He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake; but do we know if candidate Santa is any good, for goodness sake?
That’s the question we sought to answer when we put Father Christmas through our Psycruit psychometric test – the same one you can take in your search for a new role, here.
This article is intended as a bit of festive fun, but it has a serious side. We wanted to showcase what employers and candidates can learn from using recruitment-focused psychometric testing – something we’ve invested in to help organisations save time and money, and to find staff who will make the maximum positive impact.
Here’s what happened when we put Ol’ Saint Nick in the hot seat.
Your results, Mr Claus
If you find yourself interviewing Santa (perhaps for an elf and safety role), there are a few things to note. While he scored very highly on sense of humour and optimism (as you might expect), he’s not very strategic-minded and hates competition and conflict. Here’s what the Psycruit report says:
From these insights, it’s possible to drive more value from our interview. We know that Santa dislikes influencing others, for example. So we might ask what happened when he did need to persuade someone else to change their course? How did he do it, and how did the other person react? Similarly, we know Santa prefers to listen and let others do the talking. Can he describe a time when he did have to do the talking? By getting Santa to talk about instances where he was uncomfortable, we can learn about how he deals with pressure and conflict, perhaps with an unruly reindeer or Mrs Claus throwing a wobbly.
“Our test shows that Santa is extremely adept at self-presentation.”
Of course, interviews can only tell us so much. Our test shows that Santa is extremely adept at self-presentation, offering a version of himself that is socially desirable 90% of the time. This is often an indicator of high workplace performance, but also something interviewers should be aware of – as it means Mr Claus will tell us what we want to hear.
What’s more, we’ll inevitably bring our own biases to the interview room, which will colour our judgements of the candidates in front of us.
Part of the power of psychometric testing is in removing these biases and providing an objective assessment of how well a candidate fits a specific role. On this, Santa scores 5/5, with a breakdown as follows:
He’s the strongest (only) candidate out there and we can pay him in mince pies. Let’s offer Santa the job.
Selection and recruitment over, you’ll now want to settle Mr Claus into his role so that he sticks around for the long-term. This shouldn’t be a problem given that he’s 550+ years old. But still; we know onboarding is important.
To make the transition into his role as smooth as possible, we can assess how Santa responds to four key emotional drivers:
Accordingly, Santa’s team should be tolerant and accepting, enabling him to be optimistic and decisive in equal parts and allowing him to express his sense of humour with authenticity. Affable chap that he is, we also know that appealing to Santa’s competitive side won’t work. Neither will making him work in isolation.
Finally, we must be patient with him; after all, he won’t give his opinion until he’s heard the views of every person in the room. This is an important consideration, given that he presides over a workforce of around 85,851 elves.
This is part and parcel of Santa’s ‘harmonising’ teamwork style:
Teamworking is clearly a strength of Santa’s – with a sunny, resilient, emotional style that makes him highly attuned to the quality of his working relationships.
It’s a good job Santa’s role doesn’t involve selling, however, because he’s not very good at it – scoring just 55/100 against the most effective sales teams. That’s mainly down to his lack of appetite and focus, which can hamper the quality of his decision-making. Again, his lack of competitive drive costs him here:
So what does Santa do best? Given the significance talent management plays in effective workshops, knowing how to support our new employee and have him play to his strengths is essential.
For this, we turn to the Psycruit Insight report, which assesses candidates according to their preferences in four key areas:
We now know that Santa prefers to support others, and isn’t too fussed about structure so long as the work gets done. He’s decisive and practical, but – interestingly – prefers sticking to tried-and-tested ways of working over creative solutions.
From this data, Psycruit scores Santa a 7 for his ‘potential to progress’, according to his relationships, drive and learning agility.
This begs the question: should he fancy a change, what kind of role would Santa move into next?
To answer that question, let’s first consider how to help Santa in his personal development. The Criterion Personal Feedback report suggests five key areas for improvement:
Santa would do well to know when act seriously and when to favour humour. He could do with harnessing healthy rivalry as a motivator. And he should learn to balance intuitive, emotional decision-making with rational, concrete thought. (But how would he deliver all those presents, if he did?)
“It’s a good job Santa is willing to travel…”
With this insight, we can help Santa look beyond his current role and even suggest the types of opportunities he might like to pursue in future – Christmas SOC Engineer, or maybe a PMO ho ho Analyst. It’s a good job Santa is willing to travel, as few roles of this type exist in the North Pole:
So there you have it: Father Christmas decoded. Charming, friendly, linear and emotional; a team player who loves to laugh, hates to compete and has patience in magical quantities.
Would you employ him into your team?
Take the Psycruit psychometric test free – and learning something new about yourself today.
