PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT AND EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

The invisible college of psychologists who do research with measures o f normal personality now largely agrees about the structure of persona lity, this group also agrees that competently developed personality me asures are valid predictors of real world performance. Outside that co llege, however, there is still considerable skepticism regarding the m eaning and validity of these measures. This article attempts to summar ize the data needed to answer the most frequent questions about the us e of personality measures in applied contexts. Our major conclusions a re that (a) well-constructed measures of normal personality are valid predictors of performance in virtually all occupations, (b) they do no r result in adverse impact for job applicants from minority groups, an d (c) using well-developed pei sonality measures for preemployment scr eening is a way to promote social justice and increase organizational productivity.