I recently had the great privilege of having a live-streamed conversation with Tom Tate at Phenom People about how personality psychology can enhance the talent experience.

Beginning with our mission at Traitify, we combine software technology with personality science to create tools that help candidates find work experiences they love and organizations find people who are a great fit for available roles. However we don’t stop there, we also provide learning and development tools to help employees and managers further their individual and collective growth.

Today I want to highlight some questions from our discussion that illustrate the utility of personality science throughout the employee lifecycle.

How should we be defining or thinking about this concept of “personality psychology?”

I like to think about personality as the lens through which we see the world. It isn’t the same as behavior, but it does change the way we see things and how we are likely to respond. For example, imagine two people, Anna and Maria, walking down a city street and happening upon a pop-up carnival. Anna is more extraverted, tends to enjoy large crowds of new people, and loves thrill rides. Maria is more introverted, prefers small groups of good friends, and isn’t a huge fan of thrill rides. When Anna sees that carnival she is probably more likely to walk right in and enjoy. Maria might reach out to some friends first to see if they might want to join her at the carnival later in the day. While Ana and Maria may both end up enjoying the carnival, their approaches are likely to be different. The more we know about our personality lens, the more control we have over how we choose to react to various situations.

At the beginning of the job seeker’s journey, what are some ways that personality psychology can really improve that candidate experience?

Traitify assessments are fun, fast, and engaging. As a result, they’re a great way to improve the candidate experience. We can start with ways to engage the passive talent pool. A link to our career interests assessment can be sent out to this population of potential candidates. We find that providing individuals with insights about their interests and links to available jobs that are a good match helps increase candidate flow. Additionally, our Big Five assessment has very high completion rates, 96%, when placed early in the applicant process. Survey results from one client showed that completion of the assessment actually led to an increase in applicants’ interest in the role.

Keeping in mind the impact of COVID-19, some companies are hiring a ton and fast. How can hiring managers leverage this type of assessment data and technology to improve their experience?

Given the constraints of needing to re-staff quickly with a very large talent pool, hiring managers need as many easily digestible data points as possible to help them make sound decisions in a short amount of time. They want to know whether or not a candidate is likely to be a good fit for the role and where any gaps might exist. The Traitify results for hiring managers aim to be transparent and provide this information in an easily digestible format, along with suggested interview questions for exploring the results further. Using this information in conjunction with other skill and experience data can lead to better, more efficient hiring.

2020 is the year of change. Lots of remote work. From the employee experience perspective, what are some of the main ways you’re seeing this type of data be leveraged to improve that experience?

At Traitify, we believe in the importance of learning and development tools for employees and managers. We recently released our Traitify Engage product which provides success tips for employees in a number of areas, one of which is working from home. In this product, employees are given short, actionable tips that they can incorporate into their everyday work lives that are personalized based on their individual assessment results. We also have a team-building guide that provides direction and advice for helping individuals work well together. The Traitify platform can also be used in team-building sessions designed to help team members understand the personality composition of their team and learn how to communicate and work together more effectively.

In sum, personality science can be used to improve the entire employment life cycle. From having a positive application experience to growing and developing talent within your organization, see what Traitify can do for you.