Alva's default personality profiles are constructed from research looking into which facets that predict performance among broader job families. Our default profiles will go a long way for most organizations and is a stellar way to ensure that you are measuring the right dimensions in your recruitment.
However, in some cases it may be warranted to edit a profile. This could be due to your job analysis for a role making it clear that a specific personality trait is a driver for success - or maybe you've completed a validation study and want to update the profile based on your analysis results.
A word of caution
It is generally wise to be careful when putting together a personality profile. If you haven't properly validated that the traits you select are important for the role, it could lead you to misjudge which candidates are fit for the role you are hiring for. Consequently, you might miss out on candidates with high likelihood of succeeding in the role you are hiring for!
Create a personality profile
There are a two things to consider when creating a profile.
Which facets to select and their direction
The importance of the facet
Which facets
The facets that you select will determine what the candidate is compared against. Which traits to select entirely depend on what role you are hiring towards and what characteristics are need for that position. Some jobs require a higher level of innovativeness for which facets of Openness may be suitable, other roles such as within sales might require high degrees of Extraversion.
Once you've selected the traits you are looking for, the next step is to determine the direction of the scale. Per default, high test scores will lead to a high assessment score for the candidate. But in some cases having a lower score would be more suitable for the job in question. If you click the toggle for Reverse scale, lower results on that particular facet will give a higher assessment fit.
Building a personality profile requires careful analysis and consideration of the job you are looking to hire for. Even so, there are some general rules of thumb that you can apply for most positions.
Include at least one dimension of Conscientiousness. Research indicates that performance in most roles is at least in part related to the trait Conscientiousness. Conscientiousness refers to being results oriented, careful in one's decision making and structured in how you work.
Avoid choosing too many facets. It is unlikely that all facets actually are associated with performance. Selecting the 3-5 most important traits will likely lead to better outcomes.
The importance of the facet
For each facet that you have selected you can choose a level of importance. Importance relates to how that facet should be weighed in relation to other facets in your profile. Choosing a higher importance means that scores on that facet will have a larger impact on the total fit for the personality test, while selecting lower important has the opposite effect.
Weights in the profile are relative. Meaning that if all facets are given the same weight, they will have the same contribution to the overall score. It is only when you set different weights for the facets that you will see a difference.
Editing existing profiles in the personality profile library
You can at any time make changes to a created personalty profile. You can either edit a profile from the personality profile library in your Alva account - or directly through the job position settings in an ongoing recruitment.
Editing a profile from the library
Profiles listed in the library function as templates in Alva. If you edit a profile here, it will not retroactively change the settings for jobs that used this profile before. However, any jobs that select the profile after you've made your changes will of course get the most recent version.
Editing a profile from the job position settings
Personality profiles can also be customized per job position. Once you've selected a personality profile, you can make changes that will only apply to this job in particular. This is perfect for when you are recruiting for a position not commonly hired for and you want to make slight adjustments in the criteria for this role.
