Critically assess the reliability of the various methods that could be used to gauge a candidate's personality during the recruitment process.

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Behavioural Science (BS 1525) Essay

Business Studies with Japanese

Lecturer: Mr H. Barton

Words: 1374

Critically assess the reliability of the various methods that could be used to gauge a candidate's personality during the recruitment process.

When screening potential employees it has become commonplace for companies and other organisations to use various, and in some cases quite advanced, methods of analysing applicant's personalities'. Many of these methods are however quite controversial and in some cases their reliability, in other words their ability to return consistent results when carried out a number of times on the same person (repeat reliability), has been questioned. Which one of the plethora of research methods including interviews, questionnaires, observation, case studies, action research and laboratory and field experiments is used, depends on which situation the testing is carried out in, and what kind of results are needed. What is however essential, is that the chosen technique is suitable to the problem in hand.

Personality tests can be divided into two distinct categories, nomothetic and idiographic. Both types attempt to assess attitudinal, interpersonal, emotional and motivational characteristics. Nomothetic tests, which aim to scientifically identify, compare, predict and measure personality, use self-report personality inventories. This type of test is used to handle large groups and would therefore be suitable to organisations during the first steps of selection. The concept behind these tests states that environmental and social factors are seen as being negligible; instead a person's personality is viewed as being genetically based which would render it less susceptible to change.

Various psychologists have proposed a number of different models to gauge a person's personality. These vary primarily in the number of factors that are taken into account. Popular among tests that are designed along the nomothetic approach are Cattel's sixteen personality factor (16 PF) test, Eycenck's personality inventory (EPI), Goldberg's five factor model and the Myers-Briggs Type indicator (MBTI).
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Catell (1965) set out sixteen factors that should be used when analysing personality. He decided on these factors, which are said to represent the source traits, by using statistical methods and observational data. So called surface traits, which are more easily observed, are determined by the source traits, which form the basis of any person's behaviour. The test itself consists of self-report statements on various personality traits, broken down into contrasting pairs such as suspicious and trusting.

Eycenck's EPI (1965) questionnaire is based around ninety yes/no questions that related degrees of introversion and emotional stability. The way ...

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