6 Sample Questions Employers Ask to Assess Your Personality

By Shana Lebowitz

At least three-quarters of companies with more than 100 employees use personality assessments for external hiring — and that number is steadily growing.

These tests are used to gauge traits such as competence, work ethic, and emotional intelligence.

We reached out to Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D., CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems and a professor of business psychology at University College London, to find out more about these personality assessments. The six questions below are examples of questions you might see the next time you apply for a job.

Keep in mind, though, that the ideal response to each of these questions depends highly on the individual employer and the qualities they value. For example, Chamorro-Premuzic said that your inclination to agree with the statement, "I'm good at everything I do," could be used to measure either confidence or arrogance.

Chamorro-Premuzic said it's also important to note that individual questions are never used to capture a candidate's personality. Instead, employers look at all your answers to come up with scores for your traits, values, and skills.

That said, Chamorro-Premuzic provided us with a series of questions commonly seen on personality assessments, along with an explanation of what they could mean and how you may want to answer. For each one, candidates would be asked whether they agree with the statement.