Personality tests or personality exams are a great way for hospital and healthcare employers to determine whether or not you will fit in to existing team dynamics, and highlight some of your potential strengths based on your personality. We’ve compiled the definitive guide on why hospital and healthcare employers should use personality exams for healthcare professionals.
Personality exams or personality tests for healthcare professionals are focused on determining critical personality traits through the use of tricky questions to assess individual aspects of your personality.
Personality exams and personality tests are also used to determine various productivity levels for each personality, the behavior style towards other people, behavior style towards customers, how you go about completing tasks, and your ability to cope with stress in various situations.
Once you complete the personality test or personality exam, you will be rated on individual scales according to the specific test. Each test has its own way of assessing the answers you provide, and then placing you into a category or giving you a title.
Some of these categories might include: “productive worker”, “poor communication skills”, etc.
One unique quality about personality exams for healthcare professionals is that each question doesn’t have a wrong answer. Technically speaking, every question has a correct answer.
These personality tests or personality exams are designed to accurately place you in a relevant category or skill set, so the only way you can get a question wrong is if you provide false answers.
Each test is designed to operate on the assumption that you are replying with the most accurate answer or solution to situational scenarios, so that the test will eventually place you in the accurate category or placement.
There are plenty of different personality exams or personality tests that a potential healthcare or hospital employer might use. Therefore, it is important to know some of the most popular personality exams or personality tests that your potential employer might use.
Some of the ten most popular personality tests are:
• DISC Assessment
• Myer-Briggs Type Indicator
• Process Communication Model
• Winslow Personality Profile
• Holtzman Inkblot Technique
• Hexaco Personality Inventory
• Personality Assessment System
• Revised Neo Personality Inventory
• The Birkman Method
• The Enneagram
In addition, there are several personality tests that are used for industry specific scenarios:
• Customer Service Personality Test
• Critical Skills Test
• Workplace Productivity Test
• Medical Specialty Test
• Clinical Specialty Test
Each one of these tests have their own unique characteristics and will provide employers with different results. We’ll break down some of the different results from the different tests, so you can understand what employers, hiring managers, hospital recruiters, and healthcare recruiters might be trying to find through the use of individual tests.
• DISC Assessment
The DISC Assessment is useful for evaluating behavioral traits that include: Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance. The creators named the test after the four key traits that are tested throughout the personality test.
• Myer-Briggs Type Indicator
The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator is great for highlighting the characteristics of people through the use of their sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking skills.The test essentially evaluates which of those characteristics is your most dominant characteristic.
From there the test will determine whether or not you are an introvert or extrovert.
• Process Communication Model
The original test for the Process Communication Model was created by NASA to help narrow down potential astronauts, but has eventually grown into a useful tool for potential employers.
The personality test will assess individuals into six different personality types based on: harmonizers, thinkers, rebels, persisters, promoters, and imagineers.
• Winslow Personality Profile
The Winslow Personality Profile is a tool that helps individuals measure their career success and happiness. It evaluates twenty four different personality traits and helps individuals find their strengths.
Many hospital and healthcare employers are using the Winslow Personality Profile due to the fact that it is extremely user-friendly. Which means that there are less mistakes during the taking of the test.
• Holtzman Inkblot Technique
One of the more abstract personality tests available today is the Holtzman Inkblot Technique. This personality tests helps assess personalities through the use of inkblots.
The test takes into consideration reaction time, space, place, rejection, and form of various inkblots used throughout the testing procedures.
• Hexaco Personality Inventory
The Hexaco Personality Inventory garners its name from the six aspects involved in the testing procedures. The six aspects involved in the testing include: Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience.
• Personality Assessment System
The Personality Assessment System is useful for healthcare and hospital employers by determining a person’s intelligence and relevant skills. Hospitals and healthcare employers will use the Personality Assessment System.
• The Birkman Method
The Birkman Method is useful for those healthcare or hospital employers who want to measure a person’s reaction to stress. Understanding how an individual can react to stress is vital to ensuring a positive outcome in the healthcare and hospital setting.
• The Enneagram
The Enneagram personality test is one of the more visual personality tests available and in wide-use as it combines nine different personality tests to form a unique design between a circle, inner triangle, and hexagon.
Plenty of hospitals and healthcare employers are starting to use the Enneagram personality test due to the fact that it is incredibly thorough in evaluating which three main personality characteristics will influence your work ethic.
Some of the healthcare-specific personality tests that could be used by healthcare and hospital employees might include:
• Customer Service Personality Test
This type of test will evaluate what kind of reactions you have to stressful interactions with customers, and how personable you are with others. This test is especially useful for roles in a hospital or healthcare setting that directly involve dealing with patients or family members of patients.
• Critical Skills Test
Some hospital employers or healthcare employers might ask that you take a critical skills personality test to ensure that you are capable of performing daily tasks as part of the job.
These tests are designed to test unique skills specific to the position itself.
• Workplace Productivity Test
Workplace productivity personality tests are used to determine how productive you might be in a chaotic environment like a hospital or healthcare facility. These tests are used to determine what kind of work ethic you have, and project how productive you might be as an employee.
• Medical Specialty Test
Similar to a critical skills personality test, a medical specialty test will ensure that you know specific things or that you are well suited to work in the various medical specialties you are applying for.
• Clinical Specialty Test
Similar to a medical specialty test, a clinical specialty test is used by hospital and healthcare employers to determine if your personality matches the clinical specialty you would like to work in.
Personality tests and personality exams can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. In addition, some require that you take them in-person, online, on your own time, or a combination. Each test has their own format and specifications for taking each exam.
In addition, each one of these personality tests and personality exams have their own way of scoring. To ensure accuracy, some tests have to be administered and scored by certified test givers.
In other cases, some of these personality tests can be taken and graded on your own, or through the use of an online database that will take your answers, compute them, and then provide the personality alignment results according to the
These specifications ensure that the answers you provide are the most accurate ones given without worry of cheating, inaccurate results, or skewed results due to an improper testing procedure.
It’s important to remember that each one of these tests are designed to give accurate personality results, and there is no wrong answer.
So following proper procedures and guidelines for efficiently taking the personality exams or personality tests is important.
Increasingly, personality tests and personality exams are becoming more important for hospital and healthcare employers and job seekers.
Personality exams and personality tests help employers, hiring managers, and healthcare recruiters determine whether or not a job seeker might be a good fit for the position.
Personality tests help employers get an inside look on how each job test taker functions, how they perceive the world, some of their productivity habits, and how they engage with co-workers, and how they engage with customers or patients.
In addition, personality tests are useful for determining how a job seeker might fit in a particular role as we mentioned above.
With the massive talent shortage in the competitive job marketplace, employers are constantly seeking individuals who will be a positive fit for the long term and fit well into existing team dynamics.
If an individual is with the company long term and is a positive fit for existing team dynamics, then the employer will have reduced turnover which saves both time and money.
This means that personality tests are an effective tool for reducing costs and saving ample time in narrowing down the most qualified candidates and interviewing ones that will fit into existing team dynamics.
For individual job seekers, personality exams can be beneficial for job seekers because it can help inform you about your potential career choices or careers that you would be well-suited in.
For instance, you don’t want somebody who cannot handle stressful environments to apply for a healthcare position where dealing with stress is the most important aspect of the job.
For both job seekers and hospital employers, personality exams are a great way of determining your strengths and weaknesses.
This is an incredibly useful tool for those employers and job seekers are looking to align certain strengths for various positions. For instance, if you have communication strengths, then you would be well suited to those roles where you have to constantly interact with patients and their families.
The more insight you have, and the more insight the potential employer has about what your best and worst traits are, then a more accurate hiring decision can be made - which pays off in the long run for both the employer and job seeker.
Another benefit of personality tests or personality exams is to help you understand how to connect with others. If you find that you respond well to certain behaviors then you’ll be able to know what roles you might succeed in, and how to interact with other personalities.
If a personality test is taken before an interview, personality tests can help employers determine whether or not that individual should be invited to an interview to learn more about them.
Personality exams also offer employers a chance to learn more about each individual applicant, due to the fact that interviews only offer a limited amount of time to truly engage and connect.
All of these insights can be gathered within a few minutes and a simple test.
Essentially, personality exams and personality tests are a great way for potential employers and you to determine whether or not you would be a good fit for existing team dynamics, and desired employee personalities.
While there are plenty of benefits in personality tests for healthcare professionals, there are also several drawbacks.
One of the drawbacks of personality tests for healthcare professionals is that some of the tests can take a little bit longer and take a little bit more effort complete.
For those hospital and healthcare professionals who are pressed for time and want to quickly apply to other jobs, then they don’t want to fill out the personality tests.
This is a drawback for employers due to the fact that there are plenty of qualified applicants who do not want to go through the extra hassle associated with the job posting, and are skipping out on completing the application.
The tests aren’t perfect at predicting how an employee will perform or behave in a new role.
If an individual has an education background or professional experience that would align well with the job posting, but does poorly on the personality test - then it puts the employer in a difficult situation on how to move forward with that applicant.
Another cause for concern is the way in which job seekers perceive personality tests. Even if the test provider explains how there is no wrong answer and to accurately answer based on how they feel or react to situations, the job seeker might still wish to impress or project better answers than they really feel.
This means that there is always room for wrong answers to be given, and inaccurate results can arise regardless of all the proper procedures and testing measures being followed.
Another drawback in personality exams for healthcare professionals is that they can create a lack of diversity in professional settings.
When an employer, human resource manager, or recruiter understands how certain personalities function well in a specific role, they want to find more like-minded individuals and job seekers to fill that role.
This means that if they see that 3 of the 4 individuals are strong communicators, but lack leadership skills, they might try to find someone who fits that exact mold in their personality test results.
While it might be a coincidence that somebody fits that mold, it doesn’t meant that they will fit existing team dynamics, or be the best candidate for that position.
Another drawback for healthcare and hospital employers who use a personality test is that they can cost a substantial amount of money.
Some tests are free, and others cost a substantial amount of money.
If an employer uses a free test, then they will wonder whether or not they are receiving the most accurate results.
If an employer uses a paid test, then they will wonder whether or not they are getting their money’s worth and if they are really effective.
Unlike other tests, the unique thing about a personality exam or personality test is that you do not have to prepare. There are no wrong answers, so you don’t have to worry about getting the right answer.
In fact, attempting to answer with the “perceived” correct answer will only result in a failed test. The way to do well on a personality exam, is to answer truthfully and honest in each scenario or question proposed.
Most personality tests have specific rules about not letting the test taker know that they will be asked to take a personality test.
If a test taker knows that they are going to be taking a personality test, then they might do some research to come up with the “best answers”. This means that the testing results are going to be skewed, which doesn’t help anyone in the long run.
This means that the best way to prepare for a personality test is to act natural, and answer as truthfully as you can.
One concern that many job seekers have is that they have to pay for a personality exam.
In some extremely rare cases, some employers will ask that you pay for a personality exam as part of the hiring process. But the good news is that most if not all employers will cover the cost of the personality tests.
In most cases, employers will cover the complete cost of the personality exam or personality test, as they can be quite expensive.
According to Helios HR, personality assessments can cost upwards of $100 to $5,000 per candidate.
If an employer does require that you pay for the assessment test, then they will most likely compensate you at a later time.
Now that you have a better understanding of what personality exams or personality tests are, what benefits and drawbacks they have, and how you should prepare - we have also compiled a list of example questions for you to get a first-hand look at some questions you might be asked.
In this way, you can get a little bit more comfortable before you take a personality test.
There are plenty of free online personality exams or tests that you can take to get a feel for how the exam will function, but here are a few questions you might be asked.
1.) I really enjoy making detailed plans.
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree
2.) I have a clear picture of what my goals in my career are.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Neutral
• Agree
• Strongly Agree
3.) It bothers me when people are rude to me.
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree
As one can see, these are just a few example questions that might arise in a personality exam or personality test.
When you are taking the personality test, it is important to review how the test is structured each question, because they will rotate the answers in different formats to ensure that you aren’t just selecting one option every time a new question pops up.
Personality exams and personality tests are extremely useful for both hospital job seekers, and healthcare professionals due to the fact that they help provide a powerful insight into whether or not the hospital job seeker will fit into existing team dynamics, and highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of that job seeker.