Personality profiling – with care

Personality profiling – with care

Personality profiling – used during the recruitment process –attempts to measure the candidate's major personality traits so as to create a unique character "fingerprint". The aim is to provide a greater level of objective detail than can be gained from traditional "measures" of suitability – the CV, the interview and the reference. It is considered to be particularly useful for senior posts where the candidates can be expected to be well-prepared and highly polished in dealing with these traditional techniques. Profiling is also considered to achieve a "soft" fit between candidate and organisation (ensuring that both are "made for each other")– increasing the chances of staff retention and job satisfaction.

However, as with all such approaches, the slavish use of personality profiling of candidates should be avoided. Personality profiling is best considered as a complimentary technique rather than as a replacement – it must be regarded as a servant and not a master.

There is a tendency (explicitly or implicitly) to create a benchmark profile,and then to pass or fail candidates against that. There may even be the temptation to short-list candidates from a CV and personality profiling, without an initial interview.

This just creates "profile-ism", where employers are effectively limited to a character-clone that will add no depth or variety to the working environment.

Although it probably does ensure that the candidate will fit in, when applied rigorously it avoids the new, the exciting, the stimulating. There becomes no room for the kind of employee who might spark "creative tension". After all, the most productive offices and organisations are not necessarily those where all employees share the same personality traits. Thus, the rigid use of profiling may result in low levels of tension and the kinds of effective working that arise from a relaxed workgroup, but it may mitigate against the kinds of performance breakthrough that can be created by a "creative irritant". With people, there are no "right" or "wrong" answers. All relationships are a risk.

This is not to deny a role for personality profiling. When used alongside other techniques, it can help create balanced workgroups; it can also be used in the "post-hire" phase to select candidates for specific teams and assignments. This is simply a plea to manage the role of personality profiling within a portfolio of recruitment and selection techniques. Temper it, as ever,with a healthy dose of common sense!