Organizations are everywhere. Each of us is affected by and, in turn, affect organizations. As such, we are all "stake holders" in the complex, goal-directed, social systems we call organizations.
According to wikipedia:
Communication can be defined as "the transfer of meanings between persons and groups." The purpose of communication may range from completing a task or mission to creating and maintaining satisfying relationships.
In organizational communication, information can flow in several directions. Mainly downward communication, upward communication and horizontal communication. An organization is highly dependant on communication and it is built on a foundation of human commuication. As such, we can see how important and vital effective communication is.
Many companies have found out that knowing the personality of a person during the interview or prior to recruitment can help in overall communication when they join the company or avoid unnecessary friction due to miscommunication.
The following clip is a real test given by Human Relations Department at many of the major corporations today. It helps them get better insight concerning their employees and prospetive employees.
Do you finds this test amazingly accurate? Or do you just get to know yourself better?
In my opinion, I think that such a personality acessment can help an organization to make better decisions in the filtering process for prospective employees. It can eliminate a lot of unncessary internal friction and conflict due to personality clashes which can affect the growth of an organization very negatively. Overall, I think that it is a very wise approach in the recruitment process. What do you think of such an approach in respect to organizational communication? What are some of the drawbacks and flaws of such an approach? =)
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10 comments:
hey Eddie :D
i did the test and got 42 points. how about you? i've done a couple of such tests before coming to university- it was a character/personality test to see which course or line suits me the best. thats how i ended up in business course.
but to what extent do these tests (which are professionally designed) accurately reflect on the individuals character? i guess its not exactly accurate.
i've known of companies who give such tests. and i agree that it makes the lives of employers easier. like that you said, a filter to categorize people! i can immediately think of examples like, finding highly motivated individuals to do a sales and important presentations or more introverted people to do non-communication jobs.
well in my opinion, companies should have a more subtle and less obvious approaches to assess characters/personalities of employees. 'throwing' them a personality form, might not be useful because some candidates might put false information to get recruited.
hmmmm maybe during recruitment, the company can hire a psychologist to study the candidate's body language to have a better gauge. (eg; eye contact, arms and legs movements)
yea? cheers!!! :D
Hi,
in response to the above comment, in high-level recruitment they actually do hire psychologist to assess the potential candidate during the interview based on his behavior and gestures.
There are alot of personality tests out there with scientific researches backing them and should be reliable to a certain extent.
However, I am of the view that not much weight should be put into the scores gained on personality tests in the area of employment. Truly successful people are aware of their personality shortcomings, and work to shore up these weaknesses. An introvert does not necessarily mean he cannot speak well, or socialise well, it merely means he is not a natural at it. Tests like this would only serve to give labels to people. People tend to internalize labels, and this can be very bad in restricting the growth of a person.
my humble opinion :)
to vicky, I agreed that the test is not 100% accurate. after all, our life is not guided based on these test. I would say that the test only acts as a guideline on choosing certain things like careers, jobs, etc. after all, there way too many options to choose and we have to choose wisely.
Very insightful indeed. I think such test are quite accurate reflections on who we are.
Don't you think that such an approach is a little too direct? I feel that perhaps it may be best to do a more discreet way of finding out about employees, such as perhaps personal man to man talks or through monitoring progress in group assignments and meetings.
Also we should seek to be sensitive about such thing. Such tests may be accurate.But not everyone may always feel happy to take such tests, and those who are not honest may reflect personalities very different from who theay are. A point to think about, not all statistical data is accurate.
Hello eddie,
I felt that "Dr Phils test" was really very accurate. This is indeed a good approach to recruit people for your company.
However, employers should not come to a conclusion from this test alone.
lol.i got 51 points,but i think i should get 50. LOL.
it reminded me of one of the big clients that i served who ask question 8 about the colour preferance in their choice of candidate. initially i tot it's absurb but now.. well,it's a different story.
i think in terms of pros and cons there are many to explore. but before they could come into play, the validity and reliability of the test comes into play. How accurate is this test in determinating one's personality and character? even the widely used mbti is known to be found wanting in determining a person's fit for the organisation. and if we assume that it is accurate, then how significant is it in determining the organisational fit? what are the other signicant factors that would make a difference? and if there are variances in such factors, would it change the interpretation of this test or even render it useless?
and even in a certeris paribus condition, would the person fit into the organisation perfectly solely due to organisational fit? what about job fit and skill fit? These factors come into play as well.
taking all these into consideration, we have to admit that HR practioners are not rocket scientists, who can give a precise calculation based on every factor. and the pro of this is that such tests provide a basis for evaluating the candidates besides gut feel. however, if this is the only method, then it might prove to be disaterous instead of helpful. one way they can aid this is to introduce the bbr method of interview (behaviourial based interviews) on top of it..so that the hit rate would be higher.
the pros can be the cons and vise verse in different context, so i guess it's best that the company evaluates itself throughly in the light of its own organisational understanding to determine their truth.
my 2 cents worth (:
It is very true that we all have an influence in the group we are in. It is especially important when working together. When you get crap team mates, chances are, ur project is a goner
Hi Hi Eddie, Nice personality test here. Interesting and factual. striking questions too.
I personally don't think that personality tests like these should be a measure or even criteria in hiring someone.
The only way you can really get to know someone is by personally getting to know them. Would you wanna be judged by someone depending on points you scored on a personality test? I think everyone deserves a chance to show who they really are.
Yea.. you do make some sense here dude. :) sometime it is more accurate to know people personally than through a personality test.
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