Psychometric Tests and Personality Inventories

The Five Factor hypothesis to personality differences is well known to those familiar with psychology literature. It represents a comprehensive conceptual framework for personality profiling that is used, among others, in recruitment and selection.

It assumes that individual differences in personality characteristics can be organized in terms of five broad trait domains:

Extraversion (E)

Agree-ableness (A)

Conscientiousness (C)

Neuroticism (N)

Openness to Experience (O).

Personality traits are thought to have predictive validity when it comes to important life outcomes, such as health and longevity, marital relationships or educational and occupational attainment.

For most managers, testing for personality traits can be an invaluable tool, especially during recruitment and selection, ensuring a good person-job fit. Getting this wrong, can have dire consequences.

There are two popular tools that are extensively used in this regard: MBTI (Myers Brigss) and DiSC.

Both DISC and MBTI are widely used assessment tools that provide insight into personality and likely behavior on the job. The DISC assessment is shorter (typically 24-30 questions for DISC as opposed to up to roughly 80-90 questions in many MBTI tests).

I'll expand on what each of these tools does in future posts.