Using personality assessments in recruitment
What personality traits do you need to be successful?
It’s an increasingly popular question, with more and more people choosing to include personality assessments in their recruitment and selection processes*.
But do you really need to consider the personality of the people you are hiring?
Well, an individual’s personality preferences influence their behaviours in the workplace. So, their personality acts as a useful indicator of how they are likely to behave and perform within their role. This provides you with an additional understanding about a candidate’s potential competencies and unlike a CV, or your own judgements, it is a more objective source of information.
So, how can you use personality assessments to enhance your recruitment process?
1) Identify key competencies and behaviours
Read through the job description and highlight the key competencies, behaviours, and skills that are needed to be successful in the role. For example, the job may require someone to be very organised and detail oriented.
2) Map competencies to personality traits
Use your list to identify the personality traits that are relevant to the role. You will need to use your chosen personality assessment so that you are using the correct terminology. For instance, if you were using HUCAMA Personality Factors, you may decide that being organised and detail oriented is related to the personality factor ‘Structure’, which concerns the extent to which individuals are methodical and dependable.
3) Analyse candidate profile
Once the candidate has completed the assessment, you can make a note of any potential strengths and concerns based on their profile. Remember that there is no good or bad when it comes to personality traits. Rather, it is about looking at how relevant traits may help or hinder a person in a specific role or situation.
Following on from the previous example, a candidate with a strong preference for being unstructured is less likely to check details, remain organised or plan ahead. This would therefore be a potential concern in relation to the role. However, a preference for less structured environments could be beneficial in a different role where plans keep changing and they need to be spontaneous.
It is also important to be aware of the potential ‘overuse risks’ associated with extreme preferences. Assessment reports, such as the HUCAMA Personality Factors report, highlight both the key strengths and overuse risks for different personality factors and facets.
4) Investigate in an interview
You can then generate interview questions to gain a better understanding of how a person’s personality traits may influence their behaviours. For the example above, you could explore how the candidate organises their workload.
Alternatively, you could incorporate HUCAMA Personality Factors into your recruitment process. The HUCAMA Personality Factors assessment identifies an individual's dispositional traits and preferences in the workplace. The model is aligned with the HUCAMA Competency Factors model, making it easier to predict competencies in the workplace. Not only that, but you can generate a Competency Prediction report directly from the HUCAMA Personality Factors assessment. This saves you time in the recruitment process and ensures your mapping of personality traits to competencies is backed by solid research.
HUCAMA Personality Factors Model
Whichever option you choose, start enhancing your recruitment with the power of personality assessments today.
Learn more about HUCAMA Factors here or contact us to find out how we can help you in your recruitment process.
*Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Furnham, A. (2010). The psychology of personnel selection. Cambridge University Press.