Examining Work and Life Other Reading # 1 - Melinda Re "Hiring Smart" by Maria Atanasov, Your Company, Oct/Nov 1998, pg. 57.

I Predict You Would Make A Good Manager

This article describes a ten-minute personality test called the Predictive Index (PI). 3,000 companies utilize this management tool for hiring and managing workers. The test aims to simplify hiring by providing companies with a snapshot of a candidate's personality, including strengths and weaknesses.

Interviewing, hiring, and training new employees is expensive and time-consuming. Hiring mistakes are costly. When it comes to hiring, companies want to get it right the first time. The PI can help match a person to a specific job. Each job can be analyzed in terms of the personality type that would be most successful performing this job. Then the personality trait of this job is matched to the personality trait of the candidates.

According to some of the companies using the test, it seems to be accurate in defining a personality. "It's 99.99% accurate", says the CEO of a company that has been using the index for two years.

Not everybody responds to the test in such a positive manner. One company quit using it after employees complained that they felt the test labeled them unfairly and thus limited their potential for growth.

The PI is not new. It was developed and available for sale in 1955. The test has received worldwide acceptance and is currently available in 61 languages. It has been administered to thousands of people.

The test does not come cheap. It costs an annual fee starting at $20,000, but does include a variety of personnel services, including leadership development and team development.

The PI shouldn't replace other methods of hiring. It should supplement standard practices of hiring, interviewing, background checks, and just plain good judgement and gut-feelings.

I contacted the company that developed the PI and received a copy of the test. The literature accompanying the test describes it as an "objective assessment technique based on certain fundamental assumptions of behavioral psychology". I did not receive the analysis materials for the test.

The one page test lists 86 adjectives on each of its sides. On the first side, applicants are asked to check off those words that they believe describes the way others see them in the workplace. On the back, they are asked to check off the words they feel really describes themselves. The adjectives range from what I would think of a positive trait -- well-liked, earnest and neat - to some not-too-nice traits, such as demanding, self centered and fearful. The results are analyzed in terms of four traits: dominance, extroversion, patience and formality. Analysts use the traits to come up with a personality profile.

This article caught my eye because I had just read about hiring practices in Fast Company and the subject was on my mind. This magazine focuses on small businesses, so it tends to be a little more valuable to me. Sometimes the ideas presented pertaining to huge corporations is out of my frame of reference and therefore not as useful.

I asked a recent extension hire how she would have felt if a personality test had been a part of her hiring process. She responded that she would not have been at all "put out" about it if she had received an explanation of why it was being administered and how the information would be used.

I discussed the test with an extension human resources manager. She indicated that there is a similar "list of words" in use for Extension Educator hires, but it is not really used as a "personality profile". The list is sent to four references for completion and becomes part of the application process. She sent me a copy of the Personal Characteristics and Abilities form. The words used on this form were very similar and in some cases, identical to the PI. I was amazed to discover that this document is in use, as I had never heard about it before.

I particularly liked the idea of the PI process. I thought that matching the personality of the exact job duties to the personality of the applicant was the most valuable part of the process. Just having an applicant's personality traits isn't as useful. You might know from a test that a person is methodical and passive. That may sound like good traits to have. But not if the job you are hiring for requires someone who is a persuasive extrovert.

Now I just have to cough up the $20,000 so I can find out which PI personality profile I am!

-- Anonymous, February 12, 1999