Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor
Job candidates rarely admit to being fired for poor performance... and they might just be telling the truth. A Harvard University study found that for every dismissal based on failure to perform, there are two dismissals due to personality and communication problems. With the high costs of employee turnover, it's no surprise companies are turning to personality and behavioral assessments to help evaluate job candidates, build teams and resolve workplace conflicts.
The Right Fit
Ann Taylor Loft, the world's fastest-growing women's retailer, recently began using testing to fine-tune its hiring process and bring in top talent. Through a partnership with the Gallup organization, Loft has developed a tool that profiles employees who have been highly successful and identifies candidates who have similar traits.
Desired characteristics vary by position. If you're applying for a floor sales manager job at a Loft store, for example, you would be asked to complete an online assessment gauging your talents, traits, attitudes and behaviors related to assisting and helping wardrobe clients. Your results would then be benchmarked against profiles and test results of the stores? best performers to help judge how you would fit into the organization.
'We want to learn more about candidates as individuals,' says Wei-Li Chong, Ann Taylor Loft's vice president of Organizational Effectiveness. 'We want to know what makes them tick.'
'Once a candidate is hired, this same information helps us understand and maximize their talents specific to the role they have,' Chong adds. 'And we continue to work on developing employees' self-awareness throughout their careers to help create an environment that ensures success.'
Why Can't We All Just Get Along?
Hundreds of companies -- including Hewlett-Packard and GM -- use testing to take advantage of existing staff strengths and avoid personality-based conflicts. And though there are a myriad of test instruments to choose from, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) remains the standard-bearer of all personality assessments. According to its publishers, Myers-Briggs is used by roughly nine out of 10 Fortune 100 companies and is administered to more than 2.5 million employees a year.
Developed 60 years ago based on the theories of psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the MBTI endures because it does a great job of improving team relations by pointing out differences between how personality 'types' perceive and process information.
'People have different ways of making decisions and dealing with stress,' explains Lynn Ronchetto, Human Resources Administrator at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. 'The Myers-Briggs tool offers a conceptual framework for understanding those who are different from us and helps bridge differences between team members by showing there is more than one way to get things done.'
'The tool is also very valuable from a personal development standpoint, as it gives individuals a revealing glimpse of themselves as others may see them.'
You Can't Study For It
What should you do when your boss or prospective employer asks you to take a personality assessment? Experts advise answering the questions truthfully, not the way you think the company wants you to respond. There is often a validity factor built in where many questions are asked solely to determine whether the subject is answering truthfully and consistently.
Even if you do fool the test, you'll only wind up in a job or assignment that doesn't fit or will make you -- and those around you -- miserable. According to Bonnie Bass, vice president of Professional Dynametric Programs testing organization, 'When people feel the need to act unnaturally, they waste energy, experience stress and become unhappy and less productive. People are at their best when they're doing work that draws on their natural strengths and allows them to be themselves.'
Next: Surviving the Personality Test >>
Find a Job
Search by Company | Search by IndustryKate Lorenz is the article and advice editor for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues. Other CareerBuilder.com writers have contributed to this story.
Copyright 2005 CareerBuilder.com.
Jul 14th 2009 @ 4:14PM Casey
Can the author provide a reference for the Harvard study mentioned in the first paragraph? I would like to read this study. Thanks.
Reply
Jul 23rd 2009 @ 3:14PM veronika
wow..wut a bitch u are.
Jul 16th 2009 @ 12:55PM the kid
Yeah, this isn't really new news
It is quite old
Jul 16th 2009 @ 3:11PM Dave
So if you have a physical handicap you can't be discriminated against but if you do exemplary work but are moody, they can get rid of you. I've seen very good people who did awesome work but didn't want to drink or party or partake in after work functions be let go because they "didn't fit in". No wonder America is becoming a second rate industrial power...
Jul 15th 2009 @ 11:48AM jeanmarie missale
I am in the same situation as yourself. I lost my job after 18 years. I have been looking for another . I thought things couldnt get worse,my son was in a bad motorcycle accident may 24th ,still in the hospital .If you can realy help email me at mlucky 113@gmail.com, thank you. I feel absolete!
Reply
Jul 15th 2009 @ 12:14PM rosemary
Hi Jean Marie,
You are NOT obsolete! If you can be flexible and resourceful, and have faith not fear, you will get through these difficult days. My family has been through hell, too, these last few years but we held together, kept the faith, and worked our butts off.... you have to see what you HAVE and make the best of it, think outside the box, best of luck!
Jul 16th 2009 @ 6:50PM jeanmarie
Your comment caught my attention, but then your name did. I don't know many jeanmarie's. I can help your situation by praying for you. I try every day to be "anxious for nothing" as Jesus says we should do if we put our trust in Him. I'm in the New England area, but wherever you are, know that I will pray for your situation to improve in both areas.
Jul 15th 2009 @ 1:58PM Sheri Ellen Schwartz
This is old news. We are talking reallllly old. I was assessing candidates 20 years ago and I am only 40. Go figure.
Reply
Jul 15th 2009 @ 3:20PM chillmike
i'm in the same situation as you, jeanmarie missale. i've always had horrible luck with jobs. not the jobs themselves, but the way employers judge me and my personality. just last november, I got fired for a pretty petty reason, and now, ever since have been looking everywhere for a job. but because they economy is in shambles, it's been impossible to find a decent job. not to mention, over memorial day, i had a dislocated shoulder and had to go through all that hell and mess without insurance, so i have to pay these friggin' hospital bills unemployed. this nation is slowly sinking, including the job market... and it really disappoints and depresses me. if anyone can help me around the bucks county, pa area jobwise, here's my email: chillmike420@yahoo.com. good luck to all those other innocent american citizens out there. i'm afraid this might just be the beginning of something much much worse...
Reply
Jul 16th 2009 @ 9:17AM annie
ChillMike... It might help if your email address didn't have a pot reference in it. Present yourself as a professional, not a pot head. Good luck out there.
Jul 16th 2009 @ 12:59PM sierra
Chin up Mike. I know times are tight - and rough - but try and remember that we're all here and we're all doing the best we can. The first thing I'd recommend is to just start working doing anything. Walking dogs, helping seniors, temp somewhere, cater, answer phones, garden - anything to just get the work juices flowing and a paycheck in your pocket. Sometimes, there's nothing more depressing - than nothing to do. Hang in there babe. It's not getting worse. It's America for godsakes - pick something you're good at - and make it your job! Take this time to concentrate on some of the things you know you love to do and that make you happy and apply them to how you want to live your life. You're gonna be okay...promise.
Jul 15th 2009 @ 8:06PM Karen
I was once fired because the managing partner didn't like me. The other partners (who were out of the office that day) were always telling me I was "best in the biz", and were livid when they came back to find me gone. He told Unemployment that I did a bad job, so he wouldn't have to pay, but I had letters of reference from the other partners contradicting his story.
At this point, I run my own business. If there's a personality clash, I can now tell the client to buzz off rather than stressing about it. I'm still "best in the biz", so I just have to put out the word that I'm looking for another client to replace that one, and the line starts forming.
Reply
Jul 16th 2009 @ 7:43AM Bridget Ann
I once tok a personaliy test for a potential emoployer, it was so long that i got board and started making my answer to contradict one another, I was hired, and worked for someone who didnt want to give breaks, well i quit and worked for someone else. Assesments are bogus when we know how to answers the questions!
Employer should try checking references! I have worked for to many employers who have not checked references. Oh and I hate working for people who judge you by body language.. i myself suffer with sporatic pain its just gastrial, not stress or relating to anything around me. Nor do i expect the ugly managment think i need to sleep with them, oh the lawsuits ive walked away from..... So People Bellive In Yorself! IN GOD WE TRUST!
Reply
Jul 26th 2009 @ 7:00PM mytwocents
You know, Briget Ann, I was all ready to be supportive and have your back until I read you full comment. I mentor new employees as part of my job. As I read your comments, I was painfully aware of multiple mis-spelled words and grammatical errors. This speaks of a lack of attention to detail and a certain hot-headed nature that leads to cloudy judgement. Perhaps these traits were what your employer(s) were looking at.
Jul 16th 2009 @ 9:29AM JM
correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a sort of discrimination?
Reply
Jul 16th 2009 @ 10:01AM DSM
Discrimination isn't illegal in and of itself. We all discriminate... what foods we do and don't like, who we'll date and/or marry, etc... It isn't wrong or illegal to discriminate when dealing with a changeable - and, contrary to what people want to believe, one can change personality (it's often called growing up). What folks can't changes is the color of their skin, their sex (though that is in question these days), their genetics, etc.
Jul 16th 2009 @ 9:05AM KW
I've had MUCH better luck with jobs when I placed jobs above everything else in my life. When my career become the most important thing in my life, not only did I succeed and become an attribute to the company, but I also made more money.
The problem is with most people, they want and want, but they don't want to put in to their work the same demand of themselves.
I currently own a California corporation, a small one, and while I work 70 hours a week, I work hard enough to support my wife and 2 daughters, and so my wife can stay home taking care of the family. Yet I meet able people every day who wants hand outs, and I hear people just walking through the grocery store or walking down the sidewalk who talk about their job and how they won't do this or won't do that, whatever...
Change your attitude about a job. If you have to scrub toiilets, then be the best damn toilet scrubber there is. You would be AMAZED and how quick people see the great job you do.
At the same time, if you think negatively of what I say here, then figure it out for yourself...
Reply
Jul 16th 2009 @ 11:31AM Max
Way to go. I worked at the same job 27 yr single mom my kids work as pre-teens and have there own business now my daughter owns sober living homes in San Diego County is on the board of the San Diego sober living coalition. my son has a business cutting trees in NC and is Vice Pres. of a construction Company. My Grandson is a drug and Alcohol councilor. He is now 27yr. When he was dating his his wife her brother age 12 had to writ who his hero is he choice my grandson one of the things he said was He asked him about working (Robert) said "when you do a job you put 100% in whether its a small job our a big one you still do 100% of your best." He was maybe 18yr. old when he said that statement. Very proud of my family I had a son who passed away in 1979 age 18 God did not say it would be easy but he is there and has your back this I truly know. I am still walking and caring for my 89 yr. old mom who broke her hip. She always worked owned business and had several foster children. I have a pace maker 6 joint replacements and screws rods in my neck and back, not suppose to have muscle or nerve function in my legs but I am walking and doing better then I have in years. Why because the Lord is walking for me. God Bless all of you. He blesses me every day even my troubles are a blessing and I praise and thank Him for them every day. For then I am able to help others through a similar situation. I was blessed to have my son for 18 yrs. 14 days before my son died he blessed me with a wonderful daughter-in-law. God is good, God is love, God is here!!!!
Jul 16th 2009 @ 2:31PM Jeannie
Right on. I have never had a problem on a job either. Why? Because I look at things from my employer's point of view, and do the best job I can do for that employer, get along with fellow employees, take immediate blame for any personal error, and basically try to earn my keep. My efforts have always been recognized, and I have always been given raises and advancements without asking for them.
Jul 23rd 2009 @ 11:10AM catzz
I don't think that someone who has a masters degree wants to scrub toilets...some people don't really want the trained person to do the jobs that they were trained to do...and those same people do not respect that those trained people know a thing or two...I am talking about the boss who thinks he knows everything...when in fact he does not...