Employee Personality Type Tests

Where to find the tools for personality testing for employees in your business

"Who are you?" asked the Who in their song of the same name. Often, employers want to know who their employees and prospective employees are and turn to employee personality assessments to find the answers. According to David Keirsey, in his book Please Understand Me, personality is divided into two areas: temperament, a set of behaviors to which one is pre-disposed; and character, a set of habits one follows. While habits can be determined through observation, identifying the underlying temperament is the goal of employee personality testing.

Personality testing for employees is available in both printed and online formats, allowing it to be administered by human resource specialists or self-administered by anyone wishing to have greater insight into his or her personality traits.

Business personality tests may be given in any of the following situations:

1. Personality profile testing before hiring a candidate to determine if the prospective employee will fit into the corporate culture.
   
2. Personality testing in corporations before assembling a work team to ensure that the prospective team members will work well together.
   
3. Employee personality assessment  before promoting an employee to a position of greater responsibility to ensure that the employee is suited to the contact that the position requires with superiors and subordinates .

 

Choose reputable personality test vendors

Look for vendors with experience in psychological testing who will work with your company to choose the type of employee personality test that meets your business needs.
Try: Psychological testing experts Infinet Assessment, Inc. have provided business personality tests to companies nationwide since 1997. Their mainstay is the Pre-Interview Challenge (PICk) a customizable test to determine which applicants are most compatible with a position. Profiles International also earns high marks for its tools to assess prospective employees’ abilities and interests and the quality of its customer service. The Association for Psychological Type International offers a network of experts in employee personality testing and the application of those results.

Consider online employee personality profile testing

Online testing is an excellent option for small companies or companies that wish to handle as much of the pre-interview process online as possible before meeting with the interview candidate.
Try: The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is an online assessment based on the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Index that organizes the 16 Meyers-Briggs types into four major categories (Guardian, Rational, Idealist, Artisan) with four subcategories for each for easier understanding. ANSIR offers the 3 Sides of You Self Perception Profiling System, a personality test to identify employees’ strengths in thinking, work and emotional intelligence, and a set of software tools to interpret its results. Axiom Software offers both downloadable personality testing software and online assessment tools.

Join a professional organization for employee personality testing administrators

Professional organizations provide access to a diverse group of experts in the types of personality tests, their administration and their application to various types of businesses and positions.
Try: Founded in 1979, the Association for Psychological Type International is open to anyone interested research on personality types and the ethical applications of that research. Members hold positions in business and industry, religion, education, organization development,  counseling and psychotherapy. The APTi provides international conferences, regional conferences and local chapter meetings as well as assorted training programs.

 

• Provide yourself or the person you are administering an employee personality test adequate time to take the test and freedom from distractions during that time.
• Respond honestly and to the best of your ability on employee personality assessment questions. Choose the answer that reflects who you are, not who you want to be or who other people think you want to be. If two answers seem equally apt, pick the one you like better. There are no right or wrong answers.
• Never use the results of an employee personality assessment as the sole reason to hire or fire someone. Employee personality testing should be used in conjunction with skills evaluation and personal interviews to determine an employee's fitness for a particular position.

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