A regular user of the Performance Profile recently called to discuss an applicant’s results.  In the course of that conversation, he raised a question that I think needs general clarification:

“How does the Accuracy Rating on the Work Attitude Questionnaire section of the Performance Profile Report affect the ratings on the first page of the report, such as Energy Level, Team Orientation, and so forth?”

And The Answer Is:

The Accuracy Rating refers to the Work Attitude Questionnaire results only.  It is a measure of how realistically the individual answered questions on the Work Attitude Questionnaire.  To understand what the Accuracy Rating tells you, let me explain briefly how these so-called “honesty scales” work.

The Accuracy Scale on the Work Attitude Questionnaire is made up of several statements that have to do with the human condition:  feelings or emotions that everyone experiences at one time or another.  There is no judgment about “right” or “wrong” attached to these statements, and admitting to these human emotions does not make any implication or prediction about behavior.  For example, such a statement might be, “I never get angry.”  The fact is that we all get angry at one time or another.  When a person takes an unrealistically extreme position to such a statement, he or she is probably not being particularly realistic or honest with regard to that statement.  The more of these statements that an applicant answers in an unrealistic way, the more it raises a question about how realistically he or she is answering all of the other statements on the Work Attitude Questionnaire.

For this reason, we report to you how realistic, in a general way, the applicant’s answers to the Work Attitude Questionnaire are likely to be by reporting the Accuracy Rating.  What we don’t know is why a person might have answered unrealistically, and it is NOT as simple as assuming that he or she has something to hide.  For example, individuals who are relatively new to the workforce, and who may be naïve about employment tests, often have high Accuracy Rating scores, which we characterize as “Significant Effort To Look Good.”  The explanation may be as simple as the individual’s assumption that making any apparently negative admission will disqualify him or her for the job.

What Should You Do?

We recommend that you think about what the results might mean by putting them together with everything you know about the applicant.  Consider also that making a “significant effort to look good” and nevertheless making troubling admissions on the Work Attitude Questionnaire may be a red flag; follow up on admissions by asking open-ended questions in a follow-up interview and by making your company’s policies, procedures, and consequences absolutely clear.

What About The Performance Profile Ratings?

One of the problems with reporting personality characteristics is that we have to use words that have commonly-used, multiple meanings to talk about very specific and narrowly defined personality concepts.  For example, there are two scales on the Performance Profile – Sociability and Friendliness – that our users often confuse, which can lead to confusion in the meaning of the Personality Profile results.  Let’s take a closer look at what they measure, and what combinations you are likely to see.

First, Basic Definitions

The characteristic of Sociability on the Performance Profile measures a person’s degree of comfort at dealing with people – being around them, interacting with people.  People who are energized by contact with other people are sometimes called “extroverts,” and they have relatively high Sociability ratings on the Performance Profile.  People who are energized by being by themselves, at some distance from other people, are sometimes called “introverts” and they have low Sociability ratings.  Social skills – that is, the ability to make small talk, to look at people directly, to introduce oneself to a stranger or a group of people – may be possessed by both extroverts and introverts, but extroverts are more comfortable doing these things.

The characteristic of Friendliness, on the other hand, is a measure of how important it is to an individual to be pleasant to others, even when he or she doesn’t feel like doing so.  Friendliness measures the extent to which it is important to a person to “put himself in the other person’s place” in terms of taking the other person’s feelings and reactions into account.

Looking At Behavior From Two Points Of View

Each of us is far more aware of our personal intentions in a given situation, and we usually try to behave in ways that we feel are consistent with our internal assumptions and feelings.  Since we can’t see others’ intentions as clearly as we see our own, we have to reason backwards from their behavior, which we see, to what we assume that implies about their intentions.  We sometimes forget, however, that the lens through which we are looking backwards is shaped by our own personal preferences, which may not be the same as the person’s whose behavior we are trying to understand.  That is a large part of the reason that we misunderstand one another from time to time, and why people whose Sociability/Friendliness preferences are different are particularly prone to mutual misunderstandings.  That said, let’s look at some typical combinations.

High Sociability, Low Friendliness

These folks make up about 20% of managers.  They are outgoing and like to be around people, but in continuing relationships they may come across as insincere or superficial.  They can be seen as two-faced or manipulative because, while they easily establish rapport and quickly seem to “get to know” people, they have a very low need to put other people’s needs before their own.  They are not particularly interested in establishing long-term relationships with most people they meet.

Employment Options:  These folks make great salespeople.  They are good at establishing rapport with prospects and clients and, at the same time, they won’t spend a lot of time smoozing if a sale is not forthcoming.

Low Sociability, High Friendliness

Constituting about 10% of managers, these are the people of whom we say, “It takes a little longer to get to know Fred, but once you do you will see that he is a really nice guy.”  The “Freds” of the world don’t always make a good first impression due to their lack of social confidence, but over time their genuine concern for others dominates the impression they make. 

Employment Options:  These folks make great individual contributors and are well suited for any position that does not require strong, continuous people contact.

Low Sociability, Low Friendliness

The good news is that these folks make up only about 11% of managers.  These are the curmudgeons of the work world.  They lack social graces and don’t particularly care who knows it.  Their success stems from their carving out an area of work and becoming the go-to guy for that area.

Employment Options:  These folks are much more effective as individual contributors than as managers as long as they have pronounced strength in an area that is necessary to the business (for example, as a computer guru)

High Sociability, High Friendliness

This balance is the one we all like most:  nice people who are good at getting along with others because they enjoy it.  Further good news is that folks with this balance make up about 60% of the workforce.

Employment Options:  There are many; the abilities to get along with a wide variety of people and also to be a genuinely nice person are major strengths that, absent any other major personality liabilities, will help make these people successful in most circumstances.

What Are The Personality Requirements Of The Job?

Of course people in that last category – high Sociability and high Friendliness – make a good impression in an interview!  People in the first category often make great interview impressions as well.  But remember to stop and think about what kind of person will be required by the job in question.  It’s just as unsuccessful to put a person who wants to spend a lot of time around people in a job with almost no people contact as to put an introvert in a job that requires extended contact with people.

Hiring for the accounting department?  Here are three characteristics to pay special attention to on the Performance Profile Report.  Ratings of “3” or below on any of the following characteristics signal the following cautions: 

“Intelligence” Rating of 3 or below – Indicates that the applicant may have difficulty learning new or complex material.  He or she may make more unacceptable errors than most other people.  He or she will find challenging all except the most routine work.

“Impulse Control” Rating of 3 or below – Indicates the applicant may be impulsive, preferring to “just do it” rather than think the situation through first.  This person may be less serious in general, and may not take his or her work seriously.

“Organization/Structure/Planning” Rating of 3 or below – Indicates poor detail orientation. This person may have a “close enough is good enough” attitude.

Particularly for an accounting position, the degree of the concern increases when there are low ratings on more than one of the above characteristics.  If not in the accounting department, then where could you place an applicant with the above concerns?  While it is tempting to say, “With a competitor,” it’s probably more useful, given that everything else that you know about the applicant is acceptable, that you look for a position where accuracy in details is not as important.