Assessing The Assessor - Evaluating Personality Assessment Tools

Today, many organizations use personality assessment tools to assess their employees. But before deciding to use a personality tool, should organizations create their own “thermometer test”?

- Abhijit Bhaduri

Imagine someone walking up to a doctor with a new kind of device that claims to measure the body temperature. What if the manufacturer requested the doctor to endorse the new product? The doctor is the head of a hospital and her endorsement could mean opening up a new market for the manufacturer. How should the doctor go about taking that decision?

The doctor would check it for the safety and reliability of the readings, and calibrate it against thermometers used by the hospital. The doctor could check her own temperature a few times over the hour to check if the reading is consistent. In short, one would take all measures to check the reliability and validity of a product or a tool against the accepted standards.

Passing the “Thermometer Test”

Today, many organizations use personality assessment tools to assess their employees. Talent acquisition, job fit, and coaching, are all great cases for the use of personality assessment tools. After all, the leader’s personality is what gets reflected in his or her leadership style and can be a great source of understanding the organization’s culture. But before deciding to use a personality tool, organizations should create their own “thermometer test”. It is important to know that the test that one is using is capable of doing what it promises to do and have an expert psychometrician decide the “reliability and validity” of the tool.