Does faking a personality test give candidates an unfair advantage?

Imagine you are applying for a new job. It is one you really want. You know that there will be tough competition. You ensure that all of your relevant skills, knowledge and experience are included in your résumé, and that your letter of application targets the competencies you will need in the new role. When called in for an interview, you behave in a way that is appropriate for the situation and give the best response you can. You know you are being observed with critical eyes. You manage the impression you make. You put your best foot forward. You see no reason to lie, tell half-truths or attempt to do anything other than to demonstrate the qualities that you believe the prospective new employer is looking for. 

And then they ask you to do some personality profiling. 

OK! You have done this kind of thing before and it highlighted some behavioural tendencies that you recognised could be areas for your development. You know that you can respond differently to the personality questionnaire this time so that those problematic traits are not as evident in your profile.

In these circumstances many job applicants may well decide to fake it…. or fudge it…. or manage the impression they make. It is estimated that about 30-50 percent of job applicant profiles are faked (Roulin, Krings & Binggeli, 2016). This is an alarming figure on top of the faking that we know can occur in résumés, job applications and even job interviews, etc. It is a tricky game for recruiters and hiring managers who are trying to work out what is true and what is not.

So, coming back to our scenario. You now have a choice – to fake it or not. You respond as honestly as you can, but you wonder if other applicants with whom you are competing are being equally as honest. It is tempting to ask yourself at this point: “Can I fake it to get the job?”

There is no doubt that you can fake personality tests. You only have to endorse strongly those attributes that you think your prospective employer wants and downplay those that are unfavourable. There is really no dispute about this in the literature. Just as it is possible for some to can fake their way through other parts of the selection process, you can also fake the personality test. 

To date, we have no way that is 100% reliable to detect or eradicate the potential for faking. Test developers have tried various techniques such as embedding nonsense items, building scales to measure social desirability of responses, warning candidates their results will be verified, using different response formats (normative versus ipsative), etc. But the effectiveness of these methods is unlikely to be foolproof. 

The question is not “Can I fake it”, but “Will faking give me a better chance of getting the job?” The evidence that faking personality profiling gives job applicants an unfair advantage is mixed. Some researchers provide evidence that those applicants who fake have an unfair advantage while others show that there is relatively little impact (for a recent review, see Lee, Smith & Geisinger, 2017). 

At Allworth Juniper, personality profiling has always been a core component of the psychological assessment services we offer our clients. We are acutely aware of the potential for faking personality tests and recognise that it is very difficult to know if a candidate has faked their profile. Nonetheless, for us and for the clients who are committed to the proper use of personality profiling, the benefits significantly outweigh the risks. 

Our view is that, although it is very easy for candidates to rate themselves in a way that exaggerates their strengths and downplays their limitations, it is actually very difficult for them to produce a profile that is right for the job. And here are some reasons why we say this:

  1. More is not necessarily better. There are some personality attributes on which too high a self-rating can be counterproductive. For example, while a good level of “sociability” and “social self-confidence” will be important for roles in which you need to build relationships and collaborate with others, too much may be counterproductive. Highly sociable employees are sometimes very chatty or are more interested in socialising at work than getting on with the job. 
  2. It’s not only about your ratings – it’s about how your ratings compare with those of a norm group. Personality profiles represent standardised scores – how you scored relative to how others scored. So, you might have strongly endorsed all of the questions that looked favourable, but you don’t know how those in the comparison group rated themselves. If everyone has given a high rating on the favourable items, yours may not necessarily be any better than most. 
  3. One attribute can counter-balance another. When we interpret personality profiles, we don’t just look at personality attributes individually. We look at clusters of attributes and interpret patterns or configurations. A high score on one attribute may mean something different when considered alongside another attribute. For example, a high score on the “decisiveness” attribute could be interpreted as a potential for reckless risk-taking in candidates who also rate themselves high on “optimism”. They see everything through rose-coloured glasses and figure that things cannot go wrong. On the other hand, a high self-rating on “decisiveness” may not be as much of a concern for risk-taking when the attributes of “optimism” and “impulsivity” are more moderate. It is not easy for these configurations to be faked by candidates as they will vary across personality tests and are a feature of the expert opinion of the professional interpreting the profile.
  4. Extreme responses can be honest responses. It is possible for a candidate to endorse the extremes of the scale and return a profile that appears to be faked, but is actually an honest representation. These candidates are actually observed to be more extreme in their behaviour. For example, compared with most, they are much more outgoing, much more persuasive, much more conscientious, much more optimistic, etc. However, when we see profiles like this, we provide our clients with reference checking questions to confirm or disconfirm some of these extreme attributes. A good behavioural interview with the candidate can also help here.
  5. No one size fits all. Our psychologists always interpret personality profiles against the requirements of the role. Attributes that are required for one job may not be necessary in another. For example, while attention to detail may be critical for a data analyst, too much attention to detail may be counter-productive for effective strategic leadership. To fake a personality profile requires a good understanding of the role. Candidates need to research and gain access to the best understanding they can of the personality attributes that will be required in the role. They need to get a handle on the culture of the organisation and the behaviours that will be necessary for success in the position. If they can do this effectively, they may actually have the social intelligence, awareness and adaptability that most employers seek.

So, candidates can, and probably do, fake their personality profiles and some may get away with it, particularly if the profile is not expertly interpreted. We cannot claim to always detect faked profiles, but candidates cannot be guaranteed they are more likely to be selected for a job simply by producing exaggerated scores. Our view is that it is insufficient to simply look for higher scores on favourable personality attributes (and lower scores on unfavourable attributes). To get the best out personality testing, expert interpretation of the nuances of personality and its relationship with work is required. 

We can advise you on how to minimise faking and get the best results from personality profiling. Done well, personality profiling can contribute meaningful data to support accurate recruitment decisions.