Personality assessment tools are psychological instruments to measure the personal characteristics. They are built upon frameworks & constructs that assess human personality with the utmost ease & accuracy.
Personality assessment tools are prescribed to recognize test-takers’ personality type and their dominating personality traits. These insights enable better decisions in applied settings. Personality assessment tools are widely used in career planning and employment-related decisions.
Personality assessment tools help recruiters filter the right candidates seamlessly and enable companies to choose the right talent. The assessment tools help employers better understand the candidates and improves the team’s overall productivity and effectiveness. Various personality assessment tools, such as the Big Five Personality Tests or the Myers-Briggs Type indicator, unveil a candidate’s behavioral aspects: motivation, emotional intelligence, compatibility, performance, values, preferences and cognitive ability. When used for hiring, these personality tests help talent acquisition experts narrow down candidates with the most potential.
Personality test tools can help both employers and employees in the following way:
| For Employers | For Employees |
|---|---|
| Find aspirants with roles that best match their abilities, behaviors and personality | Find your strengths and weaknesses and work on them for better career opportunities |
| Ensure the chosen candidate fits the culture and expectations of the role and the organization | Find the best-suited organization for your talent, that acknowledges, appreciates, and develops your potential |
| Simplify recruiters’ tasks by helping them filter out unsuitable candidates and find the right talent | Understand the vision of the organization and the competencies it values, to better align or plan your future |
A personality test software is used for integrating technology into the recruitment process, which makes it convenient for organizations to find, hire, develop and engage talent. By combining the personality assessment with a digital platform, recruiters can streamline their hiring process and make well-informed hiring decisions. An integrated personality assessment software can allow candidates to take tests online at a time and place of their choosing and help organizations deliver a great candidate experience.
There are many personality assessment tools being used in the market today. However, not all of them come through on validity and reliability. To ensure that you have a ready list of the best personality assessment tools available today, you can choose any of the following:
MPM, one of the most comprehensive personality assessment tools, provides an in-depth measurement of an applicant’s vital work-relevant personality traits and behavioral tendencies. It’s a robust tool that provides comprehensive 28 personality facets critical for work-related outcomes.
It measures personality via a unique and innovative 28 facet and a four-factor structure of personality beyond the well-established Big Five Model of personality. The personality test for the recruitment model uses five broad personality trait categories to describe people. Behavioral tendencies are broadly categorized into four factors:
The figure depicts the Reliability and Validity of the MPM:
Employers use this personality assessment tool for hiring and development. It can be used to measure a candidate’s bright-side personality traits. The test determines whether the candidate possesses the necessary traits to fit the company’s culture and standards. It is also an ideal personality test tool to strengthen leadership development, succession planning, employee selection and talent management process. It is based on the Big 5 Personality test and identifies the candidate’s values, motives, goals, interests and work environment with which they are most comfortable.
Hogan Personality Inventory comprises 7 primary scales and 6 occupational scales.
| Scale Name | Personality traits |
|---|---|
| Service Orientation | Pleasant, attention to detail and courteous to customers |
| Stress Tolerance | Calm and composed under pressure |
| Reliability | Honesty, positive organizational citizenship |
| Clerical Potential | Meticulousness, self-discipline and the ability to communicate clearly |
| Sales Potential | The ability to solve problems for customers, social skills, energy |
| Managerial Potential | Leadership ability, decision-making skills and planning |
MPP is one of the best personality assessment tools available on the market today. It is an innovative personality test for recruitment that measures an applicant’s personality traits required for critical work. It helps recruiters predict an employee’s behavioral competencies and access the otherwise hidden information about a job applicant. These competencies also help predict job performance at work.
It is based on the well-established ‘Big 5 Personality test’ model and the corresponding facets aligned to the bright side of human personality. The personality traits predict essential job-related outcomes such as job performance, a person’s potential for burnout, his or her trainability and subsequent job satisfaction.
MPP uses the ‘semantic differential item’ format to reduce respondents’ manipulative responses, improving the assessment’s usefulness.
The figure exhibits the Reliability and Validity score of the Big Five Personality Traits:
Based on the Big Five Personality test, the personality assessment questionnaire helps recruiters determine the personality preferences in the workplace and behavioral expectations from the required job role. Moreover, the personality test tool for hiring determines a candidate’s future performance at work and leadership potential.
The test measures thirty-two performance-relevant traits classified into 3 broad categories – ‘Relationship with people,’ ‘Thinking Style and Feelings,’ and ‘Emotions.’ Candidates have to choose the most or the least relevant statement that describes them from the block of 4 statements.
The Table Below Provides A List Of Personality Traits For Each Domain:
| Influence | Outspoken, Controlling, Persuasive, Independent-minded |
| Sociability | Affiliative, Outgoing, Socially confident |
| Empathy | Democratic, Caring, Modest |
| Analysis | Behavioral, Evaluative, Data-rational |
| Creativity and Change | Conceptual, Innovative, Adaptable, Conventional Variety-seeking |
| Structure | Detail Conscious, Conscientious, Rule-following, Forward-thinking |
| Emotions | Trusting, Optimistic, Tough-minded, Emotionally-controlled, Worrying, Relaxed |
| Dynamism | Competitive, Decisive, Vigorous, Achieving |
It is a pre-employment personality assessment tool that evaluates candidates’ non-verbal, abstract and cognitive abilities. A candidate has to answer questions like pattern-based multiple-choice questions that entail a matrix of 3×3 geometric designs with a missing piece. The candidate has to choose the right diagram from a set of five answers. DDI has an inventory of personality assessment tools, such as Leadership Assessment, Career Battery, Skills Test, Insight Inventory and Readiness Assessment.
DDI Leadership Assessment evaluates the candidate’s leadership skills required for management positions. A potential candidate with good management and proactive skills is considered for organizational and corporate development job roles.
DDI Insight Inventory helps recruiters identify a candidate’s personality traits and abilities in the workplace. These assessments have leadership insight inventory for mid-level managers and supervisors, sales insight inventory for sales positions and professional insight inventory for professional jobs.
DDI Skills Test assesses candidate’s concrete skills, such as Accounting, Finance, Retail, Software and Medical Industries.
Korn Ferry is a comprehensive workplace personality assessment tool that evaluates an applicant’s leadership potential and the ability to manage challenging tasks effectively. The personality assessment tool selects leaders for senior-level managers and executive roles. It measures components, such as learning agility, leadership traits, drivers, experience, awareness and derailment risks. The personality test for the recruitment tool identifies the 4 key dimensions that impact the leader’s job performance. These are competencies, experiences, traits and drivers. The 4 personality dimensions are imperative for organizational success, such as engagement, commitment, retention, leadership effectiveness and leadership potential.
Organizations may come across employees with hidden dark personality traits. Employers may not be aware of such traits, which can hamper team productivity and business outcomes. Mercer | Mettl has created personality test tools that measure the positive side of personality and identify dark personality traits that might be counterproductive in the workplace.
MDPI is a dark personality trait inventory that entails 6 dark traits. Recruiters can ascertain these 6 dark traits before hiring the right candidates.
Additionally, there are several factors responsible for triggering dark traits. Here’s a segregated list of industries and job roles into 3 categories in the decreasing order of risks:
The figure depicts the Reliability and Validity of the MDPI
Raymond Cattell’s work personality assessment system measures an individual’s personality attributes, such as anxiety, adjustment, emotional stability and behavioral problems. He created a taxonomy of 16 different personality traits that differentiate people’s personalities. The sixteen personality factor questionnaire is used in personnel selection, especially for choosing managers.
The 16 personality dimensions are listed below:
Trusted by more than 4000 clients worldwide, the Mercer | Mettl platform combines its subject matter expertise with state-of-the-art technology to revolutionize your HR processes.
Mercer | Mettl’s personality test software is a robust platform with a wide variety of personality tests to choose from. Psychologists and subject matter experts consider core aspects while evaluating human personalities, such as dark personality tests, positive traits, motivation, preferences, values and cognitive abilities and customize tests that imbibe and gauge your organization’s values.
Mercer | Mettl offers a suite of personality assessment tools to hire the best pool of talented candidates. Employers can evaluate the potential candidates’ behavioral tendencies, adaptability, and emotional intelligence required personality traits through various personality assessment tools under one roof. Some of the popular workplace personality tools offered by Mercer| Mettl are listed below:
Some notable features of Mercer | Mettl’s personality assessment system are:
Easy Customization: Talent acquisition experts can customize Mercer | Mettl’s offerings based on their requirements. The company offers customized tests for aspiring candidates where Mercer | Mettl lays down required competencies for any job role or position. Besides, the company designs an optimum test based on the right question types and personality tools for precise evaluation of competencies. The personality tests can also be tailored as per the candidates’ language requirements, catering to various geographies.
Comprehensive personality assessment tools for all roles and ranks, i.e., for leaders, front line employees, blue collar workers.
Role-specific assessments, such as:
Best-Fit Candidates: Mercer | Mettl’s personality assessment tools empower you to hire the best-fit candidates for your organization. The range of human personality test tools, such as the Mettl Personality Profiler, Mettl Personality Map, or Mettl Dark Personality Inventory, improves the quality of hires. It further improves employee engagement and reduces employee attrition.
Industry Leading Validity & Reliability: Our assessments are normed on a sample of 10,000+ respondents across different geographies – India, US, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, South Africa and South-East Asia (representative sample with different age, gender, job level, occupations).
Mercer | Mettl’s experts are a part of SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology): a premier membership organization for those practicing and teaching I-O psychology.
Cost-Effective Virtual Tools: Mercer | Mettl’s complete online suite of scientifically validated tools and assessments eliminate logistic hassles and reduce costs. The tools negate the requirement of a physical setting and add value through virtual means. They come with proctoring prowess to provide a secure and scalable environment.
There is no one best personality assessment, but tests based on the five-factor model are usually considered to more accurate than others. Some of the popular tests that follow the five-factor model are:
The results on the personality assessment can indicate how favorable one’s personality type and traits are for an applied setting. For instance, personality tests can significantly help young adults in finding a suitable career based on their dominating personality traits. If an individual is high on empathy, a career as a counselor can be considered. Similarly, in the workplace setting, the results of the personality assessment are used to match a candidate to a suitable job. A person with great interpersonal skills and influence can succeed in a customer-facing role.
Originally published November 9 2020, Updated December 6 2023
Working in the content marketing industry for 6 years, Surbhi has written interesting and creative content pieces on Digital Marketing, Technology, Human resource, Accounting software, Home decor etc. She shares her knowledge on several web-platforms like Digital Vidya, Pulse, and Social Media platforms. A mother of one daughter, she loves to spend time with family and pursue her creative stints such as sketching and singing.
Personality assessments are a method of identifying candidates whose characteristics match the role and organization’s requirements. Personality assessments help HRs make effective people decisions by placing people in positions suited to their disposition.
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