Possible applications of the big five personality traits testing in human resource departments?

Question

I am a multimedia artist who is interning in a human resources department of a casino resort. In the department we have daily meetings to discuss updates to both the orientation and the performance of the casino's employees.\n\nDuring the discussion I had an idea on maybe using psychometric ( big 5 ) testing for either helping in filtering out unfit candidates for certain positions or/and allocation of time or resources to certain to certain people or group's of people to help them in certain ways or identify problems as to improve the effectiveness of the staff. My questions are: 1. Can it be used in this way, or what other ways can HR use it? 2. How to go about using it? 3. Will it be effective? 4.Does there exists other companies that use psychometric testing or big 5 for there employees?

Answer 1

Hello!

Employers do frequently employ personality testing (13% per the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology, and a staggering 89 out of the Fortune 100 companies). The most commonly utilized assessment is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), based on the work of Jung.

While it has some good aspects, the MBTI is plagued by decades of questions regarding its validity (and utility), and in the meanwhile the Big Five, as you mentioned, has far better applicability and is well-established.

Having previously worked as a vocational counselor, however, I personally found the Strong Interest Inventory Test, which incorporates Holland’s RIASEC Hexagon Codes, as the most impressive in terms of actual validity, reliability and concrete applicability to the work environment.

I would first begin by familiarizing myself with onetonline.org, an official US Department of Labor site which actually contains numerous free resources in the way of career-based psychometric tests:

O*NET Ability Profiler

O*NET Interest Profiler

O*NET Work Importance Locator

Per O*NET:

“These instruments will help individuals identify their work-related interests, what they consider important on the job, and their abilities to explore occupations that relate most closely to those attributes. Users of the tools may link to the more than 950 occupations described by the O*NET database, as well as to occupational information in CareerOneStop. This allows individuals to make a seamless transition from assessing their interests, work values, and abilities to matching their job skills with the requirements of occupations in their local labor market.”

So, I would personally recommend you begin by taking those three assessments yourself, and then evaluating whether or not the questions are such that they will provide the results you seek.

I hope this was helpful; if not, please feel free to contact me and I’ll attempt to answer your questions more comprehensively!

Best,

Jessica