How to Master Personality Questionnaires: And Discover Which Career is Best for You!

109 Pages·2001·4.33 MB·English

by  Mark Parkinson PH.D., Mark Parkinson

How to Master
Personality
Questionnaires
The Essential Guide
Mark Parkinson
Kogan Page Limited
How to Master
Personality
Questionnaires
2 How to Master Personality Questions
‘A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right
away. He must have time to modify his shape.’
Mark Twain
What is Personality? 3
How to Master
Personality
Questionnaires
The Essential Guide
Mark Parkinson
4 How to Master Personality Questions
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First published in 1997
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© Mark Parkinson, 1997
The right of Mark Parkinson to be identified as author of this work has been
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 7494 2235 1
Typeset by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and Kings Lynn
What is Personality? 5
Contents
To the Reader 7
Introduction 8
About this book 10
1. What is Personality? 11
Where does personality come from?12; Do you know
yourself? 15; The Self-Discovery Exercise 15;
Key points 16; Example trait adjectives 17
2. How is Personality Measured? 19
Body humours 19; Projective tests 20; The Colour
Test 21; The personality questionnaire 23; The Big
Five 25; Impression management 26; Key points 28;
Interpreting the Colour Test 28
3. Job Profiles and Personality Reports 31
Managerial profile 32; Sales profile 34;
Entrepreneurial profile 37; Technical profile 39;
Personality reports 40; Example personality report 41
Rogue reports 44; Key points 47
4. Preparing for Personality Questionnaires 48
Completing a Personality Questionnaire 49,
Questionnaire Strategies 50; Five Hot Tips 51;
Key Points 53
5. The Mind Style Questionnaire 54
Completing the questionnaire 54; Scoring the
questionnaire 58; Interpreting your results 65;
Impression control 70; Some things to remember 70;
Key points 71
6 How to Master Personality Questions
6. The Personality Toolkit 72
How people change 73; The Ideal Job Exercise 74;
Ten ways to change 77; Practising new behaviours 88;
Places to practise 89; Key points 90
7. The Top UK Personality Questionnaires 91
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF™) 91;
®
Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ ) 93;
California Psychological Inventory (CPI™) 95;
Rapid Personality Questionnaire (RPQ) 96;
Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) 97
8. The Major Test Publishers 99
Further Information 102
Epilogue 104
Further Reading from Kogan Page 105
Index 107
What is Personality? 7
To the Reader
As a psychologist, I am frequently asked what personality ques-
tionnaires are, how they work, and how they should be complet-
ed. In fact, some days my telephone runs hot with employers
asking about the different way of measuring people’s personality
and with potential test candidates wanting advice on the assess-
ment process.
This book is based on the advice I give to people who contact
me, and also on the various talks I have given over the years. My
intention is to give you some essential inside information and,
more importantly, some practical help.
All the information in this book is in the public domain.
However, much of it is technical or difficult to find. I have simply
done what you could do if you had the time and knew where to
look. I also believe that it is important to demystify psychological
testing, and to demonstrate the benefits and pitfalls to employer
and test-taker alike. After all, the cloaking of testing in complete
secrecy and the belief that psychologists are only one step
removed from alchemists, does no one any good at all.
The results of my endeavours are presented in a way which I
hope you will find entertaining and informative. I have also
included a specially written personality questionnaire, The Mind
Style Questionnaire, for you to try.
Mark Parkinson
Berkshire, 1996
8 How to Master Personality Questions
Introduction
The last 20 years have seen a steady increase in the use of all
types of psychological tests. Nowadays, if you go for a job with a
medium- to large-sized organisation, you stand about a 75 per
cent chance of being tested. The tests are used at all levels, from
clerical and production positions to managerial and professional
staff.
The subject of this book is the personality test, or, strictly
speaking, the personality questionnaire. To clarify any misunder-
standing, while the word ‘test’ is widely used, it gives the impres-
sion that questions about personality have right or wrong
answers. This is not the case as no one type of personality, in
itself, is necessarily ‘better’ than any other. The element of selec-
tion comes in comparing people’s differing personalities with the
requirements for a job.
Personality questionnaires are big business – for example, the
most popular questionnaire is used to assess about 3.5 million
people per year. This is on a global basis, of course, but the figure
is still very impressive. One of the main reasons for the increase
is the shift towards service or people-orientated industries –
hence the importance of assessing the type of working relation-
ships that people prefer, both with colleagues and customers.
Another reason is that questionnaires can provide reliable infor-
mation not only quickly but cheaply as well because many people
can be assessed at the same time. Well-constructed question-
naires are also a fairer way of assessing personality as most inter-
viewers are unskilled in this area.
The use of personality questionnaires is not without criticism.
Many people object to being categorised and maintain it is impos-
sible to measure something as complicated as personality. This is
an understandable argument but it slightly misses the point. It is
true that our personalities are complex, but there are obvious sim-
ilarities and differences between people, and this is what ques-
tionnaires highlight. It is these broad and enduring factors that
are used to help in the job selection process.
Introduction 9
Another major objection to questionnaires is that people behave
differently in different situations. Again, this is perfectly true, but
whether or not you find yourself in a particular situation presum-
ably has something to do with your personality. What personality
questionnaires are doing is predicting what you are most likely to
do. This does not mean that you always do the same thing, rather
that, given a particular set of circumstances, you are more likely
than not to behave in a certain manner. This should make sense,
as we know from personal experience that people do not react to
things in a completely random way.
Finally, people believe that the use of questionnaires is in some
way underhand and that employers and psychologists have bad
intentions. Indeed, a recent magazine article made much of the
expression ‘personality inventory’: ‘“Inventory” is sometimes
used as a synonym for “questionnaire” or “test”.’ The thrust of
the piece was that the expression ‘personality inventory’ conjures
up a picture of someone making a list of assets or attempting to
detail all the positive qualities of a person. But what about the
negative aspects? Surely personality questionnaires are measur-
ing both the positive and the negative qualities, argued the
author. Yet again, this is true, but somewhat off-target. Any sort
of personality assessment does cover both sides of the equation,
but a particular personality is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, ‘positive’
nor ‘negative’. Whether or not your personality fits a specific work
setting depends entirely on what you are trying to do.
So what are employers looking for? This question will be con-
sidered in much more detail later on, but basically as employers
can be far more choosy nowadays, they can also be more precise
about the personality characteristics they demand of their
employees.
For many jobs, qualities such as self-reliance, flexibility, the
ability to plan ahead, and to work as part of a team are impor-
tant. For managerial positions, the emphasis can shift to leader-
ship, drive, problem solving and the ability to motivate others;
sales people, on the other hand, require persuasiveness, adapt-
ability, resilience and confidence. All of these aspects of personali-
ty are of key importance in one way or another. So, for example,
an inflexible and domineering manager is unlikely to be particu-
larly successful; likewise, a shy and hesitant salesman is unlikely
to progress.
As an applicant for a job, it is obviously useful to know what an