Why Most Assessments Fail: Assessment Series Part 2

December 28, 2010 by Bryce Christiansen in Personal Growth, Understanding Yourself

If you ever applied for a job, worked in HR, or even opened a Facebook account you have probably taken some form of a personal assessment.

The tests have you pick the best reaction to a situation, select from four random personality traits that best describe you even when none of them do, or choose from only negative traits to characterize yourself.

You probably get done with it and think “how will those questions possibly figure anything out about me.” When you see the results your thoughts are confirmed and you just wasted an hour of your time.

So why do some personal assessments fall short?

1. Ask Only One Type of Question

A lot of assessments are designed quickly with out enough thought or backing put into it. They take the easy way out by asking a hundred questions but in just one format.

For example, I logged onto Facebook today and typed personality in the search box. The highest rated application pops up and 12 of my friends have taken it, so I go ahead and give it a look. Immediately, it becomes clear that this is more of a marketing gimmick than a real assessment. Here is how it looks.

I…	Very Inaccurate	Moderately Inaccurate	Neither	Moderately Accurate	Very Accurate
Have a vivid imagination

They then repeat this with up to a hundred more choices.

So, what do results look like when you use this approach? Regurgitated. The report divides the 20 -100 questions into 5 categories and spits them back at you. You get the same insight from making a list of traits and telling yourself if you have them or not.

2. Pigeon-Holing You into a Small Number of Character Types

I call these the “What Disney Princess Are You?” assessments. These assessments already have 4 -20 predetermined “character types” that they try to match you up to based on the answers provided. When you finish the assessment it compares your scores to the same scores of whoever they are trying to match you to. Whichever has the closest match is automatically provided to you as YOUR result, even if you only match Snow White 75% of the time.

The same method is used a number of other ways. You can be Paul, Peter, Abraham or Moses; or in another light, a Guardian, Artisan, Philosopher, or Scientist. The problem is that it is extraordinary for someone to fit a profile 100%. It’s almost unheard of, so although these can be good as a fun view of yourself, it’s fairly limited for real application.

3. Lack of Perspective

Most personal assessments are one-dimensional. They hone in on one aspect of your life, like behavior, and completely disregard any other factors that may affect the results.

For example, an assessment may look at what motivates a person, but ignore their personality type. Or it could assess what a person values but have no understanding of how they behave.

What is the downfall of this style of assessment? The answers you find tell you what you are, but leave out why you have those behaviors, or how to apply it.

So, you may find out you are a power wielder, peacekeeper or fun lover, but not understand how your style is causing stress, how to communicate with others of similar or different styles, and what is motivating you to fall into that style. You just know you like to have fun, socialize, hang out in large groups, throw parties and be the life of the crowd.

It’s interesting…but not that helpful.

4. They Make Them Beatable

This point reminds me of a situation many years ago when I applied for a job as a teller at a bank. The process to becoming a teller is fairly complicated and time-consuming. They have you go to a team interview, one-on-one interview, drug screening, finger print test, two weeks of pre-training, and performance tests, all before they actually take you on. Before any of this however, they have you take their assessment.

If you’ve ever taken similar required assessments to get a job interview, you probably understand what I mean when I say the only reason they could possibly be using this is to weed out the bottom of the barrel.

Most of the questions were things like…

1. On a scale from 1 to 10 how would you rate yourself

a. Leadership

b. Customer Service

c. Following Directions

d. Timeliness

e. Responsibility

Or they gave you choices in personality that were easy to guess which ones they were looking for…

1. Which describes you best.

a. Take matters into my own hands

b. Follow established procedures

c. Make new procedures for others to follow

The point is, some assessments are poorly-designed and their purpose is just to pass or fail you. You take one look at it and don’t understand how anyone else could answer the questions differently. And the results don’t really mean much either. They don’t know if you really are timely, responsible or follow established procedures. You only answered that way because you knew it was what they wanted you to choose.

Making an Unbeatable and Insightful Assessment

Image ©

So how do you make an unbeatable and insightful assessment? You take away the issues above.

The assessments we use ask multiple types of questions. You rank items, have multiple choice, and the questions cover a variety of styles, behaviors, motivators, etc.
The assessments we use show variations of your behavior and motivation styles. Results show how much of a style, value or motivator you exhibit. There are an infinite number of ways results can come out.
The assessments we use have multiple perspectives. We don’t just look at one dimension of a person. We take into account their behavior, motivators, personality, communication, work style, life style, and more. Because of this, we can answer questions that start with how and why.
The assessments we use don’t have wrong answers. You can’t beat an assessment that doesn’t have any wrong answers. In fact, the only wrong answers are from being dishonest with yourself. Picking characteristics from choices like Logical, Creative, Good Supporter and Persuasive leave you to really think about which aspects play a larger role in your personality.

This assessment is called DISC and includes several different assessments to accommodate all the needs above.