruit?

Absolutely! Using personality tests helps ensure all employees understand the same value system and are part of the same corporate culture. This alignment means increased career development for the individuals.

For the company, it ensures its corporate values are understood and shared. Ultimately, shared values creates balance, and balance creates a proactive workforce and a healthy company well positioned for growth.