In addition to professional qualifications, the character and mental aptitude of candidates is becoming increasingly important when filling management positions. Personality should therefore be analyzed in a firm and structured manner in every application process and become part of the decision-making process. An executive search expert reveals how such personality diagnostics can be successful.
It's all about personal aptitude
Today, companies looking for managers not only value professional expertise, but also candidates who fit in with the corporate culture and team structure. At a time when digital, rapidly changing industries in particular are increasingly focusing on personality and soft skills, personality analysis should therefore be a natural part of executive search.
After all, what are the consequences if the topic of personality is not examined in a structured way? The only selection criteria that remain are often the subjective impressions from the interviews and the candidates' CVs. This can lead to misunderstandings - for example, the false assumption that applicants with certain professional qualifications also exhibit the desired work and leadership behavior. This leads to wrong appointments. For example: a candidate may have extensive professional experience, but in an agile environment that requires rapid adaptation, successful leadership is characterized above all by the ability to work in a team, empathy and resilience.
Hiring without a sound insight into personality results in frequent changes and increased costs. 'The more simple tasks, the more simple activities I can automate, the less it depends on specialist knowledge and specific technical skills at some point, but more and more on personality: how does someone lead, how does someone cooperate, how adaptable is someone,' is how one executive search expert describes the current situation.
A test through self-assessment
This expert is Dr. Sebastian Tschentscher. He and Digital Minds GmbH, headquartered in Hamburg and with an office in Barcelona, specialize in recruiting managers with a digital mindset. The recruitment consultancy has many years of experience in placing digital minds and has access to a large network. As an executive search boutique, it also provides an outstanding service by not only looking at candidates' CVs, but also analyzing their individual strengths: Personality diagnostics are an integral part of every recruitment by Digital Minds, without exception.
How can this be managed with such a large number of candidates? Well, the consultancy avoids lengthy test procedures, which are perceived as a hindrance in traditional recruiting, and relies on a short but concise list of questions for self-assessment. This keeps the process efficient while at the same time structuring the topic of personality and making it an issue for all candidates in the decision-making process.
In his many years in executive search, Sebastian Tschentscher has often experienced that personality is becoming increasingly important, but still plays no or far too little of a role in recruitment processes. 'This has always bothered me in the past and I wanted to change it. So we chose a method that is short, but at the same time valid and reliable. The very short 20-question test used by Digital Minds means you can't expect an in-depth psychological assessment of personality, but you can take this test with all candidates. And, as it is about preferred behavior, the result cannot be 'right” or “wrong'. Rather, the result is a personality description that you can discuss with the candidate and ask the person: 'Do you see yourself in this?' You then have the information about how a person is according to the results of the analysis and how this fits in with what they think about themselves. This gives you an initial assessment of the personality which, together with other impressions from the interviews, can be incorporated into the recruitment process in a structured way.'
Practical examples: Why personality diagnostics leads to better decisions
The result of the brief analysis is not simply communicated, but discussed and scrutinized with the candidates in the further process. An example from Sebastian Tschentscher's work illustrates this process: A candidate for a management position in a successful and fast-growing company was 'not particularly proactive' based on the results of the personality analysis. On the one hand, this did not meet the expectations of the new company and, on the other, was surprising as she had already been working in a start-up for several years and therefore in a very agile environment. Normally, initiative personalities tend to work here. In the subsequent interviews, it was worked out that the candidate can and likes to be proactive, but in her current role she has to work in a more 'structuring' and 'stabilizing' way, because this is necessary in the current environment and was very beneficial to the start-up in the past turbulent phase. The topic of personality was therefore discussed in detail and the new company was able to decide in favor of the candidate on a broad information basis and with full conviction.
The advantages of the methodology are manifold: candidates not only feel valued through personality diagnostics, but can also better assess whether the position they are seeking matches their own goals. For companies, the approach ensures that the candidate's personality is recognized early on in the process, so that misunderstandings or wrong appointments can be avoided in advance. In addition, candidates who recognize themselves in the analysis and can discuss their behaviour in a reflective manner offer companies a valuable assurance: here is someone who knows how to assess themselves well.
Due to all these advantages, Sebastian Tschentscher is convinced that personality diagnostics will play an even more central role in the future - not only in the recruitment of new managers, but also in the analysis and development of existing teams.
