Personality Testing in the Workplace: Benefits and Legal Risks

Why Should You Attend:

The candidate sitting in your office – is he truly a good candidate or just a good interviewer? How do you know the answer - particularly when all you get are neutral references when you call previous employers? You want something a little more solid than the gut reaction test so you think that maybe you should use a personality test or some other type of psychological test. Beware! While these tests can be beneficial, there are legal risks that you must consider before implementing such a process.

Whether defending a failure to hire or a termination case, lawsuits are expensive. Juries have been more and more willing to award punitive damages to the employer who cannot establish that its decisions are free from discrimination or, frankly, are just unfair. Employers would like to ward off these costly lawsuits and frequently turn to personality testing to ensure that a potential candidate is the right fit – if you don’t make the hiring mistake, you won’t have to face that potential wrongful termination suit.

This webinar will address whether personality testing can help in such cases. It will also discuss the legal risks associated with this type of testing that employers need to watch out for.

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• Why you might consider personality or psychological testing in the hiring process
• When a personality/psychological test might be a medical examination
• Concerns under the Americans with Disabilities Act
• Understanding disparate impact and how it might make your testing process illegal
• Documenting the disparate impact analysis
• Using psychological testing for fitness for duty determinations

Who Will Benefit:

• Labor and employment law in house counsel
• Human resource professionals
• Human resource managers
• Hiring managers
• HR attorneys
• Lawyers
• Risk managers
• Regulatory/compliance professionals

Instructor Profile:

Susan Fahey Desmond is a shareholder in the New Orleans office of Jackson Lewis, a national labor and employment law firm with offices in 59 cities across the country. She has been representing management in all areas of labor and employment law for over 25 years. She is listed under Best Lawyers in America for Labor and Employment Law and has been named by U.S. Chambers as one of America’s leading business lawyers. Ms. Desmond is a frequent speaker and author in many topics of labor and employment law.

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