12 QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN CHOOSING A PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
Before hiring someone, wouldn't you like to know if the person is easy to manage, strives for success, works well with others, builds good customer relationships, follows through on assignments, offers innovative ideas, and thoroughly learns your business?
More than 2,000 test publishers and hundreds of companies provide employee selection and development services in the United States. Consequently, the problem of choosing a personality assessment that meets an organization's needs can be mind-boggling. What's the best solution: recommendations from peers, online research, evaluations in trade magazines? Even more importantly, how can one be sure that a personality assessment provider will supply tools that actually work as advertised? Hogan Assessment Systems has some suggestions. Hogan Assessment Systems pioneered the use of personality assessment for solving "people problems" in organizations. Its test validation research set many of the standards for employee personality assessment. Not all personality assessments are created equal; before investing in one, some sort of objective evaluation is well advised. Hogan Assessment Systems suggests 12 questions to ask screening providers about their business practices and personality assessments.
Below is the list of a dozen "must-ask" questions and our responses to each. Be sure to download the 12 question checklist to use while choosing a personality assessment system for your organization
1. What are the personality assessments designed to do relative to the needs/goals of the customer?
Hogan Assessment Systems' personality tests are designed to do three things:
- Evaluate the basic employability of an applicant.
- Is the person honest?
- Will the person come to work?
- Will the person be accident prone?
- Can the person provide competent customer service?
- Does the person fit the job?
- Extraverts are needed for sales positions
- Introverts are needed for long distance truck drivers
- Provide a solid basis for coaching around career development.
2. Is the personality assessment provider a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), Society of Industrial/Organizational Psychology (SIOP), or other professional organization that mandates ethical and statistical guidelines for creating personality assessments?
Drs. Joyce and Robert Hogan are Fellows of Division 5 (Measurement and Assessment), Division 8 (Personality and Social Psychology), and Division 14 (Industrial and Organizational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association.
3. Have the personality tests been reviewed in Buros' Mental Measurement Yearbook?
All of the tests offered by Hogan Assessment Systems have been reviewed (positively) in Buros.
4. Is each personality test supported by a test manual that is organized according to the standards outlined in the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures?
The test manuals for the Hogan Assessment Systems' tests are exemplary; they contain full information on the development and validation of the inventories.
5. Does the personality assessment provider supply technical reports containing competent validity studies (as defined by the Uniform Guidelines) using the personality tests in real organizations?
Hogan Assessment Systems has a library of technical reports containing competent validity studies, prepared according to the Uniform Guidelines, describing research conducted with adults in real organizations.
6. Can the personality assessment provider produce a summary of validation results for jobs similar to the one under consideration?
Hogan Assessment Systems can provide a summary for validation results for virtually every job in the U.S. economy.
7. What standardized validation process is followed before the personality assessment provider implements a selection test in an organization?
Hogan Assessment Systems scrupulously follows the procedures outlined in the Uniform Guidelines, as can be determined by reading any of our technical reports.
8. How are cutoff scores established for selection purposes?
Before cutoff scores can be established, it is necessary to demonstrate that the test is a valid predictor of performance in the job under question. Once validity has been established, cut off scores are defined, using bivariate plots, that maximize the number of true negatives and true positives for each score distribution.
9. What process does the personality assessment provider use to systematically evaluate the performance of the tests it recommends?
Hogan Assessment Systems encourages organizations to revalidate selection procedures on a periodic basis. The revalidation involves demonstrating that the test (and cut scores) continue to remain valid for the job under consideration.
10. Does the personality assessment provider maintain a research archive that can be accessed to confirm the results of individual validity studies?
Hogan Assessment Systems maintains an extensive research archive, searchable by outside researchers that can be used to confirm the results of previous validity studies.
11. What is the personality assessment provider's policy for supporting customers in the event of a legal challenge to the use of a test?
Hogan Assessment Systems will provide any customer with supporting documentation should the validity research, on the basis of which a selection process rests, be challenged.
12. Has the personality assessment provider been involved in any legal challenges of a test, and if so, what was the outcome?
Hogan Assessment Systems' suite of personality assessment, development and talent management tests are legally defensible. Our data has never been successfully challenged.
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