Adam Lueken
Team culture is an important success factor, no matter what industry you work in. Practices that are built on teamwork, productivity and collaboration can set themselves apart from the area’s competition and help set a standard of continual growth. Building an ideal team isn’t easy though. You have to ensure the right people with the right mindsets are in the right positions, whether it’s additional doctors or providers, clinical team members or your front office team.
That starts during the hiring process. Ideally, you want to learn and distinguish how candidates will mesh with the rest of your team, what their strengths and weaknesses are, if any red flags exist and, would they contribute to the success of your practice or negatively impact it. Looking at a candidate’s resume and past experience can give you an idea of who they are, but it doesn’t provide the full picture. And even with common personality questions asked (How would your past co-workers describe you? Do you prefer working on a team or solo? etc.), it’s easy for candidates to prepare responses to these types of questions beforehand based on what they think you want to hear. This can make it difficult to truly get to know the real person behind the resume.
How can you effectively learn and distinguish the true personality traits of a potential hire? There are personality testing tools available to help you cut through any uncertainty or generic responses and determine the right fit. These tests are scientifically designed assessments that help build the personality profiles of candidates. There are a variety of these personality testing options out there that provide insights you may not be able to learn through the traditional interview process.
Examples of Available Personality Tests
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has been a widely used test by businesses and practices for many years. As a hiring tool, the MBTI test can place a candidate within 16 distinct personality categories that reflect their specific preferences. The MBTI doesn’t predict what a candidate is capable of, but rather gives a sense of the kind of work or environment they’d be the happiest working in.
The Culture Index assessment is another system for identifying a candidate’s fit with the position they’re applying for. It provides a visual graph of your candidate’s behavioral profile and compares it to the graph of what the ideal candidate for the position would look like.
Enneagram, like MBTI, distinguishes candidates into categories (nine of them) that are broadly split into three major groups (centers). These centers separate candidates based on dominant emotional themes of personalities. This can help you discover the emotional outlook of candidates, such as their strengths and how well they’ll handle certain kinds of situations.
The DISC assessment can be used to identify patterns of behavior related to certain tendencies, rather than pinpointing specific personality traits. This can help show if a certain candidate will likely get along well with a manager or team members.
The Caliper Profile is used to match specific personality traits to a specifically designed job description. It provides a score that highlights a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses when compared to the role they would be taking on. When a candidate is hired, this information can also be useful for developing an action plan for their future development.
Distinguishing Candidates
When you have several candidates with similar backgrounds, education and experience, it can be difficult to pinpoint which would be the right choice. Personality tests can provide separation between similar candidates by identifying extensive personality details. For example, tests can help identify a candidate with strong leadership qualities that would help them grow quickly into their role. Or the test may reveal a candidate who is more adaptable and detail-oriented compared to others.
These tests can also help identify candidates who may not have the real-world skills to back up what their resumes say. Testing can help give you clarity on if a candidate can really do the things they claim to have done in previous positions.
Identifying the Right Culture Fit
You can hire based on strong technical experience and ability, but finding the right fit for your culture is equally and perhaps more important. Technical ability can be learned or improved much easier than the personality intangibles that come with fitting into a culture. Your culture can affect everything from your productivity to your ability to recruit and retain top talent.
Personality testing helps practices find candidates with the right traits to fit into existing teams and workflows. It can also help candidate traits that can take your team to the next level or on the flip side, negatively affect or wreck your team from the inside. Not only can the wrong traits affect a new hire’s success, but it can affect the productivity and satisfaction of other team members.
If you need help utilizing personality tests in your hiring, we’re always a phone call or click away to support your needs. Schedule a consultation with one of our practice management experts today!