Personality Tests for Business Organizations
The Value of HRM to Business Organisations
Section 1
This essay will evaluate the literature available on the value of the selection method of personality tests to business organisations. These tests measure individual’s responses to what are usually fixed choice questions to uncover characteristics that have important implications for their job performance (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007). Personality tests were first reviewed in a personnel selection context in 1965 (Guion and Gottier, 1965) but it is only recently that they have become popular with around 30% of companies using them (Heller, 2005), particularly for candidates applying for managerial and graduate jobs within the top companies in the UK (Faulder, 2005; Newell, 2005: 133). However, despite their popularity there is still continuing controversy in debates surrounding this selection method. These debates will be explored alongside identifying relevant concepts such as the validity and reliability of personality tests which have implications for their value to business organisations.
Although there are many debates surrounding personality tests they can be broadly grouped into four main areas (Taylor, 2005). The first of these debates concerns whether and to what extent it is actually possible to measure an individual’s personality. The uptake of personality tests highlights that there is now a level of agreement that personality is measurable, but there is a need therefore to adopt similar systems of personality descriptions if findings are to be compared (Newell, 2005: 134). The five factor model also referred to as the “Big Five” is close to achieving this as it becomes more readily accepted as the model of choice when constructing personality tests (Robertson, 2001). This model breaks personality into five important traits of open to experience, agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness and extraversion (Rothstein and Goffin, 2006) with the latter two being considered the most
Section 1
This essay will evaluate the literature available on the value of the selection method of personality tests to business organisations. These tests measure individual’s responses to what are usually fixed choice questions to uncover characteristics that have important implications for their job performance (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007). Personality tests were first reviewed in a personnel selection context in 1965 (Guion and Gottier, 1965) but it is only recently that they have become popular with around 30% of companies using them (Heller, 2005), particularly for candidates applying for managerial and graduate jobs within the top companies in the UK (Faulder, 2005; Newell, 2005: 133). However, despite their popularity there is still continuing controversy in debates surrounding this selection method. These debates will be explored alongside identifying relevant concepts such as the validity and reliability of personality tests which have implications for their value to business organisations.
Although there are many debates surrounding personality tests they can be broadly grouped into four main areas (Taylor, 2005). The first of these debates concerns whether and to what extent it is actually possible to measure an individual’s personality. The uptake of personality tests highlights that there is now a level of agreement that personality is measurable, but there is a need therefore to adopt similar systems of personality descriptions if findings are to be compared (Newell, 2005: 134). The five factor model also referred to as the “Big Five” is close to achieving this as it becomes more readily accepted as the model of choice when constructing personality tests (Robertson, 2001). This model breaks personality into five important traits of open to experience, agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness and extraversion (Rothstein and Goffin, 2006) with the latter two being considered the most
References: Bates, S. (2002) ‘Personality Counts: Psychological tests can help peg the job applicants best suited for a certain job’. HR Magazine, Vol. 47, No.2, pp.1-6 Becker, B.E Beardwell, J., and Claydon, T. (2007) Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach 5th Ed, Harlow: Pearson Education Dalen, L., Stanton, N Faulder, L. (2005) ‘The growing cult of personality tests’, Edmonton Journal D.6 Furnham, A Guion, R., and Guttier, R. (1965) ‘Validity of personality measures in personnel selection’, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 18, Iss.2, pp.135-164 Heller, M Howard, P. and Howard, J. (2000) The Owner’s Manual for Personality at Work, Marietta: Bard Press Iles, P Murphy, K. and Dzieweczynski, J. (2005) ‘Why don’t measures of broad dimensions of personality perform better as predictors of job performance?’, Human Performance Vol.18 , pp. 343–357 Newell, S Robertson, I. (2001) ‘Undue diligence’, People Management, Vol. 7, No.23, pp.42-3 Rothstein, M Taylor, S. (2005) People Resourcing 3rd Ed, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Torrington, D., Hall, L., and Taylor, S Wilk, S. and Cappelli, P. (2003). ‘Understanding the determinants of employer use of selection methods’