Personality tests are great at providing context that can smooth interactions in your office, but they’re not necessarily a tool to use when hiring. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about fit and how well the candidate’s personality will work within your office. In fact, you want to nail these things, but this is not where a test like Insights comes into play.

When interviewing you want the candidate to meet as broad of a cross-section of your company as possible. And if you know the role demands a certain type of personality, then you drill down in the interview on that aspect of their personality. Maybe you need a project manager who has to drive the action or you need a creative who can do mechanical work and not get bored. More important than that, your office has an idiosyncratic culture whether you’re aware of it or not. This is especially true if your office is say smaller than 100. So, you need the right personality but that personality also must work within your framework. When you interview, you should trust your ability to spot this and, of course, see what others think. It’s really important, but different from a standard personality test.

A personality test comes into play after the person is hired. These tests tell coworkers how you like to receive information, and how you respond to different stressors. So if you have a bad interaction with a coworker and you want to figure out what you could have done better, now’s a good time to have a look at their personality test. Maybe you need to frame what you have to say better — it’s amazing how often this is all it takes for smooth interactions.

No one wants to the be the one who was responsible for hiring the guy no one gets along with. But a personality test isn’t the right way to avoid this. The best thing is to be as collaborative as possible in your hiring process and give everyone a chance to weigh in before you hire. Shared responsibility. It’s a good thing.

About NextGen

NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.