Faking in Selection

On average, of cost replacing an employee who makes $50,000 a year is about 20% of their annual income and unfortunately the cost of turnover only increase with the value of the employee, for example, losing an executive costs about 213% of their annual salary (Lucas, 2012). Thus, companies spend a lot of time and resources to decrease these costs, including improving the accuracy of a companies selection tools. Personality testing is among the most popular methods utilized during selection because they are inexpensive, valid predictors that have little adverse impact (McFarland & Ryan, 2000). However, because the information obtained through them is not verifiable they are prone to faking (an applicant purposely misrepresenting themselves on a scale to increase their likelihood of being hired). Faking’s impact on personality scales is a very controversial topic among scholars. It will presently be argued that despite personality measurements having predictive validity they lack construct validity because of the high frequency of faking; further measuring true personality without faking could provide additional benefits to the organization and employees.

Personality Matters

Personality is an important predictor because it measures job fit and motivation. Although, measuring g (or general intelligence) has been shown to be one of the most valid predictor for job success it still has its limitations because measurements of intelligence does not determine motivation or job fit which can be determined through personality measurements. By uses personality scales in selection employers are able to obtain a more full picture of applicants and thus make better choices. Tett and Simonet (2011) claimed that a mismatch between personality and job requirements could be a “recipe for dissatisfaction, withdrawal, and possibly early termination.” By premising theories and concepts such as emotional labor and ego depletion, it is logical to assume that there may be negative consequences associated with this incompatibility. Emotional Labor; the work of regulating one’s emotions (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011) (e.g. a sale representative being required to display joy and excitement to talk to customers when they are feeling the opposite emotions) may be a greater issue if there is a personality mismatch. Emotional Labor has been linked to decreased job satisfactions, stress, burnout and turnover (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Côté & Morgan, 2002). So, if an employee’s trait emotionality is inconsistent with the job requirements then they may experience higher emotional labor than other employees whose traits are more coherent with the job requirements. Dzieweczynski’s (2009) study supports this argument by suggesting that the act of repressing one’s true personality increased stress, and decreased job satisfaction, motivation and performance. These findings could also be explained