Personality assessments are used in clinical psychology for diagnosis and therapy and sometimes used in educational settings. Another important use is in the workplace. Psychologists continue to search for assessment tools that will ensure a good match between the employer and the employee. Both have a stake in making a good match.

Industrial psychologists use many different selection tools to pick the right person for the right job. Among the most widely used personnel selection tools are application forms, psychological tests, interviews, and work sample tests.

Interviews are often given special weight in hiring decisions (Barber & others, 1994). Interviews can be especially helpful in evaluating a candidate's interpersonal skills and communication skills. Interviews that are structured and specific often are the most successful at selecting employees who eventually perform well on the job. Unstructured interviews have shown little success in predicting job performance (Huffcut & others, 2001).

Psychological tests also are useful predictors of job performance. The tests used by industrial psychologists include general aptitude tests (such as IQ tests), specific aptitude tests (such as those designed to assess mechanical ability, clerical ability, or spatial relations), personality tests (such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI), and vocational inventories (such as the Strong Interest Inventory) (Reynolds, 2001). Currently, researchers are interested in whether psychological tests based on the big five personality factors can predict job success.