People who are a little bit interested in recruitment processes will probably realise just how much recruitment firms and companies are using personality tests in Africa. It is an assessment tool that is often used by HR specialists to check the compatibility of the candidate with the position offered. Basically, personality tests are used as a way to find out if the candidate meets with the needs of the company.
Today, not only are there plenty of personality tests available on the market, but the recruiter also has the opportunity to ask professionals to specifically design some for him. Even though those tests are very popular among recruiters, one can’t help but wonder just how reliable they really are? Should we take them seriously, in other words?
While we can surely admit how meaningful they are in the hiring process we shouldn’t, nonetheless, give them too much importance. It would be simplistic to say that those tools act as a guarantee of a successful hire. A personality test can indeed be used to supplement the judgement of the recruiter but not at any mean replace it as a reliable basis. Therefore the issue is in the bad usage of a personality test. Some recruiters have a tendency of using it as a tool that would serve to replace the human being. Very often, recruiters don’t properly use it.
Beside, the interest and the reliability of personality tests in the hiring process are constantly questioned. Therefore in 2018, a study revealed that french companies are less and less interested in personality tests because of their sneaky side, particularly with the double-edged questions that are sometimes asked.
In 2018 a lot of tests have been used to know more about the personality of the candidates. However, reality shows that those tests have helped indeed recruiters make a decision but for a lot of them, the choice was already made before they even took the test, as a way to validate a subjective intuition or simply follow a hiring procedure.
Either way, whether they are reliable or not, personality tests in Africa are part of the essential tools that professionals in human resources use.