Do You Need a Pre-Employment Personality Quiz Anyway?
Despite the fact that personality quizzes are widely and increasingly used in the employment lately, neither their effectiveness as a screening device nor their legality has been proved or confirmed so far.
To protect themselves against legal liability and poorly-executed quizzes, employers should look carefully at how the quiz is implemented to decide if they tell anything of value that could not be learned in a good face-to-face interview with thorough follow-up.
Legal presecution is a high risk. Based on the quiz an employer may be blamed that the quiz questions provide circumstantial evidence that a refusal to hire was based on race, religion, age and similar factors.
For example, questions on past drug and alcohol use may raise disability discrimination issues. The tests that ask about religious beliefs is likely to pray for a religious discrimination lawsuit. Sometimes even most innocent questions may result in a lawsuit in the end.
Lawsuits should be a primary concern for employers considering personality testing. Thinking over each question is a must. And it is even better if you have an in-house lawyer to consult with.
Besides, the necessity of introducing the pre-employment personality quiz should be put under question. Isn’t oral interview, recommendations and trial perios not enough in most cases?
