8 minutes
How useful are personality tests in hiring and coaching?
Bad hires ultimately mean bad headaches for co-workers, supervisors, human resources officers and other managers. Frustration builds for all concerned. Turnover costs kick in. Employee morale and productivity slip. Member relationships may suffer.
In a 2013 CareerBuilder survey, two-thirds of U.S. employers said bad hires had negatively affected their business in some way.
That’s why employers, including credit unions, continually strive to reduce the possibility of hiring the wrong person—that is, the person who can’t or won’t do a job well.
One tool is the personality test, sometimes referred to as a behavioral assessment or analysis. This tool comes in many versions and has proponents, as well as detractors.
Proponents stress that a personality test can provide insight into whether someone is a good fit for a particular job and in your credit union’s culture—if you use this type of instrument appropriately.
Converted Skeptic
Charles Shanley, SPHR, uses personality tests regularly in his position as EVP/head of the recruitment services division of Houston-based JMFA Recruitment Services, a CUES Supplier member and strategic partner. Shanley admits that years ago he was a skeptic about these tests. Not anymore.
“You can’t get past the results,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve had anybody take a test and come back to say, ‘That’s really not who I am.’”
Among all the personality assessment tools out there, Shanley recommends three for credit union use in hiring: the Omnia® Selection Profile, the Predictive Index® system and the DiSC® assessment.
He emphasizes, however, that personality test results don’t determine whether his company recommends someone for hiring by a credit union client. Extensive interviews and reference checks also weigh into the decision.
“We use the personality test as another tool for evaluation,” Shanley says. “We want to double-check ourselves. Are candidates really who they say they are?”
It’s also important that candidates understand how test results will be used. Explain clearly, Shanley advises, that the results don’t determine whether or not a person gets the job. Rather, the assessment provides one more piece of information to help the employer get a sense of who a person is.
A personality test also can help formulate interview questions, Shanley adds. The test results pinpoint areas to explore further in your conversation with the candidate.
“I support credit unions making a personality test part of the hiring process,” he says. “Just be careful. There can be legality issues if you use it improperly to make hiring decisions,” such as discrimination lawsuits.
Tailored to the Job
Grow Financial Federal Credit Union has been using the Omnia personality assessment for about 10 years in hiring new employees and coaching existing ones.
“We find the assessment is incredibly accurate,” says Katherine Peterson, AVP/human resources at the $2 billion/173,000-member credit union with 555 full-time equivalents in Tampa, Fla.
The CU has experienced no downside to using the personality test, reports Kimberly Woollard, chief human resources officer. “It’s done nothing but help us,” she says. “It looks at personality traits, without presenting them as negative or positive.”
All candidates for all positions complete the assessment as part of the hiring process. The test content is the same for everyone, but different positions require people with different behavior or personality characteristics. The credit union works with Omnia to set behavior benchmarks for different jobs. “We tweak the benchmarks as the roles change,” Woollard explains.
For instance, a Grow Financial FCU member services representative needs to be someone who’s comfortable doing sales, asking questions of members, taking risks, taking no for an answer (in other words, not being too pushy in their cross-sales efforts), and so on—as well as being able to perform teller duties.
Outside of hiring, Grow Financial FCU uses behavioral assessments in coaching for employee development. An assessment provides insight into what motivates the employee, how to best give the person feedback and so on.
The tool is useful in coaching, because a person’s personality profile remains stable over time, Peterson explains. She completed the assessment herself 10 years ago and retook it a couple of years ago expecting to see different results after eight years had elapsed.
“My profile was almost exactly the same,” she says. “Your behavioral style doesn’t change that much.”
Spotting Fakes and Hidden Treasures
In the same way the Omnia utilizes benchmarks, the Predictive Index system works with the employer to develop what it refers to as a job analytic. “It’s client-defined,” explains Nancy Martini, president/CEO of Boston-based PI Worldwide. “The job analytic provides a target that says these are the behavioral requirements of this job. That’s a hugely important step, but one a lot of people skip.”
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Test Drives “With a personality test, you’re looking at how someone answers the questions, and then you’re inferring how that person will deal with your members. There’s a leap there,” says Sefcik, who pioneered simulations, another type of employment testing. A simulation recreates an actual job situation. ETC has created simulations for tellers, teller supervisors, call center agents, call center supervisors, underwriters, loan officers and more. “Think of a simulation as a test drive,” Sefcik says. “If you put people behind the wheel, you see how they drive. You’re not making inferences about their driving or taking assurances about what they tell you about their driving. They have to prove how well they drive. They can’t fake it.” On average, a simulation takes 30 to 45 minutes for the applicant to complete, compared to the 10 to 15 minutes a personality test may require. Sometimes Sefcik hears employers complain they want something shorter and quicker. He puts the time requirement into perspective: “You’re going to have to live with your hiring decision,” he says. “Do you really want to cut this down to a 15-minute litmus test and then roll the dice on it?” |
Once job candidates take the test, the employer can see if an individual’s behavioral motivators match with the job analytic.
One common criticism of personality tests is that people can fake it by giving responses they think the employer wants to see.
Martini says it’s “almost impossible” to game the Predictive Index because checkpoints are built in to reveal inconsistent and invalid responses. “But the bigger question for the employer, no matter what instrument you use,” Martini says, “is what does that tell you about that person?”
If the personality test results, references and resume all seem to align, that’s well and good. “But if something doesn’t add up,” Martini says, “you need to find out why.” That’s something to explore during an interview.
Personality tests also prove useful for the applicant with a “skinny resume,” Martini says. These days many employers believe it’s not what a job candidate has done in any previous jobs, but who he or she is, that matters most.
She says it comes down to the old saying: Hire for drive; teach skills. You can teach someone the credit union business and job duties. But who is that person at the core, and what does he or she bring to the job?
If a member service representative candidate, for example, shows such propensities as paying attention to detail, following procedures correctly and enjoying interactions with others, those qualities may be more relevant than the lack of job experience. “Personality tests can open the door to more candidates than you might have identified before,” Martini says.
Still, she stresses that a personality test must be merely one component in the hiring decision, not the sole basis for the decision. “That’s the caution,” Martini says. “People can get overzealous.”
Payback
At $125 million/13,000-member Gerber Federal Credit Union with 37 FTEs in Fremont, Mich., everyone—including managers, staff and board members—has taken the Predictive Index over the past seven years. It’s not just a hiring tool but “a complete communications tool for us,” says John Buckley, president/CEO.
The test results help in understanding how individuals at Gerber FCU approach issues and challenges differently, Buckley explains. “The PI also has been important to us in changing our culture,” he adds.
For instance, the credit union decided it wanted more engaged conversations to occur between members and member service representatives. So it used the PI to help select employees who could make that happen.
The job analytic, or profile of target behaviors needed in a particular job, also helps in writing job advertisements that attract suitable applicants. And assessment results assist managers in determining how to best coach employees.
Indeed, the PI has become part of the day-to-day conversation at Gerber FCU, says Ellen Davis, AVP/human resources. “It’s easy to start a program that then becomes the idea of the month and goes by the wayside,” she says. “We didn’t want that to happen.”
Thus, managers who’ve received special training in using the PI meet monthly. “We’re constantly refreshing and honing our analyst skills,” Davis says. One additional manager gets the analyst training each year.
Using the personality test does have costs, of course. “But,” Buckley says, “when you look at its impact on turnover and employee satisfaction, and on developing management’s coaching skills, it’s a very reasonable investment for the value received.”
Dianne Molvig is a freelance writer based in Madison, Wis.
