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How to Select the Appropriate Personality Test for Your Organization?

We provide five different personality and culture tests to choose from. They can all help you understand how candidates will react in different situations, how they will interact with other team members, and how they will approach difficult decisions.

So, with all of this information, how do you know which personality assessment is best for your company? 

The truth is that you are the best person to know your company, so you can only answer that question, but we can help you choose.

When deciding which personality test is best for you, consider the following:

1. Is the test designed to assess traits that are likely to change over time?

Answering this question will assist you in determining which personality test is best for your pre-employment process. It can be beneficial to understand how and what motivates a person in their daily life. This is where a personality test like the Enneagram can come in handy.

 Other times, knowing where people are emotionally in a given moment is useful. This allows you to change course and reassess employees as they advance in their careers, which can help determine the best fit for the current position using aptitude tests for the candidates.

2. Is the examination objective or subjective?

Are the outcomes you seek supposed to be objective? Or are they intended to provide information about a specific location? Answering this question before deciding which personality test is best for you may help you get the most out of the assessment you create.

Objective tests, such as The 16 Types or the Enneagram, are frequently self-reporting. Projective tests, such as our Culture Add test, are tailored to your company’s culture and how employees may or may not fit in.

3. Will you use the test to make a final decision?

Many of the personality tests we offer should not be used as the sole deciding factor when hiring. While the results of various assessments can provide you with in-depth insights about your candidates, using them alone to make a final decision is not recommended.

We recommend combining them with 2-4 other tests to create a comprehensive assessment for the best results. Our personality and culture tests can be combined with cognitive ability assessments, role-specific tests, or situational judgment tests.

How to Incorporate Personality Assessments into the Hiring Process?

It can be difficult to know where to begin and how to create a solid pre-employment process that includes skill assessments.

Should you simply select a test and distribute it to candidates? Should you ask current employees to take the test to find out where they fall in terms of certain personality traits?

Because the questions could be endless, we’ve compiled a brief guide to assist you in implementing personality assessments for recruitment.

1. Select the appropriate personality test for your organization.

Is it the Enneagram’s ability to provide insights into what motivates your applicants? Is The 16 Types test being used to better understand how candidates emotionally react to situations? Or is it the Culture Add, which allows you to assess someone’s potential for culture add?

Use the above questions to determine which personality test is best for you and your company.

Perhaps it’s a mix of some of them. The first step in implementing personality tests is determining which one is best for your organization.

2. Determine which other assessments will be used in conjunction with the personality test.

To assess your candidates’ skills, we recommend using personality and culture tests in conjunction with other tests as part of your pre-employment screening process. We recommend combining the personality test with one of the other tests we offer, such as:

Cognitive ability tests assess a candidate’s cognitive abilities, which include numerical reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and other skills.

Language proficiency tests: These tests assess candidates’ fluency in a language and are especially useful if you’re hiring remotely or expanding to a new country or continent.

Testing for programming skills: If you’re looking to hire a developer or an offshore development team, you can use our testing for programming skills to see if candidates have the necessary skills and experience. You can test for a variety of programming languages and frameworks, including Ruby on Rails, Flutter, and Node.js.

Role-specific skills tests: These allow you to assess a candidate’s abilities for specific roles, as well as white-collar and blue-collar jobs. Knowledge in highly specific areas, such as the fundamentals of electricity, working with data, financial accounting (IFRS), and others, can be assessed.

Situational judgment tests: Determine how a candidate would react in a specific situation and whether they are capable of correctly assessing it. Situational judgment is especially important in leadership roles. You can assess negotiation, business judgment, and time management abilities, among other things.

A few tests combined can help you easily identify top talent for your organization and provide you with a comprehensive overview of each of your candidates’ skills, behavior, and knowledge.

Using cognitive ability tests and role-specific tests, for example, in conjunction with a personality test, can be a powerful tool for identifying the best talent.

3. Carry out the test.

Before conducting interviews, we recommend that candidates take skills and personality tests. This allows you to pre-screen applicants and invite only the best ones to an interview, as well as ask them better questions during the interview.

You’ll also ensure that you have a comprehensive understanding of the candidate’s technical skills and experience, as well as their personality and behavior. 

4. Prepare for the interview by analyzing test results.

Analyze the results of the personality test after you have shortlisted the best applicants based on their experience, knowledge, and skills. You’ll be able to prepare for an interview here by understanding how an applicant feels and behaves in different situations.

5. Make a choice.

The last step! Choose the most qualified candidate and hire them! Of course, as previously stated, don’t base your final decision solely on the results of the personality test. Simply use it as a tool to better understand and know your candidates and future employees.

In order to be more efficient and help them achieve more, you can also tailor onboarding, training, and management to them and their personality traits.

Mercer Mettl makes hiring the right candidate easier with efficient online aptitude tests. Check out the website right away.