The Importance Of Personality In Recruitment And Selection Process

Matching Personalities to Jobs

Question:

Discuss about the Importance of Personality in Matching People to Jobs for Recruitment.

For all organizations, the recruitment and selection process is a critical stage that allows them to get the best candidates who will form part of their long-term future. Along with academic qualification and experience, most companies are always on the look for people whose character and personality resonates with the company’s principles, values and behavior. Consequently, the need for personality in recruitment has grown upon realization that it plays an important role in getting the right crop of employees who will move the organization forward in the long-term. Unlike in the past, the current processes of recruitment across organizations place more emphasis on the application of various parameters such as personality tests in acquiring employees with the appropriate personality to fit in the company’s vision.

The concept pf matching personalities to jobs became more popular in the 1990s in the aftermath of the dot.com era whereby people rushed to internet companies for newer challenges which later turned out to be unsuitable (Daft & Marcic, 2006). This period gave rise to the job-fit concept that is the foundation of the fundamental role of personality in matching people with jobs during the recruitment process. Job-fit enables managers and organizations to hire people who are well suited to the task (Daft & Marcic, 2006). By subjecting people to various processes that visualize their character, managers are better placed to have the right people with the right attitude who fit in the company’s profile. Keeping in mind the criticality of the selection and recruiting processes, it is compelling that the human resource management team gets people who share the same ideals, values and vision with the company so that their productivity works well for the firm once they resume their responsibilities.

Another importance of personality in the selection process is that it enables managers and organizations to spot potential strengths and weaknesses of each candidate so that they can place them in the right job designation (Lievensn & Chapman, 2010). In this context, personality tests and anticipation of one’s perceived weaknesses and strengths become a crucial tool for the selection panel to scrutinize and place each  successful candidate in a job they are likely to exploit their full potential. This concept can be understood better in relation to the Theory of Purposeful Work Behavior (also referred to as the Five Factor Model of Personality). According to the theory, personality traits are a foundation for individual goal setting and the core traits interact with job characteristics to yield job satisfaction and personal struggle to fit in roles within the broader structure (Barrick, Mount & Li, 2013).One of the pillars of the model that can be applicable in the recruitment process is Openness to Experience. In this regard, a person who scores highly exhibits strong creativity and responsiveness to new ideas and as such, they would be better suited to the research and development department.

Personality is critical in matching people to jobs since it is a predictor for work engagement and performance in the long-term (Bakker Tims & Derks, 2012). According to this concept, work is a broad process in which people of distinct personalities, traits and expectations pull together their knowledge and visions to yield optimum results for individual and collective excellence. Therefore, it is critical for companies to be ahead of their employees by predicting their proactivity and understand the correlation between these characters and future performance. Therefore, organizational management ought to have their foundation built on the abilities of their employees and most importantly, their abilities to cope with emerging challenges and stay productive. For example, one of the pillars of proactivity at the workplace is crafting which can be cited at the early stages of recruitment or when the employee has been assigned duties. Consequently, they can exhibit traits such as dedication, vigor and absorption which are pointers to potential job engagement and performance (Bakker et el., 2012). Therefore, by applying this model managers are able to spot the underlying potential which is a critical factor in engagement and performance of each employee.

Importance of Personality in Spotting Potential Strengths and Weaknesses

The use of personality in matching people to jobs is also important in team formation and success. This role of personality is a reincarnate of the five (5) factors of the Big Five Personality Theory (Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and Neuroticism). Whereas it is not practical and even ethically sound to have employees of similar character, personality plays a critical role in ensuring that the group is of the right composition with the correct chemistry to work together in teams and achieve the set goals and objectives (Bradley et al., 2013). All organizations thrive on robust teams and shared responsibilities among all employees and as such, personality plays a crucial role in the success or failure of these teams. When designing teams, individual character is key. Managers will use these as indicators of physical and emotional strength as well as the ability to deal with potential challenges collectively. For example, in the face of conflict, it is highly likely that groups with a majority of members who exhibit high levels of openness and emotional stability are likely to use the conflict to their advantage for future improved performance. On the other hand, teams with low openness and emotional stability are likely to be adversely affected by conflicts to the degree of lowering their productivity. This underlines the importance of personality consideration in composing teams at the workplace.

The application of personality as a job-fit tool plays a psychological role in dealing with workplace aggression. From mild interactions to intense behaviors, personality traits are critical in employees’ ability to cope with psychological setbacks in their line of duty (Taylor & Kluemper, 2012) .Consequently, there is a strong correlation between role stress and the five personality traits and each of them influences how individuals respond to psychological challenges and even better their performance afterwards. By placing employees in designations that they exhibit higher psychological strength and mental ability to overcome drawbacks, the organization is facilitating personal growth and continuity. Individual differences in personality are an enriching factor that managers ought to exploit to the deepest point and identify people whose vulnerability to workplace stressors provides the impetus for growth rather than a recipe for failure. In this context, personality is important both in the selection and development processes since most of the challenges emerge after one has resumed duty. However, it is worth noting that the responsiveness in this case varies from one person and job description to another and as such, there is little assurance that organizations have the capacity to consider all people and place them in roles that are in line with their abilities.

Personality is the foundation of organizational culture. Consequently, it becomes so important for managers to consider individual behaviors and ways of responding to certain situations since these aspects escalate into a persistent pattern or culture (Gardner et al., 2012). A recent study by Empxtrack showed that more than 85% of employers are looking for employees who are “culturally fit” as this abets employee retention and cultural continuity within the organization. An observation of one’s personality is thus considered an essential tool for assisting employers have the right people with the appropriate attitudes in roles that support their growth and demonstration of standards that replicate what the organization stands for. On the other hand, the consideration of personality in assigning roles enables employees to stay attached to the organizational goal setting and achievement as well as becoming a motivational factor. This is because they are likely to work comfortably in roles that match their expectations, capabilities and reasoning.

Personality as a Predictor for Work Engagement and Performance

The role of personality in job-fit is undisputable across the globe. However, the same concept is not void of counter-arguments. Arthur (2012), while underlining the importance of personality, points out that it becomes more misguiding and unduly stressed that organizations have to consider personality as a guiding tool for selection and placement. He argued that considering the duration of the selection and hiring process, it is highly unlikely that personality traits can be fully exposed at this juncture. As a result, basing job-fit on this process is tantamount to misconception. Secondly, personality is not rigid as it is affected by subsequent challenges and situations that emerge at the workplace. Therefore, employers will find it very difficult to use this as a tool that yields employees who will stay consistent throughout their stay in service.

Conclusively, personality is important for selection and job performance. It is within the discretion of any organization to apply any personality model in order to obtain a group of employees that are emotionally and physically fit to meet the company’s goals and expectations. Equally, personality is an incentive to the employees as it helps them overcome challenges and grow professionally. Thus, it is bold to affirm that the advantages outweigh the negativities and as such, personality is, and will rightly continue to form an integral part of selection and hiring. 

References

Arthur, D. (2012). Recruiting, interviewing, selecting & orienting new employees. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.

Bakker, A. B., Tims, M., & Derks, D. (2012). Proactive personality and job performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement. Human relations, 65(10), 1359-1378.

Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Li, N. (2013). The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 132-153.

Bradley, B. H., Klotz, A. C., Postlethwaite, B. E., & Brown, K. G. (2013). Ready to rumble: how team personality composition and task conflict interact to improve performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 385.

Daft, R. L., & Marcic, D. (2006). Understanding management. Cengage Learning.

Darsana, M. (2013). The Influence Of Personality And Organizational Culture On Employee Performance Through Organizational Citizenship Behavior. The International Journal of Management, 2(4).

Gardner, W. L., Reithel, B. J., Cogliser, C. C., Walumbwa, F. O., & Foley, R. T. (2012). Matching personality and organizational culture: Effects of recruitment strategy and the Five-Factor Model on subjective person–organization fit. Management Communication Quarterly, 26(4), 585-622.

Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the Big Five personality traits. Personality and individual differences, 63, 58-63.

Lievens, F., & Chapman, D. (2010). Recruitment and selection. The SAGE handbook of human resource management, 135-154.

Ployhart, R. E. (2012). The psychology of competitive advantage: An adjacent possibility. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(1), 62-81.

Sackett, P. R., & Walmsley, P. T. (2014). Which personality attributes are most important in the workplace?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(5), 538-551.

Taylor, S. G., & Kluemper, D. H. (2012). Linking perceptions of role stress and incivility to workplace aggression: the moderating role of personality. Journal of occupational health psychology, 17(3), 316.