Essay on Matching personality Traits

Personality traits refer to those stable characteristics of a person that describe their behavior. The higher the consistency of such traits the more important they are. The two most frequently used personality frameworks are the Big five model and MBIT. The Myers-Briggs type indicator is the most famous one. Now a day’s major consideration is being given on hiring employees whose personality matches the organization’s personality in a way that the person who is being hired is compatible for the job. The reason why this is given so much importance is that it sort of assures that the performance of the employee that has been hired will be good an help the organization to achieve its overall objectives. Aptitude means the natural ability that people possess; they are actually born with that talent.  Matching the aptitude an employee with the job/organization can be useful as this tells the employer that whether the employee has the talent to perform the expected tasks or not.

This is very useful for jobs that require extraordinary or unique talents but it is no less important for the normal jobs too. Hiring someone who later could not perform a job well just because he/she didn’t had the talents that the company wanted could result in great loss for the company. The motivational drives refer to the factors that fulfill a person’s desires in a way that they are willing to do something to achieve it. A company needs to know that the employees that it is hiring have motivational desires that the company can meet in the future. If an employee is not motivated enough it will not be satisfied with the job that could lead to lower productivity and other such issues. (Florentine, 2014)

This is the reason why it is important for company to create a match between the motivational factors that it can provide and the factors that motivate the potential employees. There are numerous ways through which employees can be motivated these can be broadly divided into two categories namely, financial and non-financial factors. Financial factors include pay and bonuses whereas; non financial factors include working environment, self esteem needs and relationships between employer and employee.

There are many motivational theories that have been created by renewed theorists. The main focus of all those theories is on how important motivation is. Keeping this in mind it is important to know the motivational drives of employees so that the employer can make correct use of them and motivate the person accordingly. If an employee is not motivated by financial factors example a rise in pay then no matter how much the employer increases its pay he/she will not be motivated. Such an employee might be looking for other factors in job that motivate him/her like reaching one’s self actualization.

This shows the impact of not knowing the motivational drive of a person as it is very clear that the resources of a company will all go to waste with no beneficial result being achieved. Temperament refers to the way an individual behaves or the types of emotions that are shown by a person. Discussing personal temperament can help both the interviewer and the interviewee. Once again the MBIT model or the Keirsey Temperament Sorter can be used. Let’s say that there is an open position for the job of a marketer in the company. Now considering the job requirements of such a post the employee needs to have good communication skills and needs to be an extrovert. (Sines, 2017)

 However, if the employee does not assess the temperament of the employee at the time of hiring them and accidently hires a person who is an introvert then both the parties are going to lose out. The company will not get efficient expected results whereas the employee too will be discouraged and frustrated. Similar argument can be carried forward for promotional and placement decisions in a company. An employee before being promoted to any higher position should be first assessed whether he/she have the required abilities and personality to perform well for that position.

All the above discussion leads us to the question that what is the cost of hiring a non- compatible employee. According to some studies replacing one employee can cost something around 50% or 400% of the departing employee’s annual salary.

On the other hand, we need to keep in mind that there can be some disadvantages of using such measures solely for hiring and screening employee out of the company. Even though the MBTI is an famous indicator used since quite a time now it is said to be flawed by John Demartini who is an human behavioral specialist.

a) For recruitment purposes there are various ways of communicating the personality traits needed in a person for the required job. Whenever a vacancy arises in the organization the position is fully analyzed and then a job description and job specification is produced. Job description includes all the needed description of the job for instance, the job duties and responsibilities. The job specification includes the skills or qualifications that are required for that specific job. The first step in hiring the right employee is advertising for the right employee. This is why the job specification needs to be written carefully so that it includes all of the qualities that the employer is looking for in an employee as this will attract the right person. (Pappas, 2017)

For instance, if the job requires a person to be a team player then it should be included in the job specification. That prepared job specification then should be advertised in the correct medium so that the relevant people see it and then apply. For example, advertising for a job in a bridal magazine would make no sense.

He claims that the model is flawed because it asks employers to put employees in one specific category however; the truth is that people exhibit different traits at different situations. For instance, at workplace people might be introvert but with friends they might be extrovert. The above discussion provides the importance but also the limitations of measuring personality traits of an employees. Hence, it is important the company should not only rely on these measures a balance should be created.

b) During the interview process the person being interviewed should be observed carefully so that their traits could be understood. The interviewer can ask blunt questions to provoke a quick response. They can also follow the practice of listening more than talking in order to understand the person better. There are basically four types of questions that can be asked form the applicat. These are to get an idea of different personality traits that an applicant may possess. These four types of questions categories are situational interviews, behavioral interviews, job related interview and stress interview. (Clark, 2004)

An example question of how situational interview are can be that: “suppose you were faced with the following situation.” An example question in behavioral interview can be that “Can you think of a time when….. What did you do?” An example question of job related interview can be that “Which courses did you like best in science school?”. However, there are certain ways that can be used to make sure that interviews that have been conducted are useful. These are that firstly, the interviews should be structures as this increases its validity level. Secondly, before interviewing a careful study needs to be done on what traits are to be assessed of the applicant. Thirdly, the interviewer should beware of committing interviewing errors in order to generate accurate results.

1. Trade needed in job:

 Job analysis is an important task. Job analysis refers to the process of collecting and analyzing the information about the requirements of the job. Then some written documents that are job description and job specification are prepared. These documents are prepared so that a clear picture is created of what the job is all about and what sort or requirements are needed in a person who applies for this job. The traits can then be written out from this process as it will clear that what type of a person can succefully undertake such responsibilities. For example, if the job is of a type that requires a person to have high levels of positivity then a person will good emotional stability will be preferred as that person will be less hyper vigilant and pessimistic.

 Another method is that if that job was previously being done by some employee then experience can be used to figure out that what to include in job specification and description. For example, in case an employee with higher empathy performed the job really well then that can be used as a guideline for determining future required traits in an employee. This is one way of validating that what traits are to be there in a potential employee. Moreover, guide can be taken from previous researches that are conducted from different job requirements. (Liveboldandbloom.com, 2018)

There are numerous studies that have been conducted in order to figure out that what traits make the best employees. An accountant job will require the employee to have good gripped on accounting in general and posses other traits like honesty and determination. Moreover, future goals of the business should be kept in mind when determining the traits that it is looking in future employees.

There are some main objectives that every business has these are the ones that every employee in the organization is commonly working towards to achieve them. Once these are clear then it is pretty visible why some traits can be extracted and looked for in the potential employees. For example, if the organization highly focuses on social responsibility then the potential employees should have the traits like they should be considerate and honest. One important task in determining these traits are that whether these traits are valid or not.

Validity is an important term that means how effective an approach is. All the processes that have been mentioned above that can be used in figuring out the relevant traits can only be valid if it increases the chance of hiring the right person of the job. Furthermore, interviews can be taken from people who are performing similar type of jobs in order to find out that what qualities they think that they possess have made their jobs easier for them and what short coming are there. From this information conclusions can be derived. Once the employees are hired then the accurate validity can be achieved that will help the organization to determine whether hiring the employees with certain traits was a good decision or not. (Positivepsychologyprogram.com, 2018)

2. Verification of Traits

Once the traits that are needed in the job have been determined the next step is to figure out whether the person coming up for interviews have those traits or not. As already mentioned the cost is quite high of rejecting the right employee. There are a number of personality tests that have been created by people that are used by employers all around the world to determine the traits that employees possess. These can be taken either on paper by calling all the applicants at any certain day or they can be taken online as well. The benefit of taking them online is that often the results are easier to generate. A scale can be created from let’s say 1-5 where the applicants will for each question select that where they think they lye this can be then used by employers to figure out their personality traits.

The Big five inventory (BFI) can be used for this purpose. BFI basically have five dimensions of personality. The first is extroversion vs introversion these basically measures that how energetic, sociable, outgoing or enthusiastic an applicant is. Second dimension is agreeableness vs. antagonism. The correlated traits that can be found from this dimension are that how forgiving, sympathetic, stubborn and warm an applicant is. Third dimension is conscientiousness vs. lack of direction. This tries to find out that how organized, efficient, thorough and achievement striving an applicant is.

The fourth dimension is neuroticism vs emotional stability. This measures the level of shyness, impulsiveness and vulnerability that an applicant possesses. It also to some extent shows how moody the applicant can be. Lastly, the fifth dimension is openness vs closeness to experience. This dimension also reflects on how curious, excitable, imaginative and artistic the applicant is. A scale can be set up from 1-5 in which 1 means that the applicant disagrees strongly, 2 means disagrees a little, 3 means neither agree nor disagree, 4 means agree a little and lastly 5 means agree strongly. (Judge, 2006)

Some general questions can be written down that will ask the applicant to rate themselves following the scale from 1-5. These questions should be structured in a way that all the five dimensions are covered. Some examples of questions can be that on a scale of 1-5 how talkative the person thinks he/she is? Or on a scale of 1-5 how reserved they think they are? Once all the questions have been answered then the final score can be calculated. Reverse scored items can also be used.

Other tests include Sixteen Personality factor questionnaire, Comrey personality scales, and Minnesota Multiphase personality Inventory (MMPI). Comrey personality scales were developed back in 1970. These include eight main scales along with two validity scales. The scale is from 1-7 and there are a total of 180 items. Minnesota Multiphase personality Inventory (MMPI) includes over eight scales that measure different aspects of personality. Lastly, the Sixteen Personality factor questionnaire can be used to measure emotional stability, behavior and anxiety issues of an applicant.

Ay of the methods above mentioned can be used in trying to figure out that what traits do the applicant possesses. Other than these some observations and situational tests can also be used. For instance, the applicant can be observed about how he/she reacts to certain questions that may be structured to provoke quick responses. Moreover, they can be given a situation and asked that how would they react if such and such occurs. An example of this can be if an applicant is asked that how he would react if one of the main suppliers refuses to work further with the company. In case the applicant answers this by saying that he would look for other supplier that offers better rates then we can conclude that the applicant is confident and risk taker.  (Komarraju, 2011)

References of Matching personality Traits

Clark, S. (2004, September 12). Can a 'temperament' test help in hiring employees? Retrieved from https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2004/09/13/smallb3.html

Florentine, S. (2014, December 22). Are Personality Assessments Effective Hiring Tools? Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/2861657/it-skills/are-personality-assessments-effective-hiring-tools.html

Judge, T. A. (2006, December 07). THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS, GENERAL MENTAL ABILITY, AND CAREER SUCCESS ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1999.tb00174.x

Komarraju, M. (2011). The Big Five personality traits, learning styles, and academic achievement. 51(4), 472-477.

Liveboldandbloom.com. (2018). List Of 600 Personality Traits. Retrieved from https://liveboldandbloom.com/02/self-awareness-2/list-of-personality-traits

Pappas, S. (2017, September 7). Personality Traits & Personality Types: What is Personality? Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/41313-personality-traits.html

Positivepsychologyprogram.com. (2018, May 11). Positive and Negative Personality & Character Traits . Retrieved from https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/character-traits/

Sines, D. (2017, July 26). Why Recruiting for Personality Matters. Retrieved from https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/why-recruiting-for-personality-matters/