Hiring “good” employees and employees that “fit”

Navigating the Business Landscape

Hiring “Good” Employees and Employees That “Fit”
Written by Douglas L. Griest, Ph.D., Psychologist and President of Management Psychology Group (MPG)

Why do some hires not work out? Many of you have hired employees who appear to be just what your company needed only to find out three months later that the person was not at all like who interviewed with you as a job candidate. A bad-fit hire results in a big waste of time and money for businesses. Even worse, hiring an employee who is disruptive, threatening or potentially violent is a situation no company wants to deal with. So, what goes wrong in a bad hire? Lack of experience? Wrong background? Inadequate knowledge or skills? Probably not. The problem usually involves personality.

What is personality and why is it important in the hiring process? Personality consists of core traits or dispositions or temperaments (primarily genetic in nature but also formed and solidified by early environmental influences) that to a large extent determine how we behave. In other words, if you understand an individual’s core personality, you will be able to predict with pretty good accuracy how that person will interact with people, carry out their job responsibilities, solve problems, handle setbacks and disappointments, etc. Wouldn’t that be nice to know before you hired someone?

Personality Traits
Current state-of-the-art research has identified five key personality traits which have been labeled “The Big Five.” They are:

Social dimension (extraversion): This determines how naturally outgoing we are. Some people need a great deal of social interaction and are comfortable in social environments. Others need very little people contact and may even be timid or a bit fearful of social encounters.
Emotional well-being: Some of us are more self-confident than others. Some people show emotions readily and others are “stone faced” and rarely change their expression. In addition, there are people who are predisposed to emotional outbursts or even violent behavior.
Agreeableness: This trait involves how easygoing and tolerant vs. how intense and potentially irritable a person behaves. Are you someone who goes through life in a fairly calm fashion or do you get frustrated frequently? As is the case with all personality traits, this can be an asset or a liability. Easygoing people may be easy to get along with but may also lack drive and determination. Intense and irritable people may be highly driven and goal-oriented but may also ruffle feathers or worse.
Openness to experience: This trait determines whether we are likely to seek out new ideas and think creatively or whether we are more practical-minded, efficient and conservative in our outlook.
Conscientiousness: This trait determines our core “modus operandi.” At the one extreme, people are focused, organized, detail-oriented, perfectionistic and compulsive. On the opposite end, people tend to be flexible, spontaneous, tolerant of ambiguity and potentially disorganized.

In the hiring process, there are two primary uses of personality assessment. First, and most basic, personality assessment is used to screen out potential problem employees. This type of assessment relates mostly to the “emotional well-being” Big Five dimension. As noted previously, there is a percentage of the general population who is predisposed to be emotional, highly reactive, stress-prone, paranoid, etc. These traits create numerous problems in the workplace ranging from work disruptions and interpersonal conflicts on the mild end of the spectrum to threats of violence and actual violence on the extreme end. While predicting these types of problems is not an exact science, screening for the potential for these problems to occur can be done accurately and reliably.

Once potential “bad” traits have been screened out, the second use of personality assessment involves gauging the fit between an individual and the specific requirements of the job and the organizational culture. Here are a few examples. Some jobs require a highly process-oriented and systematic decision-making style. Accounting and engineering jobs are two examples. On the other hand, sales and marketing jobs typically require a more creative, fluid and flexible approach. In addition, some roles are best suited to focused and detail-oriented personalities while others require broad global thinking. From a cultural standpoint, many organizations are very sociable and collaborative in nature. Other cultures require less collaboration and more independent functioning. Additional cultural dimensions include work pace, stress level, conflict orientation, risk-taking and openness to change, to name a few.

So, how can you hedge your bets that you don’t hire problem employees or employees that don’t fit the requirements of the job or the culture of your company? In addition to multiple interviews and good interviewing techniques, psychological assessment can help. Organizational psychologists are trained to assess the personality traits (Big Five and more) of job candidates prior to hiring. The process involves a background interview with a licensed Ph.D.-level psychologist and the use of a battery of personality instruments. Assessments require about four hours and yield an accurate picture of the candidates’ personality. This additional data can significantly increase hiring accuracy thereby reducing costs in the long run resulting from mis-hires that don’t fit the job/culture as well as screening out potentially disruptive or violent employees.

If working with an executive search firm, ask if a personality assessment is offered. For example, Signium International’s United States offices (Atlanta, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Austin and Cleveland) offer the DiSC behavioral assessment. The DiSC instrument helps consultants assess how the candidates compare with other executives and assists consultants in formulating additional questions for the interview process. The report is available to clients. •

Reach Douglas L. Griest, Ph.D., Psychologist and President of Management Psychology Group (MPG), at (404) 237-6808 or dgriest@mpgpc.com.

Visit MGP at www.managementpsychology.com. For information about the DiSC behavioral assessment, please contact Glenn G. Anderson, Jr., Managing Director of Signium International’s Cleveland office, at (216) 241-0158, ext. 103, or ganderson@signium.com.

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