Recruiting Managers Using Psychological Tests – Science or Politics

Studying psychology for some years in my past life did little more than add to my skepticism about how little we know about human nature. Yet there are whole businesses built on psychological theory – complex psychological tests which profess to assess the personality, skills aptitudes and IQ’s of job applicants. More amazing, companies actually buy their services.

I have been tested as a job applicant on several occasions, I have been tested for ongoing suitability in a job and seen people appointed and rejected on the basis of their performance. When I participated I did so because it was a hurdle on the pathway to promotion or job retention. I was nervous and tentative however, on each occasion – not about my performance, but about the politics which surrounded the use of these strategies and instruments – after all I was not short of university degrees and with over 20 years of performance history.

My concerns centered on the agenda’s of those who were seeking the information from the instruments. I was concerned not just about why they were using them, but whether they new much about their theoretical, empirical or supposed science behind the instrument. Mostly these people were managers with the unenviable job of finding people to fill vacant positions in their business. None of them to my knowledge had studied psychology at a high level, so they were depending on basic knowledge perhaps from management or undergraduate texts. Some of them had never been to university. They were placing their trust in HR departments or employment/recruitment consultants broking. It was rather like buying snake-oil cure-all from a traveling salesmen at the town fair – enticingly marketed and beyond verification given the complexity of factors which could effect the long-term outcome.

In the end I surmised that the use of psychological measurement instruments is more about politics and pseudo-science. politics in business is pretty much about covering your backside – handing over decision-making to a third party who has the perceived professional status and credibility to blind those that question their wares with the theory and statistics of pseudo-science.

In my experience, hiring people to a senior position is an unenviable task. A lot can go wrong, basically because its impossible to know whether the person has the skills and will fit within you culture until they’re actually appointed and operating in the business. Most managers know this, which is why they often prefer to promote the devil they know than recruit the one they don’t know who may fail and be difficult to remove at a later date. If a manager must recruit from outside the business, they need to manage the risk of an inappropriate appointment (in some countries for this is done through statutory or contract based ‘probationary periods’ after which time they employment can be terminated). If they can’t manage the business risk then they must minimize personal risk. The only way to do this is by absolving personal responsibility for the decision. Fear of an inappropriate appointment is the bread and butter of the snake-oil salesmen, because if they can develop a credible marketing strategy for their cure, their chances of a sale are high.

But what about the snake-oil itself. Take for example the psychometric test. This is basically involves describing intelligence or personality using complex ideas clothed in mathematical and statistical models. One that often pops up in business is the Myers-Briggs test which was developed by Myers and Briggs based on work by philosopher/mystic/psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Now this test assumes that people can be distinguished on the basis of certain ideas arranged conveniently as dichotomies, such as introversion and extroversion, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving and sensing and intuition. There are 8 dichotomies producing 16 personality types. People are assigned within personality types using a questionnaire comprising some 90 questions (depending what country you live in) and a complex analytic process. The test has been criticized on the basis of its validity (no-one really understands what its testing) and its reliability (if you test someone twice they might be assigned two different personality types). The criticisms are somewhat complex and that in itself is a problem for anyone trying to understand it.

Nevertheless, one of the stunning aspects of the Myers_Briggs is the number of people who have devoted their lives to substantiating it. And so it is not unusual for corporations still pull out the Myers-Briggs test and I don’t advise criticizing it in front your manager if they are excited about it – you will risk being labeled not a team player.

Of course, Myers-Briggs isn’t the only snake-oil instrument, although for example, the Personality and Preference Inventory is a little less formidable in that it merely professes understanding of an individual rather than compariing people. One of the more onerous instruments in a business context is the IQ test about which more seems to be uncertain than certain. A most complex area, the IQ test should really be kept out of the business arena and chained to academia where it can be mulled over with little risk of any consequence. Rest assured if anyone ever wants you to take one that an article published in the Journal American Psychologist in 1995 which reviewed the current state of play regarding IQ tests at that time concluded among other issues that standard tests don’t measure areas of intelligence such as creativity, wisdom and practical sense among potentially others. I’ve found each of these to be valuable assets in employees, particularly managers.

In a nutshell, all these tests are built on some really complex mathematics and some really imaginative ideas. There are only a few really clever and dedicated people who understand these intricacies and even fewer who don’t have their reputation (and lively hood) dependent on the acceptance of the tools in the broader society. This makes it very difficult for the lay person to actually find the truth about their value, and so provides a means for them to be used in the web of business politics.

It’s never easy when the HR Department or Executive Managers bring in the psychologists to evaluate recruits or promotions, or other areas of employee fit and suitability. It certainly isn’t easy to navigate the the tests and assessments and the issue is whether the ability to do this effectively relates at all to the skills required to fulfill the vacant position. It seems that the higher the position in the organization, the more likely it is that these tools and instruments will be relied on during the recruiting process. If the appointing manager really believes this stuff then you need to think carefully about his or her ability (I’d be happier if they confessed to reading tea leaves frankly). On the other hand they might just be a good politician. The applicants challenge is to figure that out as quickly as possible.

And as for the manager who must recruit. Its not easy, you have to rigorously question referee’s, and check academic references and have a mechanism to end the relationship after a trial period. Perhaps the best thing is to mentor and coach staff who can potentially be promoted in the future. Personally, I would only use testing if I had to protect my back