The 4 best points to use personality assessments in the hiring process

One of the biggest wastes that I see when supporting clients in using personality assessments is when companies only use it as a resource for one piece of their hiring process. Usually, that one piece is checking whether someone is a good fit for the position, and while that is important, there are so many more ways that they can help you save time and effort. Personality assessments are not a one trick pony. They can really support the entire act!

While I can identify many ways to use these tools, here are the four best points that you want to cover in your hiring process:

Prior to Posting the Position

This step is often skipped yet I have had clients who say it is the most important. Like any project, before you even begin work, you need to determine the requirements. If one manager has personality A in mind while another manager has personality B, they are going to be looking for completely different candidates and the interview process is going to be very frustrating. Going through the activity of developing an ideal personality profile for the role will make sure that everyone is looking for the same thing which will save you a ton of time later on.

During the Interview Process

Another common loss of value that I see, is when companies just use personality assessments as an additional piece of data to consider after the interviews have already occurred. When you do this, you are missing out on determining whether they can overcome any gaps in personality requirements. Although our personality includes strengths and weaknesses, we do have the ability to become self-aware and develop ourselves accordingly. If the interviews have already passed and you are just now seeing that there is an area of concern, you have missed your chance to probe deeper. And why not take advantage of interview questions already crafted for you?

Providing Feedback

Employer brand and candidate experience are big buzzwords lately, but they are definitely worth the hype. Who wants to work for a company that doesn’t care enough to get back to their candidates or displays examples of having a poor human resources department? What goes around comes around and you want to be shelling out as much good karma as possible. A great way to make your candidates feel positive about your company is by letting them know all of the great things that you found out about them from their personality assessment. If you take the time to do this simple act of kindness, it may return as increased applicants for other positions which will make the next hiring cycle much easier.

Reference Checking

Due diligence just sounds like something nobody wants to do, but it can really save your butt down the road. Imagine hiring who you think is the best candidate for the role only to find out a few months later that they are really great at burning bridges. The idea here is to save you from headaches, not to create more of them! Personality assessments can provide great reference checking questions to confirm the behaviours that you want to see and make sure that there are no surprises. It also saves you time from thinking about what you want to ask.