Which one of the following traits is most likely to be assessed accurately during an interview?

The best way to assess personality is by, well, using an assessment. But if you want to [also] assess a candidate's personality using an interview, here's the science on how to do it properly. 

Research by Professor Levashina and colleagues summarizes the best practices for how to accurately assess personality using an interview.

The personality traits that are best assessed by an interview

Research has found that people are more accurate when judging someone else's personality on more observable traits such as how extraverted or hardworking that person is. Research on personality and interviews has found this to be true: Extraversion and Conscientiousness show the highest correlations between self-rated personality and interview ratings.

• Conscientiousness [r = .12]
• Extraversion [r = .08]
• Openness to Experience [r = .03]
• Agreeableness [r = .01]
• Emotional Stability [r = .01]

The researchers conclude, however, "the correlations of structured interview ratings with self-report measures of personality factors are generally rather low."

The question type that best assesses personality

So what can you do to increase your accuracy when assessing personality during an interview? By asking the right questions, of course.

There are two main types of interview questions: situational questions ["What would you do if..."] and past-behavior questions ["Tell me about a time when you..."]. Research has found that:

• situational questions seem to measure general job knowledge
• past-behavior questions seem to measure past experience and some personality traits 

If you want to assess personality, you need to ask questions that are designed to measure the on-the-job behaviors related to a specific personality trait. For example, asking the candidate to, “Tell me about a time when you had a work-related disagreement with a colleague. How did you resolve it?” to measure Agreeableness. Or measuring Conscientiousness by asking the candidates how they set goals or meet deadlines.

The interview structure that best assesses personality

Evidence from thousands of interviews tell us that a structured interview is more reliable, valid, and less discriminatory than an unstructured interview. So what's an unstructured vs. a structured interview?

An unstructured interview is the typical job interview: Tell me about yourself, What's your biggest weakness, Which superhero would you be? etc.

A structured interview asks questions specifically designed to assess job-related knowledge and skills, asks the same questions to all candidates, rates every answer to each question using a quantitative rating scale, and generally involves training the interviewer on how to do this properly.

Why does a structured interview lead to better hiring? Simply, structured interviews reduce error: it both reduces interviewer bias and it reduces the ability of candidates to fake their answers during an interview.

The takeaways

The best way to measure personality with an interview uses the same principles of measuring personality with an assessment: carefully designing the best job-related questions to ask, systematically collecting the data, and then using quantitative ratings to make your hiring decisions. Best practices recommend using a psychometric assessment to measure candidates' personality and then using a structured interview to verify and expand on those personality ratings. 

So why don't more people do this? It's a lot more work! But if you're not putting in the effort to make the best hiring decisions you can, you're probably dooming yourself to a 50% hiring failure rate. 

Ideal builds recruitment automation software that talent acquisition loves. Ideal’s AI can instantly screen and shortlist new candidates, uncover strong past candidates who are a great fit for a new role, and initiate candidate contact. Companies use Ideal to sift through the resume noise and instantly identify who to interview, all within their existing ATS. Learn more at www.ideal.com. 

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