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Psychometric tests can evaluate your personality in the workplace. Does this make it a useful tool for recruiting the right sort of person for your business?
A very fiery red Phil Dobbie talks to Greg Dixon, Managing Director of Career Builders, about the pros and cons of psychometric evaluation.
Dobbie: Hello I’m Phil Dobbie. Are you cool blue, fiery red, earth green, or sunshine yellow.? That’s today on BTalk Australia. Psychometric testing can tell you whether you, your boss or your team members are blue, red, green or yellow so let’s have a look at psychometric evaluation. Is it a good way of recruiting and managing staff or is it just a load of all bologna? We’re joined today by Greg Dixon who is the Managing Director of Career Builders. Greg, you obviously believe in it?
Dixon: Only to a certain extent Phil.
Dobbie: Before we explore that, let’s talk about me first of all. I’m a fiery red, a very pronounced fiery red so what does that mean?
Dixon: In that particular test that you’re referring to which is an Insights Discovery Profile, you are referring to your preference for extroversion and thinking, which has a certain set of behavioural characteristics to it that people can observe in the workplace.
Dobbie: Right and should it be used … so this is one type of test, tell me … talk around a few of the different types of tests that are available.
Dixon: Well the main distinction is between competency-based psychometric testing, which tests for the usual barrage of things like numerical reasoning, verbal and abstract reasoning amongst other things, and then the one we just mentioned which is more of a behavioural profile and in our opinion is not much use as a psychometric test for recruitment, more something to discuss post-hiring decisions so that motif of motivations and ways of being able to engage people in the workforce or communicate more effectively with them can be explored.
Dobbie: So why not for recruitment? What’s the difference? You’re looking more for aptitude in recruitment I guess.
Dixon: Well I don’t think either of us would be happy to hear that we’d been rejected for a role because of our apparent lack of extroversion. The other thing about those behavioural profiles is once you know what you’re doing they’re incredibly easy to fudge. And if you have your wits about you before an interview and you understand the type of person that the organisation would most likely want, it’s pretty simple to answer the questions accordingly. Less simple to answer times measured questionnaires around numerical and verbal reasoning.
Dobbie: So the Meyers-Briggs test is probably the most widely known. Is that more of an aptitude or…?
Dixon: Now Meyers-Briggs is a behavioural profile just like Insights and there are a number of other ones. Meyers-Briggs is very good. Once again best utilised in team and personal effectiveness for development purposes as opposed to selection purposes.
Dobbie: So now I know I’m a fiery red what should I be doing with that piece of information? How does it change my behaviour in the workplace or those people around me?
Dixon: Well the fiery red category or extroverted thinking category just simply points out to you that you have a preference for extroversion and task focus, so you’re probably quite good at making decisions, you enjoy getting results, you’re not too keen on losing control and you like people to be straightforward with you. So the irony of understanding more about your own behavioural style and how it impacts others, is the more clear you are about that the more able you are to adapt to others. It’s when you have a blind spot about how you’re coming across to people that you’re less able to be versatile in your communication with others.
Dobbie: So you’re saying it’s actually better to have a more pronounced result?
Dixon: I think so yeah, I think when people say they’re a bit of everything they’re in fact hedging because of the tradition of this being used incorrectly as a selection tool. Worrying about the fact that there’s a consequence to being of a certain behavioural style.
Dobbie: I’m not sure — I think I might have been psychologically damaged though when I did mine because I went through it, they said I was blunt and forthright, I trod on people’s toes, I was exceedingly stubborn, I don’t like ideas that are not my own, I’m obsessive, I challenge convention for the sake of it, I’m curt and abrasive. I tell you I wouldn’t want to work with me.
Dixon: Oh my goodness. Well fortunately I’m sure there’s an equal amount of positive words used in that profile as well to describe you, unfortunately the computers that generate these responses only speak binary so they don’t really know whether a word is going to be offensive or not. And that’s sometimes the downside of getting a report like this. However, if you can take it with a grain of salt, my advice is always to give your report to a couple of people you know and trust. And if everyone concurs that that particular sentence doesn’t fit you, then you’re most welcome to get a big black texta and cross it out.
Dobbie: Now can you pick out abnormal behaviour using this sort of test? I mean could you find out for example if your boss is a psychopath which I incidentally think he might be, so is that sort of character trait picked up by this sort of test?
Dixon: This is very superficial and only regarded in the normal part of the bell curve population, it would be a very dangerous thing to use a little knowledge and this would certainly be regarded as something that’s useful but certainly not the whole picture in terms of pathology of behaviour in the workplace. I would be referring to someone such as a qualified clinical psychologist or organisational psych to provide one-on-one assessment around possible pathology in the workplace. This simply is making an assumption. This kind of a profiling system is only making the assumption of normal behavioural style.
Dobbie: Right and it can be influenced as well by your mood at the time.
Dixon: Totally. It’s like looking in a mirror taking a snapshot of how you are at the time.
Dobbie: Can it also be influenced by cultural backgrounds? Presumably it can be.
Dixon: The culture and ethnic backgrounds give it a different flavour; however, it’s fairly consistent across cultures. Behavioural profiling, we’ve personally as an organisation, done it in China, Singapore, Malaysia, India, as well as here in Australia and in New Zealand. And while there are different flavours to observable behaviours, if you take those into consideration, the fears, the motivators and the mechanisms to building trust with people across those cultures depending on their style, are fairly consistent.
Dobbie: Now you say that you don’t believe that tests like this should be used for recruitment.
Dixon: That’s correct.
Dobbie: But I think they are a lot aren’t they?
Dixon: They certainly are. There’s no substitute for good quality behavioural interviewing, and often psych testing is over used or misused, inappropriately used I mean, to cover up for all goodness or lack of confidence in interview technique. And as a result of us all being human beings, none of us are particularly comfortable in an interview room in a fairly awkward situation with someone we’ve never met before, trying to appear cool, calm, and composed and asking intelligent questions of each other. As a result, we tend to not ask the right questions; we tend to make decisions on what we see rather than what we hear; and as a result of that, we fall back on psychometrics to help us make these selection decisions. Often they are useful in the process but should never be more than a very small percentage of the waiting in a selection decision.
Dobbie: And yet I believe a lot of organisations are doing it because it’s producing what they claim some objectivity into the whole process.
Dixon: Yeah.
Dobbie: Whereas an interview you know is a little bit more subjective. But if you’re saying it’s just a snapshot then it’s dangerous. It’s not really that objective.
Dixon: Well behavioural profiles in our view should never be used for selection. Other aptitude related psych tests such as tests for numerical, verbal and spatial abstract reasoning, etc, should be used with care.
Dobbie: Yeah but at least they’re focusing on have you got the skills to do the job.
Dixon: Yeah well the simple rule of thumb is if you and I were happy to be rejected for a role because we weren’t in the ninetieth percentile for a particular aptitude, then that is more objective. Given that we can’t fudge those kinds of tests, yet we can fudge behavioural profiling, the validity of the tests and its use and selection is questionable. Even with verbal, numerical and spatial reasoning before you engage in those tests you really need to have created a definite link between the outcome of that test and what’s required in real time behaviour on the job. We’ve also got to take into account the fact that some people freeze in psych tests. We’ve had engineers’ fail numerical reasoning tests because they were so concerned about making a mistake; they took too long to complete it and ran out of time.
Dobbie: Well a lot of us haven’t had tests like that since we’ve been at school, of course.
Dixon: Correct, yeah and so that brings up a whole bunch of other issues doesn’t it?
Dobbie: So people who are supporting the reason for having them used as part of the recruitment process may say oh look we don’t want a whole lot of fiery reds in our company. We don’t want too many directors; that would be out of categories in the supporters, the motivators, the inspirers, the mix of people is what makes a company gel.
Dixon: Yeah.
Dobbie: Would that be right?
Dixon: I would say having a group of different styles working together constructively is a great objective and many successful firms have got quite a mixture. I think what’s more important than what type you are is being able to demonstrate that you have an awareness of your style and how that impacts others, and that you have the skill to adapt your style appropriately to effect optimum communication.
Dobbie: Right and your ability to do that is going to be influenced by knowing who you are.
Dixon: That’s right. Self-knowledge is a positive quality in people; so if someone was to present as a particular behavioural style and I must stress once again behavioural profiling should be done after the hiring decision to see how the person’s going to fit into the team and how to best communicate with them. People should be able to freely complete their behavioural profiles without fear of consequence because there’s no right or wrong place to be in the spectrum of behavioural profiles. It’s really more to do with the competencies required for success in the realm; that’s the key in making a good hire.
Dobbie: Okay. Thanks so much for your time today.
Dixon: It’s a pleasure.
Dobbie: It does say some good things about me; it says I’m an action-oriented resourceful person who lives for the future, making every moment count. I’m pretty happy about that.
Dixon: That’s terrific.
Dobbie: Thanks for your time today.
Dixon: Thanks Phil.
Dobbie: Next time on BTalk, Mergers and Acquisitions. What drives them and what goes wrong.
Coulthard: One of the key drivers in a peaceful M&A’s and particularly acquisitions are great opportunities.
Dobbie: That’s Greg Coulthard from Monash University. We speak to him next time on BTalk Australia.
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See also:
Pre-employment Personality Testing
Faking It: Can Applicants ‘Outsmart’ Personality Tests?
