Finding the most suitable candidate for a specific position requires a business to innovate their way of screening and assessment. The right hiring decision and the process can truly define a company and most employers will implement an array of screening measures for candidates before making the decision on who to hire.

After preparing for a job description, your recruitment team will run down through sourcing, screening, and selection. With the advantage of job portals and social media, candidate sourcing has become a lot easier but it has also given a huge volume of applicants that need to be thoroughly scanned.

What is Candidate Screening and Personality Testing?

Candidate screening is the process of reviewing job applications and sorting through them to find the applicant whose skills, experience and other traits are close to the requirements of the role the candidate will fill. Screening happens to be the most time-intensive amongst the hiring processes depending on the size of your recruitment team. There are lots of methods to consider when screening candidates and personality tests are amongst the popular methods for employers to screen applicants.

Personality Testing gives you an insight into important yet intangible information about your candidates like their values, character, and work preferences. It is scientifically proven based on research that when an employee is placed in a position that does not match his character and personality, it often leads to disconnection which might result in low productivity and high turnover.

How will Personality Testing affect your hiring process?

Since it will cost time and money for a business to recruit and train new employees, attracting the right candidates for a specific role is important. Personality tests will serve as a valuable tool for recruiting, hiring and retaining employees with exceptional talent and skills. But how does this method affect your hiring process? Here are some benefits and drawbacks you have to look out for:

Benefits of personality testing

• It can narrow down the candidate pool. Your recruitment team can assess the fit of the candidates more accurately based on the phone screening and personality assessment result.
• It can also remove biases or first impression. Some candidates can make a better first impression or vice versa. A candidate can make a phenomenal first impression and could possess a quality detrimental to the position which personality test can detect.
• Effectively designed personality testing can lessen the chance of placing the wrong candidate in the wrong role. If there is a mismatch between the employee’s personality and position they are in it can lead to low quality of work and productivity which can be costly and stressful.

Drawbacks of personality testing

• Time-consuming. Personality testing can use up a lot of time and effort which can lead to candidate frustration or loss to other companies.
• Accuracy. Not all tests are created equal and if companies use the wrong test in the wrong situation they might end up having the wrong hire.
• Candidates often answer their tests by choosing answers that their employers want to hear to impress them but in reality, it’s not who they are. So reliability can also be a question.
• It can be costly. Personality testing tool can be an unnecessary expense if used improperly.

When should you administer a personality test?

It depends on the hiring manager on when to conduct a personality test, and every option has its perks. But it is a good practice to wait until after the result of the initial interview is done. This will give you and your recruitment team to meet the candidate personally. It is also an option to let the candidate take the test first to be able to reflect on the result during the interview and use it to formulate potential questions.

Conclusion

Understanding the best practices in hiring a candidate is just a part of becoming a good and responsible company leader. Building a productive and effective team of employees is harder than you think but with the right strategy and hiring process, it will create a smooth and effective operation for your business success.