ON FURTHER EXAMINATION. . .

SIDEBAR: Tests commonly used in Australia

16 PF The Sixteen Personality Factor questionnaire claims to measure levels of: warmth, reasoning ability, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, rule consciousness, boldness, sensitivity, distrust, abstractedness, privateness, worrying, openness to change, self-reliance, perfectionism and tension.

California Psychological Inventory A general-purpose personality assessment that covers a wide range of personality traits.

Myers-Briggs Based on the theories of Carl Jung, the Myers-Briggs test identifies eight different types of personalities indicating how we perceive information and make decisions.

Prevue Assessment System Provides four reports that answer the following questions: Can the person do the job? Will the person do the job? Does the person have the personality to enjoy the job? Does the individual fit the job?

General-range personality questionnaire designed to look at personality attributes as they relate to job performance.

SHL Decision Maker A job profiling and candidate assessment software package that examines general work preferences - such as motivation, customer service attitude, task orientation and response to authority.

SIDEBAR: Perfect Harmony

The case of the CIO who failed the test - with no regrets.

A CIO who claims to have done two psychometric tests and a behavioural interview in the past year says the examinations did not reveal the best of who he is or how he performs. Worse, he says one company measured attributes that he believes are irrelevant.

"I did my due diligence on the role and on the company and I just don't understand how the test I was asked to take could claim to predict performance in that particular job," he says.

"When a company is casting for a CIO of an IT unit that has underperformed, I wonder what the rush is to find yet another new senior member who has a Â'cultural fit' with the current team. Does it cross the minds of the recruiters or the company itself that the personality of the team is the problem and that the best thing to do is hire someone who will shake the whole show up? Why hire someone of the same underperforming ilk? For peace and quiet? That's bullshit, and it's bad business."

The candidate, who asked not to be named since he is now the CIO of an organisation that competes with one of the companies who tested him, says the process of personality "measurement" is flawed because people have multiple personalities - work, home, family, friends and so on.

"There are organisations in which my colleagues and I have worked that consistently ignored performance and focused on what they called personality problems," he says. "If you say your CIO has a personality problem but you also know he or she is one of your best managers, what are you going to do? Do you want this person to remain one of your best managers or should they change their personality? They are good at what they do precisely because of who they are and how they do it.

"When you hire senior people you want to find out what they can do and make sure that they can do it. All you need do is talk to the people they have worked with before. And that's easy with the best candidates because they'll give you a long list of names," the CIO says.

"I was faced with numerous occasions in the psychometric tests where I knew what type of answer the company was looking for. The best tactic is obvious - just stay away from the extremes. But I didn't provide the answers they wanted because it would have been dishonest. And I guarantee the other candidates recognised those questions as well," he says. "I could have increased my chances of landing the jobs by lying. And who hasn't done that before?