To be weirded out by this candidate's personality test

[salsamillion]

I'll keep things vague for reasons of obvious confidentiality. I'm recruiting a senior manager for a role in a large company. The post includes line management of around 10 staff as well as some direct customer facing responsibility. We are through to final (third) interview this week and one candidate has included a personality test they completed at their current employer. It shows them to be organised, target focussed etc, all good. BUT it also shows them to have unusually low levels of altruism.
Does anyone know what that actually means? I've contacted the company who did the test and they refuse to comment on individual cases without their written consent, which I don't want to do at this stage.
So what does it mean in real terms? Are they likely to be a sociopathic serial killer?

I really wouldn't take these too seriously. I took exactly the same test twice, once before I started my current job and again after I had been doing the job for a year. My results were so different you would never have believed it was the same person. Take it all with a pinch handful of salt.

Perhaps the candidate included the test results for other reasons than to highlight low altruism, DoreenLethal?

I would ask for your thread to be deleted OP.

I think that it is not as simple as assuming a high score = good and a low score = bad. The test scoring should be assessed in a particular way in conjunction with the needs of the role.

For example, where altruism is one of the facets that makes up 'agreeableness' a very high scoring altruistic character would not necessarily be desirable. A high scorer might be very well suited to a voluntary care-giving role working within a charity, while a lower scorer might brilliantly fulfil the role of the very highly paid executive head of fundraising in the same charity.

Given that we don't know which role this applicant has applied for, it really is impossible to hazard a guess as to whether this score is a good thing or not.

I think, in the absence of having someone able to assess the test result, you should either ignore it or ... if you wish to utilize such things ... commission your own (company's) psychometric testing.

Like Doreen, I can't see why everyone's so keen to say it should be ignored.

Lying - If the candidate wanted to highlight the other things and downplay the selfish-bastard aspect of their personality as shown, they'd have said something before now wouldn't they? They've had two interviews and the opportunity to include a cover in their portfolio.

A person who considers it unimportant to have a normal, high, or even moderately low level of altruism is one who takes pride in looking out for themselves only.

In some roles, this would be an advantage. In those roles, they'd be surrounded by fellow selfish bastards. Fine. The question isn't about whether the test's any good, it's about the character of a person who presents this information in their application without comment!

If the personality test results your candidate has submitted is measuring the Big Five then a low score in altruism could indicate they do not particularly like helping those in need. Requests for help feel like an imposition rather than an opportunity for self-fulfilment.

Basically what bigqueenbee said

God it doesn't take much for the sanctimonious brigade to come out in force does it? You're not breaching any confidentiality obligations OP and it's an interesting question, can see why you are concerned/intrigued. I'd be inclined to ask the candidate why they included the test and see how the discussion goes.

Without RTFT, I'd interpret it as not sacrificing himself for the good of others. So he's more likely to blame others to get himself out of trouble/cover mistakes.
Or he's quite ruthless and will make decisions for the good of the company even if it's at the expense of individuals.

If the candidate has included it, I'd ask fir their take on it.

"Or he's quite ruthless and will make decisions for the good of the company even if it's at the expense of individuals."

In some roles that can be what's required. Sometimes what is good for the manager/executive/whatever is what's good for the company, too.

Impossible for us to know without us knowing the role.

All we really know is that OP is on the selection panel and doesn't understand that particular test result or why the candidate thought it was a good idea to present it. We could maybe also guess that OP might judge it as a poor quality, but none of know the role, so can't help!

Bollocks has the OP breached confidentiality. Hundreds of thousands of people apply for jobs every day and if only 1% of those had attached a psychometric test report it would still be be thousands of unidentifiable potential candidates.

I would interpret those results as the candidate doesn't do anything unless it will benefit him and that he won't put himself out to benefit others unless there's something in it for him too.

Well, if altruism in this context is taken to mean being motivated to increase the welfare of others as opposed to being motivated to increase your own, I think it's perfectly possible to be be a nice, "normal" person if you get a low score here. All it means is that this person is wired to behave / respond to situations where there is potential to do better for yourself. It is entirely different to empathy (and a lack of empathy can be a feature of many people that aren't serial killers!), and in psychological terms is not related to relationships in the way that we tend to mean when we use the term colloquially.

Actually, there is significant debate as to whether or not it is possible for people to be truly altruistic. You could argue that people get just as much for themselves in some way when doing things for the good of others.

Anyway, that was a long-winded way of saying that any feature of a personality test can't be viewed in isolation and the term itself is used in quite a different sense.

"Actually, there is significant debate as to whether or not it is possible for people to be truly altruistic."

Good point, Sweary.

This post isn't a breach of confidentiality

But its wrong of you, OP, to post here asking for opinions - which you know will amount to judgment - on a candidate who is hoping to get a job within your organisation. But as a senior staff member you appear not to be confident enough to think this through carefully, trust your own instinct, and decide whether this candidate is suitable or not.

He put the personality test in his "brag file" - incidentally, strange you say "nice" is a requirement but candidates have to brag? Is it humble-bragging??

He'll never know, of course - but what a thought that you could go for a role, and the senior member of staff responsible for interview and recruitment, is on an internet forum asking random people who don't know you nor were involved in your interview process, whether you are suitable or not!

If you don't understand the personality test you could have gone online and found information about it. You say you've done that but if you haven't found anything in Google Scholar for instance, then I find that surprising.

YABU for not having belief in your own assessment skills yet you hold such a senior position

Talking about a candidate(even if anonymously) on an internet forum is poor form really. What would you do if the consensus was "no, don't give him the job?" trust the judgment of strangers over your own? Because if its not that then I don't see the purpose of your question really, you must want a yay or nay here to help you make up your mind

Its unfair

It just means he answered the questions in the persona of someone who is less motivated by altruism than the average in the population. This is quite possibly because he wanted to project a go-getting, having-influencing-skills persona in the test.

I've seen the mousiest of colleagues come out with strong leadership characteristics in these tests.

actually MistressDeeCee is right.

Confidentiality can't possibly be an issue here. How on earth would you work out who, where, what etc from the information given?

But I do agree that it's unfair on the prospective candidate that whether he is offered the job or not could be influenced by a load of randoms on a forum. No one can possibly know whether the person is suitable for the post. We don't know what the company or post is. We don't know what the test was or how reliable it is or whether it was conducted properly. We haven't read the candidates CV. Yet our yay or nays could all influence your decision. Seems unfair. If that was a family member or friend applying, I'd be gutted to think the interviewers decision had been influenced in this way.

I don't think anyone can possible comment fairly or with any knowledge about what this test result might mean in relation to what is expected of the successful candidate of the advertised post.

OP, is it the CCR3 profile?

a low level of empathy.
they would have no difficulty firing or reprimanding an employee.
they may however have to dig deep into their management skills to understand and deal with (and you may want to question experience) common things like child care, mental health, or alcohol challenges.

Talking about a candidate(even if anonymously) on an internet forum is poor form really. What would you do if the consensus was "no, don't give him the job?" trust the judgment of strangers over your own? Because if its not that then I don't see the purpose of your question really, you must want a yay or nay here to help you make up your mind. Its unfair

This. Very poor form. Nothing to do with whether the candidate is identifiable, it's still unfair to the poor sod who applied to that job and you are making jokes about him on here, saying maybe he's a serial killer, how funny

What are the chances you will give him fair consideration, when you view his application as an appropriate subject for jokes?

Personally, I would discount the results of the test as far as possible, though some bias will inevitably remain. You aren't trained to interpret them, so don't try.

That said, the fact that the candidate included the test in the first place would be ringing alarm bells for me. It's evidence of very poor judgement and a lack of social awareness. I would not wish to hire a senior manager lacking in these areas.

I am confused. Surely the most attractive feature of MN is the option to freely ask for opinions (from a wide range of people with different life/work experience) on the behaviour/characteristics of others in an anonymous and consequence-free environment?

'cos as far as I can see that is all the op is doing, and she's getting a lot of flak for it I wouldn't know where to start with tracking down op and interview candidate so am clearly lacking in the supersleuth skills some of you believe we all possess. As for those berating her for talking about a professional decision in an anonymous forum with random people - I long ago realised that if you decide to live in the world and engage with other humans from time to time, then you have to get used to the fact that SOMETIMES people might talk about you in your absence and it MIGHT not always be positive. That's life taking umbrage on behalf of the (presumably happily ignorant) candidate just seems mad to me.

Oh and op I have no clue about your original question but it's quite possible that the score won't affect their professional performance if their other indicators are favourable..... I'd call them in for interview myself, if they seem qualified and suitable apart from this point.

What a lot of very strange opinions on here. Clearly there is no possibility that OP has breached confidentiality, nor is it conceivably wrong to post a query on here where there is a good chance that someone in recruitment or HR can help.

Is it possible the candidate was hoping you'd see their test results as evidence of the "nicer" aspects of their behaviours and that you would perhaps ignore the less positive parts of their personality? Presumably also the candidate had to submit all of the test results and couldn't remove the altruism part?

Either way I would disregard it from their application unless you're willing to ask them about it to provide some clarity to their results.