Ivancevich Case Study 3.1

Ivancevich Case Study 3.1

Personality tests can be useful for employers. These tests can provide insight into possible strengths and weaknesses of potential employees, as well as information about how the applicant could work individually or within a group setting. However, there are some significant weaknesses to personality tests. Most notably is the fact that these tests give information about the test taker based on the responses he or she gave on the test. The same person could get two very different outcomes about his or her personality based on the answers given. There are better tests which make it more difficult for test takers to fake answers, but there will always be the weakness that the outcomes depend on the honesty and genuinely authentic answers given by the test taker.

In case study 3.1, Mark decided to not use personality testing when hiring an individual to become the new software engineer for his company. In my opinion, he made a mistake by not using the personality test. Although there are weaknesses (as stated earlier) to using personality tests, they can provide valuable insight into the psychology of an applicant that might not be apparent in a resume or interview. For example, a personality test might cover aspects of a worker’s psyche, such as their values and ethical beliefs, which would be difficult to discuss in an interview. A person being interviewed might stumble and make up an answer is that “sounded good” to the interviewer if asked directly about an ethical issue, but a well-worded test would get the true answers without the applicant being able to smooth-talk his or her way through the interview and tell the interviewer only what he or she wants to hear.

Before I was hired for my current position, I had to undergo three different psychometric and aptitude tests. First, I needed to take a basic skills test which covered subjects like mathematics, English grammar, and reading comprehension. My employer wanted to...