Academics: Psych Tests are Poor Indicators for Hiring

Psyched Out: Companies may want to rethink their use of personality assessments when recruiting and hiring, according to a group of five industrial psychologists. The five academics, whose conclusions were published recently in the journal Personnel Psychology, say psychological tests often show very little correlation to a person’s actual job performance. The tests themselves remain plagued by several limitations, most notably that there are no reliable means of ferreting out “faked” answers or other exaggerations by job applicants. One suggested improvement: permitting applicants to expand on their answers by providing clarifying details, as opposed to the one-word multiple-choice answers typically offered.