Posted by Josh Millet on Wed, Apr 08, 2009 @ 06:43 PM
In a series of blog posts last year I discussed the evolution of employment personality testing, from the Myers-Briggs to the "Big Five" to more job-specific personality inventories. The last of these continue to grow in popularity, especially in the fields of customer service and sales.
Our customer service test is now one of the most widely used tests in HireSelect. One reason for this is that customer service representative positions tend to have higher than average turnover, and so HR managers are constantly looking for tools that can help remedy this problem. But another reason we're seeing these tests grow in popularity is that many organizations seem to be placing a heavy emphasis on cultivating a "culture of customer service" across an entire organization. We hear this regularly from customers as diverse as medical care providers, banks, and non-profits. The result is that applicants for managerial and administrative positions may be asked to take these tests if their jobs will involve frequent interactions with customers and/or the public. So these tests are not just used for Customer Service representatives anymore.
So what does a customer service personality test measure? Our customer service test is called the Customer Service Aptitude Profile (CSAP), and it measures a series of personality traits that are widely regarded as important for successful interactions with customers. These traits include such things as patience, cooperativeness, and personal diplomacy. Because customer service personnel are foot soldiers on the front lines of an organization's efforts to build and mantain its reputation and brand, companies look for individuals who will be able to answer questions and resolve customer complaints in a helpful, compassionate way. Impatience, competitiveness, and uncooperativeness may be traits that can lead to success in some fields (such as sales, actually--more on that in my next post), but they are not traits you'd look for in customer service representatives.
Click here to see a sample score report for the CSAP.
Posted by Wayne Chuen on Fri, Sep 12, 2008 @ 06:02 PM
Criteria's employment test portfolio includes three personality tests: the Criteria Personality Inventory (CPI), the Customer Service Aptitude Profile (CSAP), and the Sales Achievement Predictor (SalesAP). The CSAP and SalesAP are actually the same test instrument and measure the same personality traits, but they produce different score reports and recommendations because customer service and sales positions require different personalities. For example, personality traits such as Assertiveness and Competitiveness are traditionally associated with sales roles, while traits like Cooperativeness and Patience are associated with customer service roles.
If you interview enough salespeople, invariably one of them will tell you that he can sell snow to an Eskimo. Personally, I doubt that I would be able to sell a fireplace to that same Eskimo. The point is that people generally have a good grasp of their personal strengths and weaknesses, and tend to apply for jobs in which they can thrive. Our data bears this out.
We examined the differences in average percentile scores for each of the 18 personality traits measured by the CSAP and SalesAP, and found that there was a distinct and measurable difference between the populations of customer service and sales applicants. For example, those that applied for customer service positions and took the CSAP scored in the 40.2 percentile for the "Sales Closing" trait on average, while those that applied for sales positions and took the SalesAP scored in the 56.9 percentile on average - a difference of 16.7 percentage points. For other traits typically associated with sales, there were strong differences favoring those that took the SalesAP as well: Sales Disposition (8.7 percentage points), Cold Calling (6.9), Competitiveness (8.1), Assertiveness (10.5), and Extraversion (5.5). Similarly, for traits typically associated with customer service, there were differences favoring those that took the CSAP: Cooperativeness (14.5 percentage points) and Patience (5.2).
Of the people that took the CSAP, 47.2% were Highly Recommended for customer service. However, we wanted to see what would have happened if those that took the CSAP actually took the SalesAP, and vice versa. If those applying for sales positions had actually applied for customer service positions, only 32.1% would have been Highly Recommended for customer service, a difference of 15.1 percentage points. Similarly, of the people that took the SalesAP, 17.4% were Highly Recommended for sales. If those applying for customer service positions had actually applied for sales positions, only 7.0% would have been Highly Recommended for sales, a difference of 10.4 percentage points.
Does this mean that all of your applicants will be well-suited for the jobs for which they're applying? Of course not. It does, however, demonstrate that consciously or subconsciously, people understand themselves and tend to apply for jobs at which they can feel comfortable and succeed.
Posted by Josh Millet on Wed, Jun 04, 2008 @ 02:02 PM
To finish off our discussion about personality tests, I wanted to discuss ways in which test developers are moving beyond the Big Five. The Big Five is sometimes too broad to predict work behaviors for specific jobs, where more fine-grained personality measures may be useful. For example, it has been shown that certain jobs such as sales positions are best performed by people with a set of personality characteristics that correspond to the work activities involved in sales jobs. Sales jobs often require cold-calling, initiating social interactions, prospecting, and building relationships. It won't be surprising to most people that qualities like assertiveness, extraversion, competitiveness, and self-confidence might be qualities that could help an individual perform well in such roles. For work in the field of customer service, on the other hand, qualities such as patience, cooperativeness, and personal diplomacy would be most important given the job activities of most customer service positions.
Because there is growing evidence of the predictive validity of personality measures for jobs such as sales and customer service, many test publishers have developed employment personality tests focused on these areas. For example, Criteria has a sales aptitude test and a customer service test that measure 18 different personality traits that predict performance in these jobs. These tests can have far greater utility than a Big-Five based test for a given position, because they provide much more targeted and fine-grained information based on the specific requirements of a given job. Because they have been customized to specific positions, the score reports for such tests are also typically easier to interpret than are general Big Five inventories. As personality research continues to advance, expect to see targeted, job-specific personality tests for a much wider range of positions in years ahead.