Personality Testing In Employee Selection

Challenges, Controversies and Future Directions

Personality testing is a big business. It has an estimated global market value of £4 billion. There are now hundreds of vendors distributing and selling an array of tests - 1,319 at the last count - deployed across a range of applications. This book addresses the broad sweep of findings in the field to summarise the challenges and controversies for personality testing in the high stakes scenario of employee selection. It reviews the current issues:

Fundamental problems within the validation research. The realities of self deception and why we shouldn’t expect too much insight from self report measures. How faking in applicant scenarios affects selection decision making, and why solutions to minimise, detect or mitigate faking have largely failed. The lack of theory to connect personality to performance. The hazards of integrating personality test data within selection decision making and why the growing shift towards algorithms may be the problem not the solution to more systematic applications.

And the book highlights future directions for improved professional practice and business impact.

"A much needed, evidence based state of the union on personality testing in the workplace. Essential reading to balance the hype and disinformation flooding the market, it explains where we are with personality tests, how we got here, and what needs to happen next to put it right."

Nik Kinley, Director, YSC Consulting

"This book is seriously thought-provoking to reconsider how we approach employee assessment in the future. A brilliant book."

Paul Barrett, Chief Research Scientist, Cognadev Ltd.

"Who should read this book? Psychology students interested in researching personality. Test publishers wanting to improve their tools. Organisational psychologists who use or are considering adding personality measures to their selection processes. Consultants advising the former. Anyone interested in understanding what all the fuss is about."

Bruce Sevy, Founder Talent Strategy

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