Questions to the employer…about recruitment.

“Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it!” - Tallulah Bankhead

Introduction:

When recruiting for new team members, what do you look for? Qualification, experience, age, gender, colour and English language skills?

Do your interview questions include Values, Culture and Behaviour?

Do you perform any kind of personality profiling prior to the interview or upon shortlisting?

Whether you perform the personality profile when deciding between your top 2 shortlisted candidates following interviews, or you perform them while upskilling your staff through Conflict Management training, there is merit in personality profiling.  

Personality ‘profile’ is one of the psychometric test types and these assist in learning more about your staff, in addition, help with staff retention.

The earliest personality test was developed by the U.S. Army during the First World War when they wanted to identify soldiers and their susceptibility to panic on the battlefield. 

Of the various personality tests “profile”, the better known include, Big Five Personality, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), DiSC, Hogan Personality Inventory & True Colours. The most used by 89% of Fortune 500, according to NeuroLeadership Institute (2023) being MBTI, despite coming under heavy criticism by Forbes magazine and others. Another popular personality assessment is the DiSC test. DiSC is a behaviour assessment tool based on psychologist’s William Moulton Marston theory and focuses on the behavioural traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness.

DiSC

If you as an employer/employee have not used the DiSC, it is worth a try to know and understand yourselves and employees better.

Using a personality test, like with anything has benefits and disbenefits. It is not a pure science and should be looked upon as an indicator. Why? Because we are unique individuals with varied traits, some stronger and some weaker. As such unique individuals, there are so many variables to consider to our behaviour and there are moments in time when we can be prone to react ‘out of character’ for our ‘usual’ selves. According to McCrae, Robert & Terraiano (2005) many of the more contemporary tests do assess the traits along a scale describing personalities across 50 cultures. There are over 2000 types of personality tests and as mentioned above, it is not a pure science and lacks the necessary validation.

Using a personality test such as DiSC offers insights into cultural fit, success in job placement and even performance. This would in turn ensure the employees are in the right workplace environment and of course minimise conflicts and maximise retention. One example of this would be if you were hiring a hotshot member for your marketing team. Someone who is a strong “i” trait would be ideal due to the way this individual can convince, influence and express enthusiasm. In addition, this individual thrives on group activities and relationships. Of course, one hope that the individual also has experience and knows a little something about marketing and the area where they are interviewing for. On the flipside, if you have a member of your sales team who is not having much ‘luck’ achieving KPIs face-to-face or on the phone but is usually a good operator who you don’t want to lose, you may offer him or her the DiSC profile so as to know why and what is the most suitable role for this employee. To add, both employer and employee will be guided on areas where upskilling is required, strengths to be developed and the communication style that suits the individual at the workplace. 

Having said that, relying solely on the personality profile is also risky. If an interviewee has done his/her due diligence, this individual will have practiced with a coach or researched how to answer certain interview questions. Therefore, a tendency to lie about their personality or know what the interviewers want to hear for that type of job is a possibility. Some questions asked in the tests may appear invasive asking about feelings especially when not specifically job-related or some questions are so transparent that applicants can fake or distort the score in their favour.

Conflict Management

During Conflict Management Masterclasses, using DiSC as one of the tools to assist the participant is particularly beneficial because it helps with the individual’s ability to connect with another especially in a conflict situation and of course in resolution of the conflict.

According to Dr. Brené Brown “The best thing to do when you're arguing is to not focus on winning, but instead to listen to the other person's story and address what he or she thinks is the source of the original conflict,”. In her research she says that a person’s ego will want to race to an answer in a tough conversation, even if it doesn't address the real issues. She adds that ego leads us to think I don't want to talk about this because I don't know how people are going to react.

When dealing with conflicts – whether at the workplace (or in a social situation) understanding one’s disposition using DiSC is important. When linking personality profiles, management or leadership styles and conflict management it is particularly crucial to keep the values of the organisation alive and continue with a healthy organisational culture. Utley, Richardson and Pilkington (1989) note the importance of both personality and situational (i.e. target) factors in understanding responses to interpersonal conflict. Take the following study in 2017 about nurses’ personality traits and their effect on conflict management strategies. Nurses often had conflicts with patients’ relatives and that “the personality traits of nurses were mostly ‘conscientiousness’ and ‘openness’ and when they had a conflict, they tended to use ‘integration’ strategy”.

Conclusion

Therefore, having a clear understanding of our individual personality profile will aid in the measure of how we see ourselves, and how others would characterize our behavior.

Using a DiSC profile when upskilling employees promotes staff, managers and leaders to get better outcomes professionally and of course improve customer service which is reflected on a positive bottom line. Communication flows openly, there is strong sense of community, behaviour is dynamic, team spirit is elevated and the organisation thrives.

McCrae, R.R. and Terracciano, A., 2005. Universal features of personality traits from the observer's perspective: data from 50 cultures. Journal of personality and social psychology, 88(3), p.547.

Mary E. Utley, Deborah R. Richardson, Constance J. Pilkington, Personality and interpersonal conflict management, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 10, Issue 3,1989, Pages 287-293.

 Barbuto Jr, J.E., Phipps, K.A. and Xu, Y., 2010. Testing relationships between personality, conflict styles and effectiveness. International Journal of Conflict Management, 21(4), pp.434-447.

Erdenk, N. and Altuntaş, S., 2017. Do personality traits of nurses have an effect on conflict management strategies?. Journal of nursing management, 25(5), pp.366-374.