Matching Personality to Job Competencies

Job Analysis & Job Match assist in scientifically matching candidate's personality traits to job requirements for selection.

The Challenge when using Psychometric Personality Assessments

Psychometric assessments of personality are useful tools in recruitment, selection and development, but they are only so when used properly. One challenge is that it is all too easy to have respondents complete personality assessments without really knowing what to do with their actual results. Sometimes decision-makers plan to simply use test results to confirm or refute gut feelings. This of course is not scientific and can lead to a number of HR problems (let alone legal ones). So, what is the answer to this challenge?  How can personality assessments such as the Quest Profiler® be used in a more scientific, responsible and fair manner?

The Scientific, Fair and Responsible Solution – Job Analysis with Job Match

Best practice in psychometrics tells us that in order to use personality assessments scientifically, we should first undertake a job analysis and be certain about the job competencies before we then move on to assess candidates. Make your assessment process as scientific as possible by undertaking a short, questionnaire-based job analysis before assessing the personality of your job applicants or current job incumbents. Our job analysis questionnaire will help you to consider and weight the most important personality, behavioural and competency-related components of successful individuals in the job under consideration. Following this, the Psychometric Portal® will compare your respondents’ profiles derived from the Quest Profiler® with your Job Analysis derived Ideal Profile.

A simple process for more scientific selection and development using personality assessments

Undertake the online job analysis

From the Psychometric Portal®, send out an invitation to the hiring manager or even the current job holder. The invitation contains a link for them to complete the Job Analysis Questionnaire Online. For those who are more experienced in psychometrics, we also offer a DIY option which is highlighted in the screenshot opposite. This option is particularly useful when a group of individuals need to consider the role. Once complete, simply save the Job Analysis and produce the Job Analysis report if required at this stage.

Candidates complete Quest Profiler® Online Personality Assessment

An invite is sent for all candidates to complete the Quest Profiler®. You may choose to have as few or as many candidates complete this step as you like.

Produce the Job Match Report

Once all candidates have completed the Quest Profiler®, you are ready to produce the Job Match Report.

The report shows you the scores for your candidates on the areas of Behaviour/Competence related to your own custom Job Analysis. The background of each score is coloured based on degree of match (red for little or no match, green for an ideal match and blue where the candidate displays a characteristic more-so than required by the idea profile).

Note that producing the Job Match report represents a significant cost saving over producing full personality assessment reports for all candidates. Whilst other test publishers who do not offer this Job Match feature need to charge for full personality assessment reports, we only charge for such reports when you actually need them. So, should you decide to proceed perhaps to an interview with let’s say 10 of the 100 candidates whom you assessed, you can then produce the more detailed reports for the 10 shortlisted.

  • Weak 29.9% 29.9%
  • Moderate 49.8% 49.8%
  • Strong 19.8% 19.8%
  • Very Strong 0.5% 0.5%
  • Exceptional 0% 0%

Match Distribution For The Role

The distribution of matches to the left indicates how likely a participant is to match the competencies and behaviours identified for the role weakly, moderately, strongly, very strongly or exceptionally. For example, if 20% of participants are likely to match the role exceptionally, then approximately 1 in 5 candidates will be extremely suitable for the position. This serves as a check as to how stringent or lenient you have been in considering the job requirements and thus how likely to you are in reality to find candidates who match your requirements.

More details about Job Analysis and Job-Personality Match

In order to use our Personality Assessments independently, you need to have a recognised certification in Personality Assessment or the BPS Level 2 Personality Test User Qualification. Alternatively, you may consider or attending our Online Basic Psychometrics Course: Psychometrics for HR Decisions.

If you do not hold such qualifications, please consider having our psychologists manage the process on your behalf.

If you don’t have a certification in personality assessments, don’t worry, our psychologists can handle the above process for you.  Once everything is completed, we will send you the reports and arrange a telephone or skype session to take you through the reports to ensure understanding and effective use.