What are the best personality assessments for evaluating startup candidates?

NEVER use personality assessments in the hiring process. I cannot stress this enough. 1) If you want a credible report, it will cost you (so not cost effective at all). 2) There is so much more to candidates than simply what you will find in the report. 3) Sometimes reports just are not accurate. At the end of the day, you want to have a hiring process that is authentic to you and provides a positive candidate experience. Design a process that tests for core competencies for the role and dives deep into how a candidate represents your company values. Leave the personality assessments for the work you do developing your team once hired.

These assessments are employed in diverse fields, including organizational psychology, human resources, and personal development. In the workplace, they aid in team building, talent management, and recruitment by providing a structured understanding of an individual's strengths, communication style, and potential areas for growth. Additionally, personality assessments contribute to self-awareness, fostering personal growth and enhancing interpersonal relationships. They offer a framework for individuals to comprehend their own tendencies and those of others, leading to improved communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution.

Reflecting on our journey of building a cohesive startup team, I've learned that the right personality assessments can be game-changers. The DiSC Assessment and the Predictive Index have stood out for us. DiSC helps in understanding communication styles, which is key to fostering a collaborative environment. The Predictive Index, on the other hand, offers deep insights into work preferences and drives, enabling us to match roles to personalities effectively. These tools have not only streamlined our hiring process but also enhanced team synergy, driving our startup towards its goals more efficiently.

Understanding these aspects helps evaluate their fit within your startup culture and predict performance in different scenarios. By leveraging personality assessments, you can also mitigate bias, enhance diversity, and boost retention. However, it's essential to use these tools ethically, ensuring they align with the principles of fair hiring practices and respect candidates' privacy. Integrating personality assessments thoughtfully can contribute to building a cohesive and high-performing team.

> Measure core traits like Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, giving insight into work style, problem-solving, and stress management. > DISC: Focuses on Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness, helping understand communication preferences and teamwork tendencies. > Enneagram: Uncovers deeper motivations, fears, and desires, offering valuable context for a candidate's values and decision-making.

The Big Five Personality test (IPIP-NEO) is helpful, specifically for start-ups. Candidates don’t definitively answer a specific prompt, as the test provides a scale for answering each question, providing a more precise assessment. The assessment measures Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness. The specific factors to pay attention to are: Conscientiousness - Will work when not monitored because they would feel uncomfortable not to. These candidates are likely thoughtful and will be committed to the start-up's vision. Openness - If you’re a small start-up, the design of your organization is likely flat. Flatterer organizations need generalists who are willing to help anywhere they are needed.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the most recognized tools, categorizing individuals into 16 personality types based on preferences in four dichotomies. The Big Five Personality Traits, also known as the OCEAN model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), provide a comprehensive framework for understanding personality across five dimensions. The DISC assessment focuses on four main personality traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness, aiding in interpersonal communication and team dynamics. Additionally, the StrengthsFinder assessment identifies an individual's top strengths out of a list of 34, emphasizing personal strengths and talents.

For startup teams looking to evaluate potential candidates, I highly recommend starting with the Big Five Personality Test and the StrengthsFinder assessment. The Big Five offers a broad understanding of a person's fundamental personality traits, while StrengthsFinder can pinpoint a candidate's unique strengths, allowing you to align their capabilities with your startup's needs effectively. These assessments have been instrumental in our hiring process, ensuring we bring on board individuals who are not just skilled but also a great cultural fit.

Options like MBTI, DISC, Big Five, and Enneagram offer diverse insights into candidates' work styles, communication preferences, problem-solving approaches, and adaptability to change. These assessments enable startups to understand how candidates handle challenges, collaborate with others, manage stress, and respond to feedback. Integrating a suitable personality assessment into the hiring process enhances the chances of finding individuals whose traits align with the startup's culture and contribute to its success.

First and foremost, consider the purpose for which you need insights into personality traits—whether it's for personal development, team building, or recruitment. Assessments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) may be suitable for understanding broad personality preferences, while the Big Five Personality Traits offer a more comprehensive and scientifically validated approach. Consider the target audience and their familiarity with psychological concepts; some assessments may be more accessible for certain groups. Lastly, factor in the practicality of implementation, as some assessments may be more time-consuming or resource-intensive than others.

From my experience, the best personality assessments for evaluating startup candidates are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Big Five Personality Test. I've found the MBTI useful for understanding how candidates perceive the world and make decisions, which is crucial in a fast-paced startup environment. Meanwhile, the Big Five provides insights into candidates' openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, helping us predict how they might fit into our team dynamics. Implementing these tests helped our startup improve team compatibility and productivity significantly.

Define hiring criteria aligned with your startup's vision and culture. Research the benefits and limitations of assessments, and test them with team members for accuracy. This ensures the assessment reflects your startup's diversity and dynamics, aiding in effective hiring decisions.

Begin by clearly defining the purpose of the assessment, whether it's for team development, recruitment, or personal growth. Communicate the goals and potential outcomes transparently to participants to ensure their cooperation and understanding. Provide proper training and interpretation sessions to users, emphasizing that assessments are tools for self-awareness and not definitive labels. Encourage open discussions about the results to foster a positive and constructive environment for feedback. When applied in organizational settings, ensure that assessment outcomes influence decision-making processes such as team composition, talent development, or leadership strategies.

Clearly communicate the purpose and process to candidates, fostering transparency. Compare assessment results with other candidate information for a comprehensive view. Look for patterns, inconsistencies, and team fit. Use assessment results as a basis for constructive discussions with candidates, encouraging them to elaborate on their traits and how they align with your startup's context. Feedback and open dialogue enhance mutual understanding.

I’m not sure that this is really the best question to ask. While personality assessments are an important part of your hiring process and strategy, design of your position description helps minimize the risk of a hiring failure. PeopleSmartStaffing.com has a finely tuned process for building your position, along with decades of experience with personality/behavior assessments. Does your position description correctly define wii-fm (individual goals), wii-us (team goals), AND the relationship between both of these and your company’s vision and mission? The assessments you use will help you systematically confirm, along with comprehensive reference interviews, that an individual is a match for your organization.

Acknowledge their limitations as not definitive measures, influenced by context, wording, and interpretation. Recognize potential biases from assessors and candidates. Guard against misuse or abuse. Strike a balance in the hiring process, avoiding overemphasis or underutilization. Supplement assessments with diverse evaluation methods for well-rounded insights, ensuring effective, fair, and informed hiring decisions.

Specifically with the IPIP Big Five, while start-ups should target candidates with high “openness” and “conscientiousness” scores, which ultimately yield great employees, they should also be cautious. Highly conscientious talent will run through a wall for what they believe is the work they should be doing. If leadership over-extends this talent profile, burnout is highly likely. Especially if the candidate is relatively open and works as a generalist with cross-functional work. After hiring these ideal personality types, the people-leader needs to set boundaries for the volume of work and types of asks they direct towards the new hire.

By identifying individual strengths and preferences, these tools facilitate better alignment of roles and responsibilities, leading to increased job satisfaction and productivity. In organizational settings, personality assessments can streamline recruitment processes, ensuring better candidate-job fit and reducing turnover. However, challenges also exist. Critics argue that assessments may oversimplify complex human personalities and can be influenced by the individual's mood or context at the time of the assessment. Additionally, there is the risk of stereotyping or labeling individuals based on their results, potentially leading to biased decision-making.

Striking a balance between the benefits and challenges involves using assessments judiciously, complementing them with other evaluation methods, and fostering a culture that values diversity and recognizes the dynamic nature of personality traits over time.

Your first 10 employees set the foundation for your next 100. The first members need to be vetted, analysed and hired as per the startup's stage and requirements. For me, working in a startup is an attitude that not everybody has, so it is important for a person to have that flare first, and everything else comes next. The right combination of energy + experience within the team and proper vision and direction from the founding team will lead the startup to great new heights.

It depends on the phase the startup is in. In the very early phases, i.e. "in the garage", mutual compatibility of founder(s) and first employee(s) trumps any other tests. This compatibility includes personalities but also core values and ideas for the product.