Small and medium businesses- I’m talking to you. Did you know that you could cost your company £50,000 by making a poor hiring choice? We’re not talking minor slip-ups here, we’re opening up about the big stuff.

Interviewing, screening, and hiring applicants can be extremely difficult. This is especially true when looking at companies that are still relying upon the traditional interview to make their selection of new employees. In 2021, this isn’t good enough. Here’s why.

We are all, unfortunately, victim to our own unconscious biases, whether that be hiring people with similar backgrounds, beliefs, or interests to us, or just ‘getting a good feeling’ about someone.

Sometimes, you might just know when someone is the right fit for your company. Actually, unless you’re a mind reader, or you own a crystal ball, you probably don’t know that much at all. However, appropriate testing strategies can reveal most of what you need to know about your applicants.

We’ve all taken some kind of personality test before, maybe to find out which ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’ character we are most like. Naturally, personality tests have the ability to go far deeper into the characteristics/ traits of individuals than this.

Cognitive ability tests, in addition to personality tests, are the best way to learn enough about the core values of your candidates in order to help you carry out a structured interview.

A structured interview can cater to specific personality types, and aid the screening of applicants, whilst eliminating those pesky biases held by the interviewer in question.

It also allows the applicant to shine in a way, as the questions can give them the opportunity to discuss their strengths as defined by their souls, not just their CVs.

Most of us believe that somebody’s work experience and education are central to reflecting on their predicted performance in a certain occupational role.

The reality is that although these are both important when considering certain skill sets and qualifications, predictors of performance and organizational health are much more reliant on someone’s values than you may think.

Have you ever taken a personality test for business-related reasons?

1. The Big Five-Factor Model- Openness, Conscientiousness, Emotional intelligence, Agreeableness, Neuroticism. Which trait would you imagine you’d score most highly on?
2. Myers-Briggs. This should never have been used for hiring processes, as it does not possess enough psychometric scientific information.
3. DISC- this is descriptive, not predictive. It’s also pretty outdated. However, read about the 4 main personality elements on my page (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue). It’s pretty interesting as people can easily identify their dominant personality types.
4. Cognitive ability tests- not exactly personality tests, but relatively good predictors of job performance. A variety exists, so specific skills can be measured.