Goldman to use 'personality test' as part of the hiring process

Is the Gallup test proprietary or is there some info on the types of questions asked?

> [The] personality they want could be white, middle class, highly educated male

This is a horrible misuse of the word personality. Anyone of any race, wealth, age, sex, etc. can have any personality. Equating personality with race is unfortunately common these days.

[0] I like how you begin your footnotes count starting at 0. I am stealing this.

Like it or not, there is a real tangible productivity factor that comes into play if someone is not a good personality fit in a given team dynamic.

If you have a bunch of quiet, homebody people and then introduce a new brash and loud team member - irrespective of talents, you could see a massive drop in worker happiness and productivity.

Companies with a profit motive don't want to hire people of a certain race but rather of a certain personality, one that will earn them profit.

In many cases, they'll be looking for people who are easily instructed what to do (perhaps high agreeableness?) and likely to finish what they start (perhaps high conscientiousness?).

That is, agreeableness and conscientiousness would be highly valuable to a company that wants subservient drones.

So, make of this what you will, but I do research on psychological measurement.

Also, I have no idea what Goldman is planning to use, so there's that.

However, all of the arguments you're making about bias, etc. could be leveled against everything that goes into a hiring decision--absolutely everything. Education, interviewing style, skills with regard to social norms in a certain setting, everything. Notice, for example, in the article that Goldman has started to consider people from non-ivies, as if it should be some revelation that there are competent individuals from non-ivy schools. It's hypocritical to be argue about personality test bias when the bias due to those other procedures dwarfs that.

The advantage of personality tests is that they're standardized, so you can quantify the bias. This is routine. You can argue about how to quantify it, but there are solid methods for doing so, and it's better than just going with your gut.

As for people mentioning previous use of personality tests: the Myers-Briggs does suck. It's why no one studying individual differences scientifically has paid attention to it for decades. If Goldman comes out using the Myers-Briggs, then complain about that. But complaining about personality tests "because Myers-Briggs" is like saying the internet shouldn't be trusted because "ActiveX on Windows 95."

About reliability: yes, there's issues about reliability, but the reliability of interviews is even worse. There are some people who make solid arguments that you shouldn't even do an interview because they have such little validity in predicting anything above and beyond what's discernable from resumes, history, and test scores.

The one argument you might make about these tests that has some weight is their "fakability." This is their Achilles heel admittedly, although the issue is more complex than it seems because people aren't as good at faking as they think they are, and it's unclear the faking is any easier than on an interview.

One reason why you're seeing increased interest in personality tests now is because of methods that have been developed for counteracting faking. There's been a lot of movement in this area over the last 10-15 years or so, and there's more ways of handling it than there used to. So, for example, in addition to quantifying a faking "style", which you could do before but was of unclear utility, now you can administer items that are controlled for social desirability but measure other dimensions (for example, have people choose between three scenarios that have been shown to be of equal apparent desirability but differ in their level of some other trait).

To be honest, expect a lot more of this. Big IO and testing corporations have been putting a crapton of money into this area and a lot of companies are showing a lot of interest in it, as they're complaining that intellectual ability and "job skills" (e.g., knowledge of algorithms) isn't really the main issues they have with employee performance--the problem is this other stuff, like emotional stability, social skills, etc.

They could select for the personalities found on the "top-innovators" group if they deem innovation important

* they seldom contribute to making the overall firm work more harmoniously*

Ultimately, the point of hiring people is to make the firm work more profitably. Banks are not well known for their commitment to a harmonious workplace.

> It appears that they want a mono-personality in their halls.

I think it's more precise to say that they are selecting for productivity. Maybe more than one personality type is productive? It's not necessarily one single type.

BREAKING: Mortimer and Randolph Duke to join Goldman Sachs Board of Directors.

> the opposite of a diversity program

What if Uber had made this announcement? New employees need to have a "culture fit" with the current staff.

Nobody knows how to hire. It's more luck and guessing than we want to admit. Temporary trials are the way forward. The problems are that employees and employers need to be secure enough to risk a trial, and compensation would need to change.

Meyers-Briggs is also incredibly easy to game if you know what they're looking for. Not as bad as those silly "ethics tests" some crappy entry-level jobs give ("You see a coworker stealing merchandise. Do you a) punch them, b) tell a manager as soon as possible, c) join them in stealing, d) smoke a joint and forget about it?") but not much better.

Guessing you'd be able to nail what they wanted for office jobs by just picking the organized/responsible/social/intellectual options every time you could, in roughly that order of priority.

Isn't this being selected for already guised under "culture fit?"

I reckon finance people are not that keen on social media so that wouldn't work.

I certainly hope not. Social media should not be a measurement of professional character. Many kids use it without concern for how it will affect their future because they lack the awareness of it. If everything you've said when you were a child was on record and reviewed by employees chances are most people wouldn't have jobs. Additionally, it sets a bar the requires social media usage. I personally don't use any online accounts that are linked to my name. This means I would be perceived as a danger to any hiring systems that utilize social media analysis.

What if someone does not have a Facebook profile or isn't very active on the platform? Denied by default?

My guess is liking cat videos and arguing on news posts does not have any representative value of the professonnal personnality. /shrug

> > "Their answers will be compared with those of current Goldman employees, who have already been identified as exhibiting traits that mark high performance such as teamwork, analytical thinking and judgment, Jahansouz said."

> Awful idea.

No, no, it's a wonderful way to ensure a monoculture and the absence of innovation!

Yeah it's a really bad idea to hope your new employee works well in a team and exhibits good judgement.

I did an MBTI just recently as part on a job application. INT-J

Yup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722

I'd also be interested to know what MBTI type other HN readers are.

I keep switching between INTJ and INTP every time I do the test.

My understanding is that the current consensus among psychologists is that MBTI is not very good.

Could anyone knowledgeable comment on this?

I seriously miss the time when you'd be asked questions relevant to your job and have your experience evaluated to get hired.

It depends on the test that they use. The widely used psychological tests are designed to detect adversarial responses.

A question like "have you ever considered shouting at your manager?" would filter out candidates that are too [ stupid | honest | self-respecting ] to pick the expected answer...

I agree with you. I think most people, including me, would answer the question as, "What do they want to hear?", and not, "What answer is most relevant to me?"