Personality is a combination of thoughts, desires, feelings, opinions of an individual’s characteristics. A strong personality makes the person highly confident and helps him to excel in his respective field. The study of personality can be obtained by one’s behavioural pattern, which makes them different from others. Thus personality is a sum of:
Physiological and psychological factors
It is influenced by the physical body and the way a person thinks.
- Expression
One must consider the feelings, thoughts, and social interactions.
- Actions
Your actions directly indicate your personality. It is basically how a person acts in a certain situation.
A personality test can be done through different assessment measures. Three theories, which help in measuring human personality, are:
1. Type Theory
Also known as Myers- Briggs Type Indicator describes people’s characteristics. Basically, this class includes the sharing of similar traits of an individual. It analyses the personality of an individual on a qualitative or value basis.
This theory includes CG Jung theory, which is based on the characteristics of introverts and extroverts. Introverts are shy individuals who like to keep their ideas and feelings to themselves, whereas extroverts are the ones who are outgoing, talkative, and likes to socialize with others. According to him, every person has their own goals, which differentiate them from others and which characterizes them to a certain personality category.
2. Trait Theory
Also known as ocean model theory, this approach is measured by multiple traits of an individual. These differ among individuals. For e.g., when a person reacts in a specific way, only a certain trait causes that response. This triggers the behaviour of the individual.
These traits include:
- Openness
This refers to individuals’ mental depth, which includes learning, interests, and experiences. It helps recruiters to know about the persons’ mind creativity and their desire to explore new ideas.
- Extraversion
This includes if an individual is comfortable with social interactions at the workplace. The individual is more outgoing and gregarious.
- Conscientiousness
This trait helps to assess the reliability and trustworthiness of an individual. This factor is helpful for the organization to build and recruit strong candidates for the job.
- Agreeableness
They have trusting and cooperative behaviour. An individual with this trait tends to excel in their job and are often great leaders.
3. Psychodynamic theory
This theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud; according to this theory, personality is categorized in terms of conscious and unconscious needs and values. These are associated with the unconscious desires of the mind and highlight your personality.
A general or common way of measuring personality includes-:
Subjective Methods:
- Observation
This means observing the behaviour of an individual for a significant period of time.
- Interviews
It assesses the candidates’ interaction and communication skills with the interviewer.
Objective Methods:
- Rating scales
This is used to measure the personality characteristics of an individual, such as interests, emotions, workability, etc. on the basis of the task performance.
- Checklists
Checklists are prepared to have complete data about the individual.
Need for Personality Test at workplace
Personality test indicates the potential of candidates as to how they will perform and react to different situations at the workplace. It is an important tool for all employers to make an intelligent decision. It is extremely difficult to get all the employees to work together on the basis of your terms because people are heterogeneous in nature. Everyone has different thinking and the way they analyse things. Thus, personality tests are considered to identify flaws and strengths in your candidates. It helps the employer to channel their employees’ strengths in the best possible way in order to achieve organizational goals. With the help of tests, employers get to know employee’s way of working and whether they are comfortable working alone or in a team and can also assess their behaviour and the way they react. Personality tests help in recruiting potential candidates on the basis of skills, values, and ethics. These tests allow the candidates to prosper and excel in their respective jobs along with a comfortable environment to work in.
Different methods to develop and advance your personality skills
- Analyse yourself
You need to understand that is it really the time for you to change? Consider different situations such as if a person ignores you or starts a conversion while you are still talking, it might be an indicator for you to change.
- Be honest
It is important to be true to yourself rather than pretending to be one. It helps the person to feel good about them and gives a sense of satisfaction.
- Clear your mind
Sometimes people know about themselves, they know how to carry themselves but are often confused and are in self-doubt. They lack confidence and are afraid of speaking in front of others.
- Learn from mistakes
Learning new things can result in a lot of mistakes, but apologizing truly and moving forward will help you to perform better next time.
- Study
In depth reading will help to improve the personality skills. This helps to introspect yourself and give a chance to grow, improve, and evoke your inner talent.
- Explore
It is important to meet new people, especially those who are different from you. It helps you to understand their perspective and different ways through which work can be done and the way they handle the situation.
In today’s time, it has become vital to building such skills in order to grow. Developing personality skills is a complex task because it involves behavioural changes. Good and highly confident personality helps to improve the work life of an individual, and it also boosts the strength among individuals to feel comfortable in an organization. A variety of tests can be done in order to build a strong personality. Individuals in the group perform better when others share similar ideas and work values, which lead to teamwork. Implementing tests is an effective way for employers to know whether the candidate is fit for the position in an organization. Thus do not fear to build up and expand your personality skills as it is a challenge you must take.
