Pre-employment tests can make hiring faster and smarter, but only when used the right way. Used the wrong way, they not only waste time and money, but they can also lead to legal problems. Here’s how to get maximum value while avoiding the worst mistakes:

Best Practices for Pre-Employment Testing

Use Valid, Reliable, and Fair Tests: Only trust assessments backed by solid science and documentation. Good tests accurately measure traits and treat all candidates fairly.
Match the Test to the Job: Tests should target the skills and characteristics essential for success in each role. Validate for high-volume or critical positions to minimize risk.
Integrate, Don’t Rely Solely on Tests: Combine testing with interviews, work samples, and reference checks for a robust and fair hiring process. Periodically review methods to meet ADA and EEOC standards.

eTest: One Solution, Two Powerful Options

eTest Standard: Get quick, actionable insights into people’s personality and problem-solving traits. Perfect for small teams, unique roles, and when managers want tailored analyses and interview guides.
eTest Custom Solutions: Partner with our experts for company- and job-specific assessments. Validation studies ensure your selection tools are accurate, fair, legally defensible, and perfectly matched to your business needs.

Ready for better hiring and development? Call us for a free consultation and learn how eTest can help you achieve simplicity, compliance, and results you can trust.

In turbulent times, hiring the right people is tougher—and more critical—than ever. While tech giants like Apple or Google attract top talent with ease, most organizations face challenges adapting to rapid technological shifts, economic and policy uncertainty, and evolving workplaces. And this could well be the new normal. To build effective and resilient teams, you need a hiring process grounded in proven predictors of success.

Unexpected disruptive forces may require updating traditional conventions. To rethink outdated hiring processes, start with fundamentals: What do we know to be true about employee success? By focusing on proven predictors, you can build a hiring system that delivers results.

Our mission as a professional consulting firm is to help organizations hire people who thrive. Applying the fundamental principles of our profession and our years of experience helping clients hire and develop great people, we understand predictors of success that hold across industries and time.

Best Predictors of Employee Success

Research and real-world experience confirm these universal traits as robust predictors of success:

Conscientiousness: Discipline and reliability drive consistent performance across roles.

Cognitive Ability: Strong problem-solving and learning capacity ensure task mastery.

Adaptability: Quick learning and resilience thrive in dynamic workplaces.

Interpersonal Effectiveness: Collaboration and communication build team success.

Role Fit: Aligning skills and motivations with job demands maximizes performance.

How to Hire High Performers

Assess Conscientiousness: Use personality assessments (e.g., eTest.net) and ask about such experiences as meeting deadlines  and staying organized in structured interviews.

Test Role Fit: Match skills and motivations with job demands through technical tests or value-based questions.

Measure Cognitive Ability: Use aptitude tests or work-sample tasks to evaluate problem-solving.

Evaluate Adaptability: Ask for examples of overcoming setbacks or use situational judgment tests.

Gauge Interpersonal Skills: Incorporate role-plays or peer feedback to assess collaboration.

Try Before You Hire: Test candidates via internships, projects, or temp roles.

Key Considerations

Tailor to Role: Predictors like social skills matter more for sales than coding.

Ensure Fairness: Use valid, bias-free tests to maintain fairness and accuracy.

Support Success: Even great hires need strong management and culture to thrive.

Why It Works

Focusing on universal predictors ensures hiring decisions are based on objective truths, not assumptions like degrees or connections. This approach is fairer, delivers better hires, reduces turnover, and adapts to any role or industry.

Get Started

Ready to build a hiring process that thrives in today’s turbulent landscape? Contact us for a free consultation to create a tailored, evidence-based system that attracts and retains top talent. Act now to strengthen your team for the future.

People who build startups into successful larger companies are disruptors by nature. One doesn’t create new things without the intensity and drive to push through obstacles and overcome resistance to change. It’s especially difficult to successfully navigate the structural challenges of increasing scale.   

“Founder Mode” was coined by Paul Graham of Y Combinator, referring to founders who remain deeply involved in their companies. This is in contrast to “Manager Mode” (characterized by structure, convention and functional specialists/managers) that typically accompanies growth. The problems of founders not being able to let go and not being able to manage at scale are well documented. In contrast, Graham explains problems caused by bringing in the wrong people to help manage growth and offers examples of well-known founders who had to get back into the ring to save their companies.

Core Principles of Founder Mode

• Hands-On Management. Founders drive vision through direct involvement. High founder involvement can inspire employees.
• Direct Interaction. Leaders in Founder Mode typically engage in skip-level meetings to keep them connected to staff and operations.
• Innovation and Vision. Heavy founder involvement fosters quick decisions, agility and culture preservation.

Challenges

• Scalability Issues: As companies grow, the founder’s hands-on approach may not scale well. He or she could become a bottleneck for decision-making and won’t have the time to manage all details effectively.
• Risk of Micromanagement. There's a fine line between being involved and micromanaging. If not balanced correctly, it can lead to employee burnout or a lack of autonomy, stifling innovation at lower levels.
• Delegation Dilemma. Founders often need to learn to delegate effectively to ensure long-term sustainability, especially as the business grows beyond their capacity to manage all details.
• Selection Risks. Founders face challenges selecting people who will support their culture and vision while bringing the necessary skills to expand the company’s structure to handle growth. If you empower the wrong people, they’ll drive your business into the ground. See Graham’s article linked above for elaboration.

Hiring for Founder Mode: Traits that Predict Success

Founders are often difficult to work for due to their intensity, demanding nature, hands-on style and impatience for results. It’s difficult but possible to find talent that thrives in Founder Mode companies. Starting with first principles, we know that best predictors of effectiveness for any job are the I-Competencies: problem-solving ability; good interpersonal and communications skill; integrity; and work ethic.

Other Essential Traits

• Adaptability: Ability to thrive amid rapid shifts in strategy and roles.
• Vision Alignment: Passion for the founder’s mission is crucial.
• Initiative: Ability to keep momentum without constant oversight and be a self-starter in general.
• Risk Tolerance: Comfort with uncertainty.
• Problem-Solving: Ability to generate quick, practical solutions to complex problems.
• Communication: Ability to communicate clearly and directly in flat hierarchies with a wide range of personalities.

How to Recognize Good Candidates

• Behavioral Interviews: Past actions predict future fit (past behavior predicts future behavior). Look at the body of work.
• Psychometric Testing to assess problem-solving aptitude, ability to get along with people, stability and conscientiousness. Low scores signal poor fit.
• Observations: Work samples and interviews reveal cultural alignment.

For Candidates Considering a Founder-led Company, Ask Yourself:

• Can you handle demanding, results-focused leaders?
• Do you adapt quickly to unpredictable settings?
• Can you solve novel problems efficiently?
• Are you aligned with the founder’s vision? Can you fully support the founder’s mission and culture? Do you truly believe in what the company is trying to do?

We help founders make good decisions by hiring the right people…and avoiding the wrong people.  And we help people make early and mid-career adjustments to find the right path to greater personal growth and professional development.

Sometimes that involves striking out in a different direction and shifting into Founder Mode. Or it may be a case of finding a more suitable environment.

Get in touch for a free consultation.

Careers develop from many decisions made over time. Some are made by default, and some are made by other people. The more of these decisions you can make, the more likely you’ll have a better outcome, as long as they’re based on good information and insights about yourself and about your fit with the careers of interest.

There are a few fortunate souls who realize quite early that they want to be a chef, pilot, musician or other professional, but most of us are likely to back into a career through happenstance, fits and starts. There are more career options now than in the past due to factors such as expanding technology, prolonged adolescence, the lack of mandated military or civil service and generally higher levels of affluence, to name a few. To complicate matters, the choices for college majors are broader than ever, vocational and trade career paths are not always apparent, and it is sometimes hard to see the connection between a major and a career that will deliver a good return on the investment in school. So they feel it’s back to square one.

Many people achieve great success by working in a seemingly disconnected variety of jobs before finding their true direction, assuming they have learned from these experiences and built a skill stack that will transfer to other roles. However, people will be most comfortable and productive when they develop a greater sense of clarity for a rewarding and meaningful career direction earlier than later in the process. Although this will happen naturally over time for many people, there are ways to speed things up process.

Picture three overlapping circles: the things you are good at; the things you enjoy doing; and the things you can make money at. If you’re lucky, you will eventually make it to that golden triangle where all three circles overlap. The things you are good at depend on your aptitudes. The things you enjoy doing are related to your interests and to some degree your personality traits. The things you can make money at depend in some measure on outside circumstances such as business needs and the general economy, but they are also related to your personality characteristics and psychological makeup.

Imagine the decision-making process to find a productive and rewarding career as a funnel. As it narrows, the issues and decisions involved become more subtle and difficult. The top and widest part of the funnel relates to a person’s aptitudes and abilities. If one does not possess the skills to perform in a particular job, the likelihood of becoming happy and successful there is minimal. However, if the necessary abilities are indeed present, the next most important factors to consider are patterns of interest. The more closely you can align your interests to your actual job duties, the happier you will be over time.

The most narrow bottom part of the funnel represents personality traits and characteristics. For instance, if you are naturally introverted, you may not be happy in a role that requires a high level of social interaction. Similarly, if you enjoy working in a structured environment, you may not feel comfortable in roles characterized by ambiguity and/or independent action. Personality is not destiny, but it affects our actions and behavior consistently over time, and it clearly affects the way we relate to the world. It also offers meaningful signposts and roadmaps for career success.

With self-knowledge and awareness in these three areas, people can make better-informed career decisions. Your life’s work does not have to be drudgery. In fact, it can be quite satisfying and rewarding if you make the right decisions and find a career that will be meaningful to you and others.

If you or someone you know are at a career planning choice point, there are tools that can help you find the right direction more quickly. Developmental career guidance that includes professionally developed and statistically validated aptitude assessments, interest inventories and personality measures is a proven and cost-effective way to jumpstart the development of a meaningful career, and to help people make midcareer adjustments. Get in touch with us to discuss your career situation and to learn more about the options that may make sense for you at this stage of your development.

A CEO was known to tell candidates that there were two reasons he’d fire them: if they weren’t good at their jobs, or if they were jerks. That was a realistic job preview, one of the most effective ways to give prospective employees an idea of what life would be like with the company. And it was a good way to cull the herd and get some of the wrong people out of the pipeline – many candidates just didn’t come back for more interviews.

But how can you predict who will be good at their jobs and work well with others if you’re not in a position to cut to the chase so directly? We rely on three independent sources of data in our psychological assessments when helping managers make hiring and promotion decisions. First, you can tell a great deal about candidates with a properly structured interview. This format lets you begin to get to know them as people. Second, the person’s general background and work history offer a great deal of useful information. Third, the person’s profiles on personality inventories and performance on general aptitude assessments provide a wealth of data. Our job then is to look for the recurring themes from all three independent data sets. If you see indicators pointing in the same direction from all three sources of information, you can be comfortable that’s telling you something real and probably useful about the candidate, and how he or she will perform on the job.

You can get better at just about anything with time, resources and motivation. But from an organizational perspective, you don’t have enough of those things to develop everyone to their potential. You need to focus on the attributes that are largely built in by the time a person gets into the recruitment pipeline for other than entry level jobs. That is, you need to differentiate between the things that are innate and the things that can be developed.

There are clear indications that certain intrinsic characteristics are quite predictive of growth and success in organizations, and in the broader arena of life. These are the foundation competencies: the abilities and enduring behavioral patterns a person brings to the job. These traits are often referred to as the I-Competencies: Intellectual; Interpersonal; Integrity; and Intensity. Think of them as head, heart, guts and will. They differ from the many surface competencies (e.g. formal presentation skills, spreadsheet skills, technical knowledge base, etc.) that are the result of training and experience in schools, early jobs and other learning experiences. Foundation competencies are innate. Surface competencies are overlays that can be learned.

For any mid-to-high level job, a person must bring a certain minimal amount of the foundation competencies to succeed. Of course people can grow, but change takes time – more than most organizations can invest. So, for practical purposes, we treat these as the hard-wired factory settings.

Performance depends on your natural abilities and characteristics (the foundation competencies), the knowledge, skill and experience you bring to the job (the surface competencies), the organizational factors that facilitate achievement, and the nature of the leaders. To help ensure high performance, you must select people with the necessary foundation competencies, help them develop the necessary surface competencies, and keep them focused on the right objectives. Of course you also need to reinforce good performance by rewarding success and by fostering a culture that isn’t toxic.

To maximize your chances for success, focus on the foundation competencies when selecting new employees.

The Intellectual Competency (Head) has traditionally been measured by standardized tests that predict success in school, but test scores alone aren’t infallible. General intelligence encompasses mental agility, quickness and creativity, depth of knowledge, logical reasoning and common sense. This factor is a combination of a person’s unique mix of skills and abilities and how well she or he uses them. People who make smart decisions and who use their talents effectively are more successful over time than those who make bad decisions and/or squander their intellectual resources. After almost one hundred years of scientific research about this, the results are quite clear and unambiguous. This is the best single predictor of job performance available. There are always exceptions to the rule (there are very bright people who never amount to anything, and there are people of very average ability who work hard and achieve great success) but the overall correlations between this ability and performance over time are clear and consistent in all jobs and occupations.

The Interpersonal Competency (Heart) facilitates communications and relationships. No matter how clever the problem solution, if you can’t communicate it to others and convince them of its merits, it won’t matter. People who have good social skills and who get along with other people are much more successful as a group than those who don’t have as many talents in this area. They will have greater influence on a team because others like them and feel good about them. This trait is the key that unlocks the door of influence. It enables you to communicate the worth of your ideas. It includes general social and persuasive skills, social insight and intuition, likeability and persuasiveness. The intellectual competency enables you to solve a problem. The interpersonal competency enables you to convince other people that the solution is a good one.

The Integrity Competency (Guts) is broader than basic honesty-dishonesty although that’s an important part of this factor. It is the cornerstone of building trust, one of the two primary factors of credibility. It includes conscientiousness, discipline and follow-through. High integrity ensures that you will meet your commitments on time to the standards expected. Part of this competency includes the ability to focus and to use your talents and aptitudes with appropriate discipline. This is the factor that holds things together and facilitates trust and consistency of performance. The greater the perceived integrity, the greater the trust.

The Intensity Competency (Will) is the motivation factor. It includes energy, stamina, drive and full engagement. People with high intensity are active, not passive. They are driven by a need to get things done and to see results. With the proper control and focus, people with higher intensity will achieve at higher levels than others. This is the fuel that provides the force for achieving goals and for staying motivated in the face of obstacles. The more motivated you are, the more likely it is that you will get things done, and consequently the greater your ability to influence others by virtue of tangible accomplishments and credibility.

Everyone wants more high-potential employees, but it can be a crap-shoot at best trying to find them among the competition and noise. However, you can increase your success rate through the use of structured and job-related interview practices, valid personality and aptitude testing and careful reference checking.

Unlock the potential for success in your organization by harnessing the power of high-potential employees. Don’t leave your talent acquisition and development to chance. Let us help you apply the proven and valid assessment techniques that will help you identify and cultivate high-potential employees who will drive your organization forward.

We’ve previously discussed the characteristics of good people and how to select them for your organization. Without the right people, you’ll never have a culture that attracts more of them and encourages growth and success. Although anyone can improve, some things take too long to change enough to make a difference in the business context and timeframe. So we must select people with specific fundamental and stable traits and aptitudes. These are the foundation competencies: intellectual, interpersonal, integrity and intensity. Or Head, Heart, Guts, and Will for short.

Avoiding the wrong people is equally crucial to success. This is simple and important: don’t hire bad apples. If you have them, get rid of them. One toxic person can do more damage to an executive team than all your star performers can overcome. Allowing abrasive or ineffective people to remain in place sends the message that you are too timid to confront the issue, that you are out of touch, or that you don’t care. The long term implications for your culture are evident.

Of course poor performance can be related to poor management practices, but on an individual level it is often related directly to problems with the I-Competencies described above. Although all ineffective people have a detrimental effect, a particular category of bad apple deserves special attention. People with some of the characteristics described below can do more than just damage internal morale and performance. They are the most likely to get into ethical and legal difficulties. If they’re at an executive level, they can do real damage to the organization, up to and including destroying it. Beware of the Dark Triad cluster of traits related to manipulative, antagonistic and socially undesirable behavior: Machiavellianism; Narcissism; and Psychopathy.

For context, the descriptions of each of these pathologies are presented below.

Machiavellianism. Nicolo Machiavelli, a Florentine poet, musician, playwright, and keen observer of political power, is best remembered for The Prince, a biting but accurate treatise on the practical application of power in politics. Machiavellianism is defined as the proclivity to manipulate and exploit using power, intimidation, charm, or other such methods to get what one wants. People high on this trait tend to be strategic and prioritize their own interests above those of others. They see others as instruments to help them get their way. But they can also have a smooth and persuasive exterior.

Narcissism. In mythology, Narcissus was a handsome young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Narcissism is the quality of being self-absorbed to the point of pathology. Narcissistic personalities are characterized by an inflated self-concept and self-centeredness. Narcissists lack empathy for others and typically assume that they are entitled. Their view of themselves is grandiose. They have a sense of superiority. They also tend to be flamboyant.

Psychopathy.  As with other antisocial behavioral patterns, psychopathy and sociopathy are deep-seated and quite resistant to change. Psychopathy includes lack of concern for others, disregard for social norms, low tolerance for frustration, and a keen ability to rationalize problems by placing blame elsewhere. Psychopaths don’t experience guilt, and consequently don’t learn much from punishment. They are thrill-seeking and impulsive.

Please note that the Americans with Disabilities Act specifies that clinical or medical conditions of candidates cannot be asked or considered before a job offer. In addition, medical records and information must be kept confidential and in separate medical files. If a person has been clinically diagnosed with a personality disorder, this could be considered a medical condition. Fortunately, people with the most pronounced manifestations of these pathologies usually de-rail before making it to the executive ranks. However, the Dark Triad brings to mind milder behaviors which can be destructive at work, and which are appropriate to evaluate as part of the hiring process. Remember, the best predictor of anything is what it has been in the past. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior in similar circumstances. Pay attention to interview behavior and to clues about past behavior from the interview.

Watch out for indications that a candidate demeans or damages others, especially those with less power, in order to accomplish their objectives (for instance, as observed by Robert Sutton in his book, The No Asshole Rule). One often overlooked data point is how the candidate treats “lower level” people who do the scheduling and handle administrative duties relative to the interview process. Any arrogance or demeaning behavior here is a red flag.

Look for signs that a candidate touts his or her own accomplishments, but is unwilling to also recognize others' contributions. Taking credit for the work of others should never be ignored. It is an indication of a long term pattern of behavior you don’t want in your organization.

Beware of candidates who emphasize their own expertise and having the correct answer above candor and humility. Good candidates will be able to ask for and hear other ideas or corrections.

Anyone who has worked in organizations knows that trust is crucial to building a productive workplace. A lack of trust was the first reason for team problems noted in Patrick Lencioni’s classic  The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Any candidate who lies or fudges on a resume, or who otherwise behaves in a manner to cause you to distrust him or her should set off the alarm bells.

Diligent hiring practices are crucial in cultivating a positive organizational culture. Your selection system should be focused on job-related behaviors, past relevant experience and alignment with your culture and values. Seek out people with strong intellectual, interpersonal, integrity, and intensity competencies, and vigilantly avoid people with traits associated with the Dark Triad. Comprehensive testing, realistic job previews, structured interviews, and thorough background checks offer the roadmap for steering clear of toxic influences and fostering a workplace of collaboration, innovation, and long-term prosperity.

We help managers make better decisions, especially when it comes to hiring and developing people. Call for a free, no obligation consultation about your current selection practices and unique problems or issues you may be facing.

There is a critical shortage of people in the labor force with the right credentials. Many job descriptions list a four-year degree requirement when that is not at all necessary for success on the job. At the same time, hiring managers can't be certain that even candidates with elite credentials in fact have the skills and knowledge necessary for success. Of course, people with degrees that companies find useful are in good shape, but many others finish college saddled with debt and no prospects for making a sustainable living. A recent Wall Street Journal survey highlighted a growing opinion that traditional college is not as attractive now as in the past. In short, businesses are using increasingly questionable credentials as barriers to entry. However, there is a clear and workable pathway out of this situation.

There are many useful free resources now for education outside the traditional paths. Khan Academy provides online courses and tools to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. It was originally developed as a way to fill in the gaps left by traditional elementary and secondary schools, but has expanded since then. Saylor Academy has focused on free college-level education courses representing the ten highest enrollment majors in the US. There are many other options for free high-quality education, including MIT OpenCourseWare, that have traditionally been only available in university settings. In addition, coding and other technical boot camps offer a wide range of opportunities for micro-credentialing. But these attractive resources aren't enough.

Exciting and positive as alternatives like these may be, they aren't real options for most people who have not been exposed to them, and who have not had the resources and encouragement to learn more broadly. For reasons well-documented elsewhere, many capable kids do not graduate from secondary schools with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college or in good jobs. People need access to resources, and the encouragement to take advantage of them, before they can develop the aptitudes needed for success. Helping all people develop meaningful skills valued by businesses should be a primary national goal. But this won't be accomplished without major shifts in thinking and innovation in education. However, many organizations are finding new pathways to success for those who have not had traditional access to the credentials of skill and knowledge development.

Ginni Rometty, former CEO and Chairman of IBM, realized that the company was facing a crisis of talent early in her tenure, noting that half the good jobs in the country are over-credentialed. Many of the positions IBM was trying to fill didn't require a four-year degree, although that was listed as a requirement. She began to change the hiring and promotion focus to defining and assessing the skills necessary for success, not the degree credentials on the job descriptions. As she noted in Good Power, her best-selling book chronicling her career and tenure at IBM, this was a tough battle but it yielded great success for the company.

Post retirement, Rometty remains involved in the skills-first movement as Co-Chair of OneTen, an organization devoted to the hiring, promoting and advancing of one million Black people who don't have a four-year degree into family-sustaining careers over the next ten years. The organization takes a skills-first approach, focusing on competencies (not credentials), to increase opportunities and build potential for future generations. OneTen's board of directors and advisors consists of many current and former CEOs of highly visible major US companies, but this is not just window dressing. They're all concerned about finding good talent while offering more opportunities to people who may have faced unnecessary barriers to earning a degree, and they're pursuing the skills-first strategy to do so. Thus, they're offering success strategies by looking forward, rather than focusing on needless credentials, past wrongs, mistakes, obstacles or societal shortcomings to get ahead. This is the essence of leadership: defining and acknowledging reality while offering hope and a way forward.

Skills-first hiring, also known as competency-based hiring, prioritizes a candidate's skills, experience, and abilities over their education, credentials, or other traditional hiring criteria. This approach is becoming more widespread and necessary for several reasons:

1. It focuses on what matters most. Skills-first hiring assesses the specific skills and abilities required for the job, rather than relying on general criteria like education or years of experience. This ensures that candidates are actually capable of doing the job and are a good fit for the role, not just that they check the credentials boxes.
2. It reduces bias. Traditional hiring methods often favor candidates from certain backgrounds or with certain credentials. Skills-first hiring helps to remove some of these barriers by focusing solely on the candidate's skills and experience.
3. It improves diversity in ideas and candidates not by checking the required demographic boxes, but by broadening the legitimately qualified applicant pool. Candidates who may not have had access to the same educational opportunities or who come from non-traditional backgrounds are given a fair chance to demonstrate their skills, and their potential.
4. It leads to better job performance. Hiring candidates based on their skills and abilities will lead to better job performance because the focus has now been narrowed to just those candidates with the specific skills and experience required for the job.

Overall, skills-first hiring is a fair and more effective approach to hiring than traditional methods, and it can lead to better outcomes for both employers and job seekers. Fortunately, there are ways to assess for skills, and for the aptitudes and other characteristics necessary for success on the job:

1. Define what a person needs for success in the position. Job tasks, essential skills, performance expectations, the nature of the culture and the requirements to grow beyond the job should be made clear and explicit.
2. Once the success factors have been identified, structured interviews, work samples, personality inventories and problem-solving assessments are proven methods to measure them. These tools will focus your selection efforts on the essential skills and qualities needed on the job, and will increase your hiring success rate.
3. Recruit widely and consider alternative sources. Develop relationships with educational and other developmental facilities that may not have been immediately obvious from traditional approaches.

As business psychologists and broadly experienced organizational consultants, we have the training and seasoning to help define the success factors for any job, and to help you determine how to measure them in a fair, valid and defensible manner. Get in touch with us for a no-cost exploratory professional consultation.

Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon that has been extensively studied by social psychologists. It is widely recognized as a powerful force that influences human behavior and decision-making, often below our level of awareness. It refers to the discomfort we feel when confronted with information or ideas that contradict our own existing attitudes, beliefs, or values. We all want to be perceived as consistent, and will go to great lengths to appear that way to ourselves and others. We're all subject to dissonance, and we'll work hard to reduce it. It's uncomfortable to hold two ideas that are opposite or in conflict, so we'll do whatever we can to ease that discomfort.

Cognitive dissonance is a normal and common human experience. But it's easier to recognize it in others than in ourselves. Understanding some of the signs of cognitive dissonance, and learning to recognize them in yourself, can be a helpful step towards reducing its impact and towards building greater insight and self-awareness. Some of the signs that may indicate when people are experiencing cognitive dissonance include:

1. Rationalization and justification of their beliefs or behaviors, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. People tend to double down on their original positions when confronted with new data.
2. Avoidance or even denial of the existence of conflicting information. Sometimes it may seem like others are watching a totally different movie. They may offer nonsensical explanations to justify their ideas or beliefs and resort to rambling "word salad" responses.
3. Frustration or anger. We don't want to feel like, much less admit, that we are wrong. Nobody appreciates evidence that contradicts their self-image. If pushed, many people resort to ad hominem attacks and name-calling rather than trying to explain their position logically.

If you're in a discussion and you find the other person offering rambling or nonsensical explanations to justify their position, or if they begin calling you names or otherwise attacking you in ways that are unrelated to the conversation, you've probably won the day on logical grounds. However, you may not have moved the relationship forward.

In an ideal world, we would agree that it is good to be open to conflicting viewpoints and to be willing to consider the possibility that our beliefs or attitudes may be wrong. We should all be more open-minded and receptive to new ideas. However, that's not the way this world works. We are all subject to our own unique sets and combinations of biases and beliefs. And we will experience cognitive dissonance, and the associated behaviors and responses described above, whenever they are challenged.

If you are leading a team, it will be to your advantage to create an atmosphere that encourages open and direct dialog to help people understand and challenge their own (sometimes inconsistent) assumptions and to help others do the same, while minimizing the potential for discomfort and conflict dealing with cognitive dissonance brings.

Some of the ideas to help people deal with such potential dysfunctions at work, as explored by psychologist and author Amy Edmondson, are relevant here. If your team members are quieter than usual and  keeping their heads down, or if there seems to be more frustration and conflict, it could be that they are dealing with their own dissonance. Or perhaps they are threatened by what they see as your own blind spots and inconsistencies (thus undermining their sense of psychological safety). While it's difficult to make a more open environment if the norms have already been established, keep the following ideas in mind if you're new to leadership, or charged with revitalizing an old team (from a recent HBR article on this topic):

"Anyone who has worked on a team marked by silence and the inability to speak up, knows how hard it is to reverse that. A lot of what goes into creating a psychologically safe environment are good management practices "” things like establishing clear norms and expectations so there is a sense of predictability and fairness; encouraging open communication and actively listening to employees; making sure team members feel supported; and showing appreciation and humility when people do speak up."

To the extent that we can learn to recognize the signs of cognitive dissonance and take steps to reduce it, we can improve our ability to make informed decisions, maintain an open mind, build more effective teams and avoid rigid thinking patterns. Taking a step back when we feel discomfort, anger or frustration, and considering whether dissonance may be at the root of these feelings, is a step in the right direction. If you're uncomfortable, re-frame it as an opportunity to learn something new and useful.


We all see different movies. Try to understand the ones you're not watching.

Quiet quitting is a term to describe the strategy of just doing the bare minimum needed to get by on your job. Whether it's a real thing or a media thing remains to be seen, but a recent McKinsey study about current difficulties in hiring found that the three top reasons people leave their jobs are related to money, a lack of career development and advancement, and bad leaders. The top three reasons for staying were workplace flexibility, meaningfulness of their work, and support for their health and well-being. So if you're the boss, here's the clear success strategy: don't do things to drive your people underground (or away). Do the right things in the right ways and make your organization a better place to work. Don't be a jerk.

For people in the ranks, quiet quitting is a losing strategy. It leads to making things worse, not better. It leads to a self-image of passivity and low integrity. And it may lead to quiet firing, as noted in a recent SHRM article. The simple strategy described below will get you to a much better place. It's a positive antidote to quiet quitting, and provides a way to achieve success even in bad situations.

As noted by Scott Adams (author and Dilbert creator) in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, it's better to focus on building systems for success, not on specific goals, and it's good to develop a broad and diverse skill stack. That book is currently being adapted for parents and teachers to help kids successfully navigate the real world. The systems-not-goals theme has been echoed by many others, including James Clear, in his recent best-seller Atomic Habits. What follows is a proven success strategy for people who work in organizations. It is a systems approach, not an exercise in goal-setting. While this is intended for those who are fortunate enough to be helping and coaching young people to be successful on the job, it's also a reminder of what's most important for anyone who works in organizations.

Our mission as consulting business psychologists is to help people make good career decisions, and to help leaders make good hiring decisions. As such, we get questions about what it takes to be a successful salesperson, engineer, manager, etc. in various client organizations and cultures. While there may be specific answers, depending on the particular company's list of success competencies and its unique characteristics, there are three key fundamentals to achievement no matter who you are or where you work: be good at your job; show up; don't be a jerk. These are the cornerstones of a long-term strategy for career success.

To be good at your job, you need to know how to do it well, or you need to quickly learn how to do it well. You don't have to be the class valedictorian. However, you do need to be able to understand the technical requirements for success and you need to be able to solve new problems as they come your way. You also need to understand how your job fits into the overall mission of the organization, and how it relates to the jobs of other people. If you're not among that lucky small percentage who learn quickly and easily, welcome to the world of normal people. This just means that you will need to do the work and put in the time and effort.

Showing up means exactly that. Be there. If you do what you say you will do and meet your commitments on time, people will begin to feel that they can count on you. Conscientiousness is a major predictor of success in anything, especially work in organizations. It will sometimes require sacrifice, and always requires hard work.

No matter how clever your solutions, and no matter how much effort you put into your work, you will not achieve greatest success unless you can communicate with other people. You don't need to be a wildly social sales animal but you do need to develop decent relationships with other people. At the very least, don't be difficult to work with. To ensure your chances for success, be likable.

Be good at your job, show up, and don't be a jerk. These are the keys to success in any organization. No matter what your role, you need to be able to influence people. Otherwise, you will be even more at the mercy of forces beyond your control. You need credibility and good relationships for maximum impact and success in any organization. Credibility is a product of these foundational principles. Credibility is earned through building trust. Trust is earned by being good at your job and showing up, and showing people that you have their back.

If you're not happy in your job, find a better one. Or adjust to your current reality. Or make it better. Or try something else that will teach you new things and add to your skill stack. Quiet quitting just prolongs your misery, erodes trust, and makes you think of yourself as a loser. Don't do it. Find a positive path that will be more to your liking and help you be more productive. It doesn't matter who you are or what obstacles you face. You always have the power to make things better. Use it.

Be there. Make things better. Be useful.

The trait of Complexity is one of the Big Five personality factors. It is sometimes known as Openness to Experience. It is related to intellectual curiosity, openness to information, independence of thought and the ability to keep long term objectives in mind. People with high scores on this trait describe themselves as strategic, free-thinking, dogged, imaginative, unconventional and intellectual. They enjoy broad intellectual engagement. They tend to generate many ideas. People with low scores usually have more focused interests. They are usually more hands-on and have little inclination towards intellectual or academic issues. They are more practical, tactical and applied. Below are the sub factors for this broad personality dimension.

• Strategic. People with high scores here are described as unflagging, dogged, unwavering, staunch, non-conforming and unconventional.
• Planful. High scores here are indicative of people who are seen as intellectual, reflective, thinking-oriented, methodical, precise, analytical and deliberate.
• Divergent Thinking. People with high scores here are perceived as creative, imaginative, inventive, visionary, free-thinking, innovative, resourceful, intuitive, curious and insightful.

No personality trait is inherently positive or negative. There are potential upsides and downsides to scores at any point along the spectrum. The further towards the high or low endpoints, the more pronounced and observable the behaviors associated with the trait will be. People with exceptionally high or low scores are likely to demonstrate both the positives and negatives associated with the trait. People with high scores on the measure of Complexity typically enjoy theoretical, abstract and complex problems. They often have broad interests and enjoy intellectual pursuits. People with low scores are likely to be more action oriented, tactical and applied in their approach. They are not inclined towards theoretical or academic exercises.

While we can't change our personalities to any significant extent, we can learn new behaviors and skills. We can get better at most anything, given the appropriate goals and the insight, resources and motivation to achieve them. Below are some suggestions for people with high or low scores on the trait of Complexity.

High scores

• Be careful about spending too much time with your head in the clouds. People may see you as impractical.
• Make sure that your tendencies to gravitate towards the big picture don't interfere with your ability to see and appreciate the tactical operational details of a new project.
• Watch out for overthinking. People with high scores tend to see things from a variety of angles and they may not be comfortable making the quick but approximate decisions often necessary for implementation and operations.
• Realize that your tendency to generate many ideas may overwhelm people and that you may come off as flighty, distractible or impractical.

Low scores

• Make sure you are considering the big picture before making a quick decision.
• Don't give in to the pressures for immediate action. You may benefit from an occasional second opinion to help you explore other alternatives that may be more effective to help you achieve your longer-term goals.
• Don't automatically discount new programs and procedures that seem uncomfortable or academic on the front end.
• Realize that you can probably benefit from continuing to broaden your perspective and stretch further towards the strategic viewpoint rather than just focusing on the practical and operational tasks in front of you.

If you have a high score on Complexity, you are likely to be seen as a valuable resource for new ideas, interesting viewpoints and diverse ways of thinking. If you have a low score, you can be a valuable resource for staying focused, maintaining traditions and keeping the team aware of what needs to be done next. High-scoring people would enjoy planning and exploring where the rail line should go in five years, while low-scoring people just want to make the trains run on time.

On average, entrepreneurs score higher on this dimension than middle managers in large organizations. However, although they may have great ideas and the energy to build new businesses, at some point they will need to hire people who are more practical, tactical and organized to help bring order to the chaos they can create.

Agreeableness is one of the major Big Five personality factors. People scoring high on Agreeableness try to get along with others and maintain harmonious relationships. They display emotional warmth and supportive social interactions. They may have difficulties making tough decisions regarding people. They don't like conflict. They are typically approachable and easy to get along with. They describe themselves as cooperative, likable, approachable, soft"‘hearted and easygoing. They are not inclined to be blunt, intense, abrupt or direct. There are three sub-factors of the overall dimension of agreeableness:

• Tolerant. People who get high scores here describe themselves as flexible, good-natured, warm, praising, generous, forgiving, tolerant, gentle, humorous and trusting. High scores are indicative of people who seek to build and maintain harmonious relationships and who want to be liked and well-regarded.
• Easygoing. High scorers are likely to come off as laid-back, patient, easygoing, mild, too nice, accepting and peaceable. They are not likely to see themselves as intense, impatient or excessively driven.
• Sympathetic. People scoring high on this facet are typically seen as feeling"‘oriented, sentimental, affectionate, soft-hearted, sensitive, sympathetic, warm and gentle.

No personality trait is inherently positive or negative. There are potential upsides and downsides to scores at any point along the spectrum. The further towards the endpoints (high or low), the more pronounced and observable the behaviors associated with the particular trait under consideration are likely to be. People with exceptionally high or low scores are likely to demonstrate both the positives and negatives associated with the characteristic under study. For Agreeableness, people with high scores are inclined to be cooperative, likable, personable and easy to deal with. People with low scores are typically more intense, driven and likely to be more task oriented than emotionally sensitive.

While we can't change our personalities to any significant extent, we can learn new behaviors and skills. We can get better at most anything, given the appropriate goals and the insight, resources and motivation to achieve them. Below are some suggestions for people with high or low scores on the trait of Agreeableness.

High Scores

• Don't be too nice for your own good. People with this profile sometimes work harder to please others than to please themselves.
• Watch out for the point of diminishing returns. Learn to cut your losses.
• Remind yourself that you will never be able to satisfy everybody.Pay attention to your skills of conflict management. You may not be comfortable with confrontation but you can certainly learn the skills to state your case in a direct, fact-based and appropriately assertive manner.
• Make sure you are holding others accountable. People with high scores on agreeableness sometimes jump in too quickly to take up the slack for others. Don't let people take advantage of your good nature.

Low Scores

• You may need to work on your bedside manner. People with low scores on agreeableness can come off as intolerant and impatient.
• You probably need to manage the optics more carefully than you may imagine. People with similar patterns of results can project an air of detachment or insensitivity.
• People with low scores on this factor are often highly motivated and driven. Use that to your advantage but be careful about pushing people too hard. You may be good at the hard skills, but weak on the soft skills. Work on the rough edges.
• Realize that you are likely to be more impatient for tangible results than are many people. Be careful that others don't see you as a jerk when they may be more comfortable moving at a slower pace, or when they have a different point of view.

The trait of Agreeableness is related to toughmindedness versus tender mindedness. While it may also be thought of as a person's placement along a soft skills versus hard skills scale,  some people have well developed hard skills (analytical, quantitative and data manipulation abilities) as well as superior soft skills (interpersonal insight, coaching aptitude and overall social skills). If you have a low score on the measure of Agreeableness, you can learn to be more sensitive to others and more accepting when you realize that they may be wired completely differently and that you may make things worse by doubling down and pushing harder. If you have a high score here, you can learn to become more comfortable with conflict and confrontation and you can benefit from reminding yourself that there is no way to please everybody.

Regardless of your profile, remind yourself that others  are likely to be responding to the environment with very different experiences and reactions.

Behavioral Control is one of the major Big Five personality factors. It is often referred to as conscientiousness, and is a good predictor of successful performance in most jobs.  This dimension is related to discipline, focus, tenacity and organization. People with high scores on this trait typically control their expressions of feeling and emotion and operate according to rules and structure. They often feel a keen sense of duty and responsibility. They are usually seen as disciplined, conscientious, tenacious, stubborn, inflexible and controlled. People with low scores here are often seen as spontaneous, adaptable, undisciplined, careless and not particularly detail-oriented. The subfactors associated with this overall dimension of Behavioral Control are presented below.

Disciplined. People with high scores on this facet are usually timely, prompt, priority focused, disciplined, organized, steady and task-focused. They do not procrastinate or tolerate a great deal of disorder.

Conforming. High scorers see themselves as conventional, traditional, conforming, conservative, by-the-book, rule-following, cautious, obedient, structured, etc. They do not describe themselves in such terms as unconventional, non-conforming, routine-hating or unstructured.

Detail"‘Oriented. People with high scores on this sub factor are usually precise, detail-oriented, exacting, methodical, perfectionistic, procedural and structure-seeking.

No personality trait is inherently positive or negative. There are potential upsides and downsides to scores at any point along the spectrum. The further towards the endpoints (high or low), the more pronounced and observable the behaviors associated with the particular trait under consideration are likely to be. People with exceptionally high or low scores are likely to demonstrate both the positives and negatives associated with the characteristic under study. People with high scores on the measure of Behavioral Control are likely to be conscientious, structured, detail oriented and dependable. They can also be rigid and inflexible. People with low scores tend to be more reactive, seat-of-the-pants and loosely structured.

Traits are the hardwiring and factory settings of personality. While we can't change our personalities to any significant extent, we can learn new behaviors and skills. We can get better at most anything, given the appropriate goals and the insight, resources and motivation to achieve them. Below are some suggestions for people with high or low scores on this trait.

High scores

• Make sure that your disciplined and determined nature does not lead you towards rigidity. You may benefit from occasional reality checks to help you back away and let things unfold in their own fashion.
• Be careful about getting pulled too far down into the weeds. Detail orientation is associated with conscientiousness, but it can also slow you down when quick but approximate solutions are called for. Make sure you understand and appreciate the difference between the perfect solution and the "good enough" solution.
• People with high scores here are sometimes overly conventional. Do what you can to keep a broad perspective and allow room for intuition and creativity.
• High scores are associated with a buttoned up and procedure-oriented work style. They can also be an indicator of difficulties adjusting to ambiguous or ill-defined circumstances.

Low scores

• Make sure that you are not operating in a laissez-faire manner when situations call for more structured, organized and step-by-step behaviors.
• Be careful about coming off as overly independent. Extremely low scores are often seen in people who are perceived as organizational mavericks.
• Your administrative skills may need a little polish. You may need to pay particular attention to the development and use of structured methods to remain organized and to make sure that important details are not slipping through the cracks. You may be inclined to spin your wheels if you're not careful.
• Don't react too quickly to the heat of the moment. Make sure you're performing full due diligence before making major decisions.

If you have a high score on the trait of Behavioral Control, people are likely to see you as conscientious and dependable but also as rigid and stubborn. Find ways to make allowances for people who may not be as structured, disciplined and procedure oriented. Loosen up when possible. If you have a low score on this factor, you may be spontaneous, flexible and creative, but others may also see you as undependable, distractible and flighty. Find ways to tighten up and to become more comfortable with schedules, details and procedures.

Regardless of your profile, remind yourself that others are wired differently and that they may be responding to the environment with very different experiences and reactions.

Of the five major personality factors, Emotional Reactivity is most closely associated with psychological health and well-being. This factor has been identified by many researchers as, e.g., anxiety, neuroticism or emotionality. It reflects the tendency to be tense, anxious, easily upset or high"‘strung. However, the eTest personality inventory was normed on a well"‘adjusted sample (business people as a population typically score higher as a group on measures of psychological stability and emotional adjustment than do people in the general population). Therefore, a high score on this measure doesn't necessarily indicate pathology or abnormality when compared to people in general. If the primary score is extremely high, the person may be stress-prone or possibly going through an upsetting or anxiety-provoking experience. In the case of extremely high scores, it's helpful to find out if they are an indication of State Anxiety (a response to a particularly stressful situation) or Trait Anxiety (a more generalized pattern of tension, emotional reactivity or anxiety). High scores are an indication of negative emotion.

People scoring high on the primary factor of Emotional Reactivity describe themselves as tense, anxious, easily upset, impulsive, emotional and reactive. Low scorers see themselves as relaxed, calm, stress"‘tolerant, complacent, etc. In addition to the score for the primary domain of this trait, the eTest profile generates the following three related sub-scores. These facets add nuance to the overall reactivity score and help predict how the primary trait is likely to be expressed.

• Insecurity. This is the dimension that is most likely to be an indicator of potential stress-proneness. People with high scores here are likely to perceived in varying degrees as nervous, worrying, insecure, frustrated, moody, uncomfortable, anxious, suspicious and tough on themselves. This sometimes reflects a down side of high motivation.
• Expressiveness. This facet reflects a theme of excitability and tendency to seek attention rather than the more uncomfortable aspects of insecurity described above. People scoring high here tend to be attention-seeking, power-oriented, ego-driven, excitable, impulsive, loud and inclined to react emotionally.
• Frustration"‘Proneness. High scorers here are prone to have a direct, stubborn and hot"‘headed style of dealing with frustration, tension and anxiety. They can be hard-headed, argumentative, controlling, impatient, hot-tempered, brusque and agitated. This sometimes comes from self-imposed high standards that are difficult to reach.

As noted previously, no personality trait is inherently positive or negative. There are potential upsides and downsides to any point along the spectrum. The further towards the endpoints (high or low), the more pronounced and observable the behaviors associated with the particular trait under consideration are likely to be. People with exceptionally high or low scores are likely to demonstrate both the positives and negatives associated with the characteristic under scrutiny.

We can't change our personalities to any significant extent, but we can learn new behaviors and skills. We can get better at most anything, given the appropriate goals and the insight, resources and motivation to achieve them. Below are some thought questions and suggestions for people with high or low scores on this trait.

High scores

• Do some reading and research on stress management skills and techniques.
• Make sure you have healthy and effective ways to relax, let off steam and chill out, especially during times of tension and strain. Take whatever steps you can to focus on the positive aspects of your life and the potential opportunities presented by the current issues or problems you may face.
• Be aware of times when you may be misreading things. People with high scores here tend to take things personally and react too quickly when they feel upset.
• Reflect on times you've felt particularly anxious, threatened or tense. Try to figure out what triggers these feelings, and anticipate similar situations in the future. Learn to actively dispute the irrational and sometimes automatic negative thoughts we all have from time to time.

Low scores

• Be careful about over-confidence. People with low scores here often assume the best and trust that things will work out. You may be better served by playing the devil's advocate more often.
• Think about times when you may not have shown the strength of emotion others may have expected. Are you prone to under-react when it would be more effective to express yourself more clearly and forcefully?
• Are people likely to see you as passive, disengaged or tuned out? Be sure you're communicating your true feelings and thoughts effectively.
• Make sure you don't come off as feeling too good about yourself. People with low scores here are sometimes seen as smug or self-satisfied.

If you feel you're too anxious or stress-prone, you can find techniques and systems to help you build your confidence and reduce tension and anxiety. There are many paths to success here, and you should be able find something that works for you with a bit of effort. Do what you can to respond to the realities of the situation, not to your initial reactions to it. Find ways to increase your positive emotion. On balance, we upset ourselves by reacting to our feelings about events, rather than to the actual events themselves. If you have a low on this trait, be careful that people don't misread your calm demeanor as disengagement or aloofness. And remember that there are times when it's quite appropriate to react with negative emotion.

Regardless of your profile, remind yourself that others are wired differently and that they may be responding to threatening situations with very different experiences and reactions.

Extraversion is a well-researched primary personality factor. This is usually the first dimension that arises from statistical research, called factor analysis, on most personality inventories. At the most basic level, it is seen as an orientation towards the external world of people, things, events, etc., or toward the internal world of thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc. People with high scores on this dimension are referred to as extraverts, while people with low scores are referred to as introverts. On a side note, acceptable spellings are extrAversion, extrOversion, intrAversion and intrOversion. We chose extraversion and introversion because they provide a better fit for the pronunciations of both terms.

A large component of extraversion is the need for social contact versus a preference for solitary pursuits. Extraverts are typically sociable, gregarious, outgoing, group-oriented, and expressive. They are not usually described as quiet, low"‘key, shy or introverted. They are energized by social interaction and being with people. Low scores on extraversion are indicative of a mild, reserved and relatively unexpressive social style. Introverts can be exhausted by too much social interaction. However, since people in the business population, on average, score higher on extraversion than do people in general, an average score on the eTest personality inventory suggests that the person will probably still seem relatively sociable when compared to people in general.

In addition to the score for the primary domain of extraversion, the eTest profile generates four sub-scores, or facets, related to this factor. These facets add nuance to the overall extraversion score and help predict how the primary trait is likely to be expressed.

• Persuasiveness. This facet score may not be an accurate reflection of a person's skills of persuasion, but it gives an indication of how persuasive the person perceives him/herself to be. People who describe themselves with such terms as leader, role model, politically skilled, socially astute, convincing and optimistic get high scores here.
• Talkativeness. People with a high score on this scale are not typically seen as quiet, reserved, soft-spoken, shy, subdued or restrained.
• Active Friendliness. High scores indicate that the person will be sociable, talkative, witty, outgoing, gregarious, lively and humorous.
• Boldness. People with high scores on this facet are generally seen as daring, adventurous, spontaneous, bold, driven, energetic and aggressive.

No personality trait is inherently positive or negative. There are potential upsides and downsides to scores at any point along the spectrum. The further towards the endpoints (high or low), the more pronounced and observable the behaviors associated with the particular trait are likely to be. People with exceptionally high or low scores are likely to demonstrate both the positives and negatives associated with the trait. For extraversion, people with high scores are sociable, talkative and outgoing but they may also overstep social boundaries and get bored quickly working in isolation. People with low scores on extraversion tend to be more reflective and socially low-key but also overly self-contained, shy and prone to under communicate.

While we can't change our personalities to any significant extent, we can learn new behaviors and skills. We can get better at most things given the appropriate goals and the insight, resources, motivation and effort to achieve them. Below are some additional insights for people with high or low scores on the trait of extraversion.

High scores

• In terms of career development, you'll probably enjoy jobs that allow you to interact with people. You may not be satisfied over time working in relative isolation. People in sales, marketing, HR and management are often above average in extraversion.
• Make sure your listening skills are appropriately developed. Extraverts tend to spend more time talking than listening.
• Be careful about coming off as socially aggressive, pushy or salesy. People with high scores on extraversion sometimes don't realize when they are overwhelming the less vocal or socially oriented team members.
• Try to carve out occasional times for quiet reflection. Extraverts are more prone to seek out high levels of social stimulation and interaction than to quietly analyze and reflect upon their deeper insights, needs and motivations.

Low scores

• Don't fade into the background, especially in team activities. Introverts are inclined to withhold their opinions and expressions, especially in the company of more vocal colleagues.
• Schedule some time for informal "water cooler" interaction with colleagues. No matter what your job, you will be well served by having a network of coworkers who can offer support and assistance to reach your goals.
• Stretch beyond your social comfort zone. Make yourself participate in such things as public speaking training and similar activities that will force little more contact with others.
• Realize that other people may find you difficult to read. Introverts typically do not express their reactions, feelings and emotions to any significant extent. Although you may have intense reactions and/or a rich inner life, others are not likely to know about it unless you make special efforts to communicate.

Your chances for happiness and career success will increase to the extent that you can make the best use of your natural personality characteristics while realizing when you need to do things differently. If you're an extravert, do what you can to develop the insight and control to monitor your impact and use your sociability to your advantage rather than letting it overwhelm others. If you're an introvert, find ways to stretch yourself outside your social comfort zone more often, and learn to turn up the volume. Regardless of your profile, remind yourself that others are wired differently and operate according to a sometimes vastly different set of motivations and preferences.

                                                                        *****

Extraversion is one of the Big Five personality factors. A large body of scientific research has demonstrated that personality can be well described by five major traits. This model of personality is referred to as the Five Factor Model (FFM). When the eTest personality inventory was factor analyzed in the validation process during its development, these five major dimensions emerged as the structural underpinnings of the instrument. As developers, it was encouraging to see that our work was very much in line with the best research on the nature of personality and reflected these five factors. These traits indicate long-term and enduring patterns of behavior. Our personality traits are remarkably stable over the course of our adult lives. While personality is not destiny, it can clearly affect our behavior and decisions, to include those related to career choices.