Using personality profiling in recruitment
Saville and Holdsworth's Occupational Personality Profile (SHL's OPQ) is one of the most widely used, best researched, and most credible mechnisms for understanding an individual's approach to work - their prefered style. But that is not the whole story. We are all aware of individuals (perhaps ourselves too) who act against their preferences, and who perform at a high level. How can preference and actual performance be disentangled?
The Background
We were asked by an international manufacturer to go this extra step - develop a process whereby OPQ could be used to give a means of predicting performance, to give a deeper and more critical assessment of an individual's ability, not just their preference.
What we did
OPQ analysis of a large number of individuals in the organisation indicated that successful performance seemed to be positively linked with some OPQ scales, and negatively with others. For this reason, a number of "no go" areas were highlighted.
On analysis of an OPQ for recruitment any "no go" areas on the profile are noted. These would indicate an individual's preference for behaviour that was not positively linked with high performance. For example, the candidate may show themselves to have dislike of selling, negatiating and seeking to change others point of view (ie low Persuasive), while successful people in the organisation show these qualities.
For each of these "no go" areas, a question was devised which asked the candidate to discuss situations where they had displayed the traits we sought, rather than their preferences.
If they were able to give powerful examples, we would conclude that the desirable traits may not be their preference, but when the situation demanded, they were able to act in this way. A tick in the box!
If they could not, then we would conclude that the behaviours we sought were not their preference, nor could they exhibit them when the situation demanded them. This would then remain as a query for their recruitment.
Nelson Griffiths Recruitment & Transition Limited - an SHL Partner.
SHL is recognised as the world-leading provider of psychometric tests.
SHL is recognised as the world-leading provider of psychometric tests.
The Outcome?
The HR team has always seen the power of OPQ, but now the line managers can see the direct relevance of OPQ to the process, as it gives them an idea of how the candidate is likely to behave in key situations.
Candidate engagement is also increased, as they can see that the assessment has been directly relevant to the needs of the role.