Get data-based personality insights to maximize organization

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Evolution has taught us that humans are driven by three main objectives: to get along with other people, get ahead in the social hierarchy, and find meaning in life. Individual personality differences have always determined how people approach these goals. In the modern working world, personality assessments provide essential insight into job candidates that cannot be uncovered by interviews alone. Personality assessments allow us to look beyond education, experience, and technical skill to predict how job candidates will perform in a particular job role; how they will interact with teammates, superiors, and subordinates; and if their values are aligned with the hiring organization’s culture and values. With assessment results in hand, employers can make strategic decisions about new hires and existing employees. Assessment results benefit assessment takers too. Results can help guide discussions around professional development and cultivate strategic self-awareness, enabling people to perform at their best, manage their professional reputations, and achieve their career goals.

You can think about personality in two ways: identity and reputation. Most assessments on the market measure identity — who you think you are. While this can be useful for introspection, we are generally poor judges of ourselves. For example, most people like to think of themselves as being good drivers. However, a trip during rush-hour traffic will show you that this is not true. In other words, we like to think of ourselves as the heroes of our own stories, but sadly that often doesn’t line up with reality.

In contrast, Hogan measures personality in terms of reputation — who others think you are. Reputation is far more consequential in the world of work because your career trajectory depends on how others evaluate you. For example, it’s how others see you and measure your performance that determines how you do in a performance appraisal or whether you get that promotion. 

Moreover, reputation is a superior way to measure personality for a few reasons. First, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. Second, reputation is easy to study; we simply ask other people to describe a person. Lastly, a wealth of research exists that links reputation to occupational performance. Therefore, focusing on reputation, rather than identity, allows us to predict job performance.