Companies Using Personality Tests for Making Hires That Fit

Like a growing number of white-collar workers, Stacy McCullough discovered that an interview and a resume review are no longer the only hurdles to landing a job in today’s competitive marketplace. Today, workers going for mid- and upper-level management or sales positions are increasingly likely to have to take hard-to-fool psychological exams as well.

When McCullough applied to work at Pasadena-based Sullivan, Kelly & Associates Inc., a medical malpractice insurance brokerage firm, she took a two-hour test to determine how psychologically fit she was for the job. The test revealed she didn’t have the aggressive traits needed to excel as a broker, but it helped the company steer her into a job that made the most of her skills.

“Some people are good at sales and some people aren’t,” said McCullough, who is now assistant vice president of administration and human resources at the same firm. “You don’t want to be out there selling if you’re not.”

Indeed, more companies are looking at tests as a tool to reduce the incidence of hiring mistakes.

Bad hires are expensive, said David Goodenough of Goodenough Associates, a Seattle-based human resources consulting firm that does psychological testing. “It costs 1 1/2 times the person’s annual salary just to get a new person to start. Turnover is costly economically and it’s costly in terms of morale.”

In addition, bad hires may leave companies open to expensive wrongful-termination lawsuits, said human resources specialist Philip A. Barquer of H.R. Alternatives in Irvine.

Increasingly, companies are finding that an individual’s past performance may not be the best predictor of success, because work requirements are changing so rapidly. Instead, companies are looking for new ways to assess intangible skills, such as how people work on teams, how organized they are or how strategic they are in their thinking, said Barquer, who is also president of the Los Angeles-based Professionals and Human Resources Assn.

Although many employers like the tests, applicants aren’t always as comfortable. “Some people say they think it’s kind of weird--they’ve already made it to upper management and suddenly they’re being given a test,” said Barry Lawrence of the Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Va. “Their attitude is, ‘My experience should speak for itself.’ ”

Most candidates, however, accept testing as part of the hiring process, particularly for highly paid positions, Goodenough said. “These guys expect to be put through the wringer.”

And test advocates point out that sometimes testing can help a candidate overcome a lack of experience by showing he or she has the right potential for the job.

The tests range from standard psychological profiles, or “personality tests,” such as the 60-year-old Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to specialized tests such as the Caliper Profile, which has been developed specifically for use in hiring. New Jersey-based Caliper Human Strategies Inc., whose clients include Avis and the Los Angeles Lakers, has seen its business double in the last three years, and other testing companies report increases as well.

While some tests involve essay questions, most are based on multiple-choice resonses. A typical question on the Caliper Profile, for example, might be, “Choose an attribute that is most like you and one that is least like you from the following list: I am a leader; I am a very responsible person; I’m emotionally stable; I get along well with people.” The test has 168 questions, and the cumulative picture that emerges purports to be a good indicator of strengths, weaknesses and what motivates the applicant.

Companies are recognizing that interviews alone often aren’t effective at ferreting out underlying personality issues. A recent study by the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C., for example, asked more than 300 top executives how successful they were in picking good mangers. They reported that about a third of their hiring picks didn’t work out, said organizational psychologist Valerie Sessa, a researcher at the center.

Testing isn’t cheap. It can vary from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, depending on how extensive the test is and what position is being filled. “If you were going to New York to test the next head of Merrill Lynch, you’d be looking at $5,000 to $10,000,” Goodenough said.

But many companies find the cost worthwhile in reducing turnover. “People usually don’t get terminated for technical skills,” Barquer said. “Usually they get fired for their inability to get along with others.”

Executives who use the tests have reason to believe they work. At Sullivan, Kelly & Associates, for example, the company has occasionally offered jobs to people even when their test results indicated they wouldn’t be the best match. Company executives figured the candidates’ other strengths would compensate for lack of fit, McCullough said. “Usually, the test was right after all.”

Not all companies use tests, but many are incorporating some features of psychological testing in their hiring processes. PacifiCare Health Systems in Cypress, for example, doesn’t use tests but does include an interview with a psychologist in some of its executive selections, said Wanda Lee, senior vice president of corporate human resources.

“Today, in upper-level managers and executives, there is less emphasis on technical, task or intellectual skills and more emphasis on conceptual, strategic and relationship skills,” she said.

Although her company doesn’t currently use the tests, “that doesn’t mean we don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said. ‘I think they do add value.”

And while people can sometimes act their way through an interview, it’s hard to fool the tests, which have built-in safeguards against “cheating.”

They are a good reality check on how someone appears in the interview, said Barquer. “You can’t fake your character.”