Independent Graduate: Does Your Personality Profile Fit the Bill? ; Psychological Tests Are Often the Best Way for Employers to Match the Right Candidates to the Right Vacancies

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Next time you go for a job or promotion, be prepared for a personality questionnaire. "The past decade has seen a huge growth in personality assessments at work and the number of instruments designed to do them," says Ivan Robertson, professor of work and organisational psychology at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (Umist). Indeed, whereas in the Eighties and early Nineties this form of psychometric testing was used by 10 per cent of large employers, today around 75 per cent of medium to large organisations utilise them.

"It's no good employing someone naturally impulsive for a role that requires mulling over decisions and incorporates …