Personality Tests for Job Interviews: How Employers Use Them and How to Prepare

How employers use personality tests

Hiring assessments usually serve one of four purposes, and asking which one applies tells you how much weight your result carries.

• Screening. Applicants below a minimum on certain scales are filtered out, or everyone is ranked. Common in high-volume hiring.
• Interview planning. Many vendors produce an interview guide from your scores, with questions aimed at your lower areas.
• Fit with the role or team. Your profile is compared with a target profile for the job, sometimes built from current high performers.
• Development after hiring. Leadership programs and coaching use the same tools, with lower stakes.

Tests you are likely to see

You may also meet the MBTI or DISC in workplace settings. They are mostly used for team building and development, and The Myers-Briggs Company states that the MBTI should not be used to select job candidates. For why, see Big Five vs MBTI.

What the research says they predict

Murray Barrick and Michael Mount’s 1991 meta-analysis found Conscientiousness predicted job performance across occupations, and Extraversion predicted it in sales and management. The effects are modest. Paul Sackett and colleagues (2022) re-estimated selection validities and put Conscientiousness at about 0.2, against about 0.4 for structured interviews and about 0.3 for cognitive ability tests.

Psychologists disagree on how much that is worth. Frederick Morgeson and colleagues (2007) argued that validities this low, combined with faking, make personality tests a weak selection tool. Deniz Ones and colleagues replied the same year that personality adds information interviews and ability tests miss, and shows smaller differences between demographic groups than cognitive tests do. Either way, your score is one input, not a verdict. For a broader look, read how accurate personality tests are.

Can you fake it, and should you?

People can raise their scores when they try. Chockalingam Viswesvaran and Deniz Ones (1999) found that instructions to fake good moved scores by roughly half a standard deviation or more. Real applicants do some of this: Scott Birkeland and colleagues’ 2006 meta-analysis found job applicants scored higher than non-applicants, especially on Conscientiousness and emotional stability.

Four reasons faking is a poor bet:

1. Formats resist it. Forced-choice tests such as the OPQ32 make you choose between equally desirable statements.
2. Consistency is checked. The same trait is asked several ways. Contradictions can flag your profile.
3. Perfect looks fake. Items like “I have never been annoyed with anyone” exist to catch impression management.
4. Success means doing the job you described. If you claim to love detail work and do not, you get a job full of detail work.

Deniz Ones, Chockalingam Viswesvaran and Angelika Reiss (1996) found that social desirability did not wipe out the tests’ ability to predict performance, so honest variation still carries signal.

How to prepare

1. Know your own profile

Take a Big Five test beforehand. Most hiring tools are built on the same five traits or close relatives of them, so you will recognize what each item is reaching for and can answer without second-guessing.

2. Read the role like a profile

Job descriptions describe personality in work language. “Fast-paced, client-facing” points to Extraversion and low Neuroticism; “detail-oriented, compliance” points to Conscientiousness. List the three or four that matter for this role and think of a real example of each from your work.

3. Answer as your work self

Picture yourself at work on a normal, good week, not your best day or your worst. Read every statement, use the middle option only when you truly cannot decide, and keep answers consistent.

4. Ask what you are entitled to know

You can ask the recruiter which assessment is used, how results feed into the decision, and whether you will see feedback. If a disability affects how you take tests, ask for an accommodation in writing.

5. Prepare stories for your low scores

If your Conscientiousness is modest, have a concrete example of the system you use to hit deadlines. If your Extraversion is low, have one of a time you led a meeting or handled a difficult client well. Interviewers who get a score report often go straight to the low points.

Check the fit with your Holland code

Personality tests tell an employer how you are likely to behave. They say little about whether you will enjoy the work. That is what interest measures do. Christopher Nye and colleagues (2012) found that the match between people’s vocational interests and their jobs predicted performance and persistence.

Take the RIASEC career test and compare your three-letter code with the role. O*NET OnLine lists an interest profile for most occupations. If you are a strong Investigative-Artistic and the role is mostly Enterprising sales work, the personality test is the least of your concerns. If you are applying for quieter roles, the guide to careers for introverts maps traits and codes to specific jobs.

Using Depth Profile to prepare

Depth Profile is a self-knowledge tool, not a hiring test, and employers do not receive your results. The free assessments give you your Big Five scores and Holland code. The optional Full Depth Report ($19) describes your blind spots and how your traits shift under stress, which is useful raw material for “tell me about a weakness.” Career coaches preparing several clients for assessments can use the Coach Pack.