HR Interview

Can You Use Everything DiSC Profiles In Recruitment?

This is a question that we’re asked time and time again and the answer is yes….and there are some cautions. 

So, here are some DO’s and DON’TS we hope you’ll find useful!

DO….

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  • DO use the DiSC® model and Everything DiSC® profiling at the outset to help you to identify what behaviours and competencies you are looking for in a particular role or roles.
  • At the start of your recruitment process, DO reconnect with your team, departmental or organisational vision. What are you trying to achieve? Once you’ve re-established this, look at the blend of DiSC® styles you already have. This might be in your team or department or organisation. Where are your strengths? What’s smoothing the way to you being a high performing team? Where are the gaps that might be getting in the way of you achieving your vision and your outcomes?
  • DO ask your candidate to complete the Everything DiSC® profile that relates to the role you are looking for them to fill.  To join a team, consider using the Everything DiSC® Workplace profile, for a leadership role consider using the Everything DiSC® Work of Leaders profile, for a management role you might want to use the Everything DiSC® Management profile, for a sales role, you could consider using the Everything DiSC® Sales profile.
  • DO use the information in the candidates Everything DiSC® profile to help you to explore with them, as part of the interview/selection process, how well they are able to do the behaviours and the competencies you are looking for in this role. By asking them to give examples of times when they’ve demonstrated particular behaviours, you’ll be able to explore with them what behaviours, skills, tendencies come more naturally to them and what might be more a challenge for them as well as how these can be overcome.
  • When you’ve made your decision to appoint, DO use their Everything DiSC® profile as an ongoing development tool. This is where the profile comes into its own! 
  • DO enable your new recruit to access their FREE ‘MyEverythingDiSC’ account so that they can invite colleagues to complete the Everything DiSC® Comparison reports as well as the generate FREE Sales Customer Interaction Maps if they’ve completed a Sales profile. Your new recruit will find all kinds of useful additional resources in ‘MyEverythingDiSC’ to help them  get fully up to speed with DiSC®.

We have moved our DiSC Certification training online. You can find out more here

DON’T (there might be less of these but they are really important!) 

a word "no" written on a paper
  • DON’T ‘profile’ someone to decide whether to interview them or not. An Everything DiSC® profile can never serve as a predictor of how much someone has learned to ‘flex’ their behaviours and their style. For example, if you’re looking for someone to fill a role where you’ve identified a need for the person to have a high attention to detail (‘C’ type behaviours) and you are considering an application form from someone whose primary style is not ‘C’ (maybe they even have the opposite style of ‘i’), if they meet your requirements in other ways, it could be helpful for you to explore with this candidate, as part of an interview process, how well they feel able to do the ‘C’ behaviours you are looking for. It could be that they do have these behaviours but just not as a preference over some of the more ‘i’ behaviours. It could be that they’ve learned/developed more ‘C’ type behaviours over time.
  • DON’T ‘pigeonhole’, label or jump to conclusions according to what you read about an individual in their profile. An Everything DiSC® profile is a vehicle for discussion and exploration. Until you’ve shared a persons profile with them, and discussed it with them, you won’t know which parts of the profile they agree with or disagree with. Although most Everything DiSC® profiles do resonate very highly with the majority of people, there are occasionally certain aspects of a profile that may not resonate quite so well. The Facilitators Supplement mentioned above could help you understand any ‘unexpected items’ (in other words, any behaviours that an individual endorsed or didn’t endorse in the questionnaire that don’t normally ‘go’ with the style in their profile. And, we need to be aware that only the first 10 ‘unexpected items’ will appear in the Facilitators supplement)

As you apply these DO’s and DON’TS, Enjoy the benefits of building Everything DiSC profiles into your recruitment processes!

We have moved our DiSC Certification training online. You can find out more here