By Jacqueline Wong

In our constantly changing work environments, selecting the right candidate for a role is crucial to building strong teams and ensuring long-term organizational success. Traditional interviews are important—and they will continue to be a foundational piece of candidate selection—but they are also difficult to do really well. (The reasons for this are a topic for another blog post…) Psychometric assessments are often better tools for understanding candidates’ cognitive ability, personality, interests, and emotional intelligence. Among the best-in-class assessments, the Hogan Personality Assessments stand out for their ability to predict job performance and organizational fit through a detailed and accurate understanding of personality. 

Why Use Assessments for Candidate Selection? 

Before diving into the specifics of Hogan, it’s important to understand the general benefits of using assessments in the hiring process. 

1. Data-Driven Decisions: Psychometric assessments provide more objective data about a candidate's traits, helping decision-makers move beyond gut feelings and subjective evaluations. This leads to fairer, more standardized selection processes.
2. Reducing Bias: By focusing on extensively researched traits and objective data collection, assessments help reduce unconscious bias that may arise during other selection methods.
3. Quick and Simple Administration: Assessments are often easier to administer to multiple people compared to other selection tools, reducing the time and logistical burden for those conducting the selection process.
4. Reliable Comparisons: When deciding who to hire, it is important to know that you can make meaningful comparisons between candidates. With established assessments, you can feel confident knowing how the candidates differ on skills and traits that really matter. 
5. Predicting Important Outcomes: When you know that your assessments can statistically predict job performance and cultural fit, your better-informed selection decisions can improve productivity and engagement and minimize turnover. 

The Power of Hogan Assessments

The Hogan Assessment System is a well-researched set of tools that measure key personality dimensions relevant to interpersonal behavior, job performance, and leadership potential. Hogan offers three distinct assessments, which include:

• Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI): Measures typical personality day-to-day and how the candidate behaves when they are at their best, focusing on factors such as adjustment (confidence, self-esteem, composure), sociability (outgoing, approachable, enjoy social interaction), and ambition (initiative, competitiveness, leadership aspirations).
• Hogan Development Survey (HDS): Looks at the dark-side personality traits or “derailers”—behaviors that may be strengths under typical circumstances but that can become problematic if not managed appropriately or if acting under stress. This assessment can be crucial for identifying leadership risks or potential fit issues, including factors such as caution (risk-averse, fear of failure/criticism), excitability (volatile, easily upset, hard to please), and skepticism (suspicious, argumentative, vindictive). 
• Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI): Assesses core values and drivers that predict what environments and cultures a candidate will thrive in. This is particularly important for ensuring alignment between an organization’s culture and a candidate’s motivations, including factors like recognition (wanting attention, visibility, status), altruism (wanting to help others and contribute to society), and tradition (valuing established principles of conduct and belief).

How Hogan Improves Candidate Selection

The Hogan assessments are built on three decades of research that demonstrates their validity and reliability and their ability to aid in the selection process. Specifically, the personality traits measured in the HPI are linked to job performance, which means you’ll be better equipped to choose the hire that will actually translate into a strong performer on the job. The HDS is especially useful for identifying potential derailers in leadership candidates, which allows you to look ahead to the candidates’ longevity and growth potential in the organization. The MVPI provides insight into how well a candidate aligns with an organization’s specific culture and business goals, so you’ll be better equipped to choose the hire who is most likely to fit in and stick around. Lastly, the results from the Hogan assessments can also inform employee development to maximize the hire’s success in the role after someone joins the organization. 

Best Practices for Using Hogan in Selection

• Combine with Other Methods: While the Hogan is a powerful tool, it is most effective when used alongside other selection methods like structured interviews, work sample tests, or job simulations.
• Focus on Role Requirements: Customize your use of the Hogan based on the specific role requirements. For example, an extroverted personality might be beneficial in a sales role but less critical for a technical position.
• Use Hogan-Certified Interpreters: Hogan assessments are complex and should be administered and interpreted by certified professionals to ensure valid and reliable results.
• Provide Feedback: Offering candidates feedback on their Hogan results can be a great value-add, enhancing your employer brand by showing candidates you care about their long-term development, even if they aren’t hired.

Conclusion

Incorporating the Hogan Assessment System into your candidate selection process can significantly improve your ability to make data-driven, predictive decisions about who is most likely to succeed in a specific role. With insights into personality, leadership derailers, and cultural fit, Hogan offers a comprehensive view of a candidate’s potential, helping organizations hire smarter and build stronger teams. 

At Innovative Connections, we use Hogan to help client organizations select candidates for various roles at all levels. This process includes individual feedback for candidates from a Hogan certified consultant, a detailed comparison of the top candidates, and if requested, we can collect Hogan results for the whole team to understand how each candidate would fit with existing team members. We would love to help you hire smarter with Hogan. Contact us for a no-obligation, free consultation by clicking this link: Innovative Connections or calling us at 970-279-3330.

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