I took the original version of the IPIP, which took about 30 minutes to complete. My scores indicated that I am high on the extraversion scale, high for agreeableness, average for conscientiousness, low for neuroticism, and high for openness to experience. These results do seem to fall in line with other personality assessments that I’ve taken in the past, such as the MBTI and the Wilson social styles. I assumed that I would score highly for extraversion, as I have scored as a very high extrovert in the MBTI in the past. I also assumed I would see a high score for openness to experience. Some of my favorites things to do include traveling to new places, experiencing new cultures, and eating new foods. I also like to read books about topics that I am unfamiliar with, and I take enjoyment out of learning new things. The fact that my neuroticism scale was low also does not surprise me. I tend to be a pretty level thinker who does not make decisions under impulse, and I try to not react very emotionally in many situations. I do not get depressed easily and I am not prone to large mood swings either. I was not sure where I would score in terms of agreeableness and conscientiousness, and I need to look into these two factors a little more in depth to truly understand what my scores mean there.
Coming form the perspective of a potential employer, I think they would see a few key items in looking at these scores. While I don’t believe the scores in and of themselves would be a good predictor of job performance, they may help the employer understand with a little more in depth how my personality might match or clash with certain people in the group, and they also might indicate what kinds of roles and work circumstances would either provide a positive experience for me and the company or a negative one.
I would probably look at the extraversion and openness to experience scores to get an understanding of where the candidate’s comfort level lies. For instance, if I am looking for a natural leader who is comfortable with working in a large and vocal group, I would likely prefer to see a high extraversion score. Similarly, if I was seeking a candidate who is challenged and enthused by trying new things, I would look for a high openness to experience score. If I had been burned in the past by overly emotional staff, I might examine the neuroticism score to get a feel for how the candidate makes decisions based on emotion rather than sound judgment. Moreover, if the position can be described as a high-stress atmosphere, I would look more favorably at a candidate who is not affected by those high-stress moments as much as a typical person would be.
The biggest challenge, however, is not typecasting the candidate based on their personality scores. This is one reason why I don’t personally prefer to have candidates take personality assessments as part of the hiring process, because I want to keep as open a mind as I possibly can while getting to know that person. Because these personality tests have been shown to not be highly predictive of strong performance, I don’t believe that they need to be relied upon during the recruitment and selection process. However, they can be a very strong tool in helping an employee understand one’s self, how they react to certain situations, and how others react to the same situations. If overall communication and synergy can be improved through these assessments, they can be very strong tools in the workplace.
5 replies on “Week 7 – Blog Post: IPIP Results & Reactions”
Highly score for highly for extraversion is the great character for contemporary employees in my view. A person who scores high in extraversion on a personality test is the life of the party. They enjoy being with people, participating in social gatherings, and are full of energy. As the colleague, such people can inspire others to work hard or come up with more creative ideas. As the service people, they can communicate with consumers well, which provides the reasonable impressions to them, thus possibly leading to higher ROI.
Hi Matthew,
I am strongly agree with your opinion of not typecasting the employees based on programmed personality assessments that tries to divide people into patterns. To think in that perspective shows true generosity.
In my opinion, you need a good balance of extraversion and introversion on the team. Great leadership comes from both sides, in my experience. While some roles may be more suited to extroverts, there are also many different opportunities that lend themselves more to introverts. We must be careful not to consider extraversion to equate to “good” while introversion to “bad”. This can be very dangerous.
Thanks!
-Matt
After completing this assessment I didn’t believe that this should be a tool that employers should use when hiring. However, I think that you made some valid points on how they should use it which I think is a great idea and something I did not consider! I think like you said using it to better understand a candidates personality and how they would get a long with others in the office would be great use of it. Or seeing how the deal with emotion and high stress situations. The only thing that I think might be difficult is trying to keep an open mind after receiving these results and not trying to base any important decisions off of them.
Matt,
You made some great points regarding how an employer could use these results. I would agree that personality tests shouldn’t be used to determine employment, but I do think they can be used to understand someone’s preferences. If you were a manager, understanding each of your employees can help distinguish better ways of training, motivation, or simply creating a better relationship.
Great post!