The Power of Personality Tests in the Hiring Process

After experiencing a mid-year resignation, a principal came to me frustrated and upset. This principal thought that a good interview process could have filtered out a teacher that didn’t have what it takes to be a good teacher. Another principal also considered her own shortcomings as a leader and wondered if her weaknesses had driven this teacher out in the middle of the year.

Of course, exit surveys won’t ever tell us anything worthwhile about why people really leave, but there are two things a principal can control when it comes to hiring and supporting teachers.

First, let’s tackle the idea of hiring.

In my interview process, I include a request to have the candidate take a personality profile. It’s never required, by the way, and I rarely use it as a way to filter people out. I use it for my top two candidates for any position.

Why?

There are two really strong reasons why ANY personality test will be beneficial in an interview process.

First, a personality test gives some information about a person that you can’t get in an interview. Their core beliefs and how they approach problems often don’t come out through interview questions.

Second, a personality test gives you a starting point for conversing about a person’s strengths and weaknesses in a less accusatory manner.

What does that mean?

Anytime we talk with someone about them, it is threatening. There is no way someone comes into your office, where you are waiting with feedback (critical or constructive) who doesn’t get at least a little twerked about the conversation. This fantastic Harvard Business Review article sums it up nicely!

A personality test gives you a third thing to talk about.

If you look at the picture below, you see that have a direct, face to face conversation with someone is challenging and is almost always confrontational. We try all kinds of things to make it “safe” and “less harsh” but it still is a confrontation - a meeting between two opposing parties.

Look at the next picture. The two people are not facing off anymore. They are seated side by side in a team approach, rather than a confrontational approach.

The Power of Frameworks

Because we in education put so much into our work, we take everything personally. It’s very hard for most of us to avoid that.

When you introduce a framework, you give yourself a way to talk about things so they are less threatening and you can actually have that conversation.

We already have lots of frameworks in education: PLCs, RTI, PBIS, School-wide behavior plans, and even some school/district policies.

Frameworks help us make sense of the world, and the personality test is another framework you can use in your building to help you have a framework for conversations.

When you give a personality test to a potential hire, you are saying something powerful.

In the beginning of the relationship, you are introducing a framework—the personality test—to serve as a way to put you both on the same team. It might still be confrontational, especially if it is a really hard conversation, but we can often explain things based on our personality that are different.

Using a Personality Test

After you have your top two figured out, you use a personality test to test the waters of difficult conversations. I have three simple questions that I ask whenever we use the personality test.

1. What did you think of the results? Accurate or not?
2. What part of the personality test are you most proud of?
3. What part of the personality test makes you cringe because you wish it wasn’t part of who you are?

The third question is the most important. It’s the first time they will talk appropriately about their weaknesses.

Even if you ask about their weaknesses in the interview, they will share only the weaknesses that make them look stronger!

Weaknesses aren’t deal breakers, but they feel like it in a job interview.

Which Personality Tests?

Tony Robbins is awesome and gives a shortened DISC profile away for free at his web site. The DISC is my favorite because I have used it the longest. There is a paid version, also, that gives the full test and results which I give to my mastermind and leadership teams.

16Personalities is a good one also. It’s fun, and give personality styles names. (I’m a campaigner, of course!)

It doesn’t really matter which one you get or use. What matters is that you have a framework for having those conversations with someone else.

If you have questions or want support on this, just drop me a line. I love talking about it with people.