Before you start assessing candidates through Alva, it's important to decide what to look for. When you choose to include a personality test in your job, the personality profile will be what determines how candidates' Role Fit is calculated.

We at Alva has constructed 10 default profiles that you can choose from to quickly get going. They're all based on published research on what predicts performance in different broad role families.

We recommend that you base your profile choice on the broad role family that your job position belongs to: sales, customer service roles, operational leadership roles, etc.

Consider what the role is most centered around. For example if most tasks a centered around acquiring new customers our Sales profile would be appropriate. However, if the role is more oriented on customer retention and service, our Customer Service profile is the right one. The profiles evaluate broad characteristics - so the choice will not differ depending on if you're looking for a B2B sales person or a B2C sales person.

You can read all about the different default profiles HERE.

Seniority has little bearing on which profile that you should choose, it is rather the type of job the person is expected to perform that will guide you. That said, some candidate pools may generally be higher or lower on specific traits. As such, you may need to adjust your threshold for what personality score is 'good enough' in your recruitment.

If you're unsure, you can never go wrong with the profile called Generic High Performer. This profile will evaluate candidates based solely on the trait Conscientiousness. This personality trait has repeatedly been shown to be highly important performing well in a broad variety of roles.

Also, remember that you can always change the profile later if you realize that there's a better option available. Changing a profile will cause recalculate the candidates' Role Fit, but it won't change their underlying results in any way.