Although much of the panic surrounding their generation has subsided, the fact that many Millennials struggle to find and maintain employment has not. According to recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment among Millennials (ages 18-29) was nearly double the national unemployment rate in January 2013, having risen faster than any other demographic.

Some of this can be blamed on a still-recovering job market, but the persistent nature of under- and unemployment among millennials suggests that this demographic lacks some skill necessary to obtain employment.

In the 1990s, the U.S. department of labor conducted a survey examining what companies want from their employees. The report identified five critical workplace competencies:

1)     Locating and allocating resources

2)     Acquiring and interpret­ing information

3)     Understanding complex systems

4)     Technological literacy

5)     Interpersonal skills

When it comes to the first four requirements, today’s young employees are quite advanced relative to their older peers at that age. Millennials came up in the age of the Internet search, social media and crowdsourcing, and are adept at searching for, finding, and synthesizing information. And as far as technological literacy, the Pew Research Center called them digital natives in a landscape of immigrants. However, the fifth competency, interpersonal skills, is where many young employees fall short. And that’s a big problem.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - the ability to identify, process, and manage one’s own and others’ emotions – is an essential part of building and maintaining positive, productive relationships, which is an essential skill in most jobs. Interested to know more about how we measure and improve individuals’ EQ? Check out our complimentary eBook here.

Introducing the Hogan EQ Report. EQ, the ability to identify and manage your own and others’ emotions, determines success in nearly every job. Those who lack the ability to build effective relationships are destined to fail – no matter how smart they are. The Hogan EQ Report provides organizations with a scientifically validated tool to measure emotional intelligence.

Want to know more? Check out our ebook, Want a Better Job? Learn to Control Your Emotions.

1. Quality. Hogan’s assessments are based in decades of scientific theory and research. The Hogan Assessment Certification Workshop covers two days of intensive education and training designed to help users understand the science behind our products and how it affects their outcomes.

2. Consistency. Hogan provides assessments in more than 40 countries and languages. But no matter where our users are, our standardized training materials and curriculum guarantee they receive the same quality experience our clients have come to expect.

“We have been conducting Hogan workshops in Australia for the local market and on behalf of our global Hogan Partners for last 10 years,” said Shayne Nealon, managing partner at Australian firm Peter Berry Consultancy. “Our clients appreciate the consistency that applies with Hogan and the ability to offer a consistent global accreditation solution and ongoing support.”

3. Hands-on learning. The best way to learn is by doing. At Hogan’s workshops, participants analyze and interpret assessment results and give comprehensive feedback on our three flagship assessments, the HPI, HDS, and MVPI in both an individual and group setting.

Here’s what participants are saying: 

4. Advanced interpretation. Understanding how an individual’s scores impact, buffer, and nuance each other is an essential foundation for development planning, executive coaching, and working with high potential employees.

“One of Hogan’s principal advantages, particularly for development, relies on feedback being administered right,” said Rahul Baswani, managing partner at Sierra Alta Consulting.

5. Validity. We go to extraordinary lengths to ensure our products work. By ensuring Hogan users are qualified and properly trained to use our products, we ensure the best possible outcomes at their respective companies. Proper training is also important to ensure that our assessments are legally defensible. In our 25 years in business, our assessment solutions have never been legally challenged.

6. Support. When Hogan was founded in 1987, it was a four-person test publisher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We built our reputation based on two things: an outstanding product and an unparalleled level of customer support. Today, our global network of consultants, partners, and distributors carries on this legacy.

Developed in partnership by Denison Consulting and Hogan, the Denison Leadership Potential Report (DLPR) is a new product that provides a statistically valid prediction of leadership potential. This is accomplished by aligning an individual’s inherent leader attributes—as measured by Hogan assessment tools—to the twelve leadership competencies defined by the Denison Leadershhip Development Model.

The DLPR is generated from responses to the Hogan Personality Inventory, the Hogan Development Survey, and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory and depicts an individual’s potential to exhibit each of the twelve Denison leadership competencies based on his/her personality and values. Competencies are scored as either excellent, high, moderate or low potential and are grouped into the four traits of the Denison Model.

Read more and view a sample report

If you're attending the 28th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in April, check out some of our esteemed Hogan colleagues as they present our latest research.

THURSDAY, APRIL 11

International Perspectives on Combining Personality and Multirater Feedback Data
Many organizations include personality assessments and multirater feedback instruments in selection batteries or development initiatives, but they rarely combine these sources of information to maximize developmental outcomes that mutually benefit individuals and the organization. Participants will share international perspectives on combining these sources of information and the ROI of doing so.
Blaine Gaddis

Comparability of Scores: Equivalence Issues in Testing Across Countries
This study considers approaches to a range of issues relating to score comparability in multinational testing. These range from use of DIF and generalizability theory through applications of SEM to more general considerations of the impact of cultural differences on attitudes to testing.
Kevin Meyer, Jeff Foster

Job Analytic Comparisons of Competency Requirements in Global Managerial Jobs
Existing research has examined similarities and differences in global leader behavior. However, these initiatives focus on the individual as their unit of analysis. This research uses jobs as the unit of analysis, analyzing archival job data to examine similarities and differences in competencies required for managerial jobs around the world.
Dara Pickering, Blaine Gaddis

Identifying Critical Job Family Competencies: Within and Across Job Families
This study used data-driven best practices to identify the most critical competencies for 4 job families: service and support; professionals, operations, and trades; and technicians and specialists. Although subject matter experts rated 4 competencies as critical across the 3 job families, other competencies were unique to each job family.
Ashley Palmer, Steve Nichols

A Sticky Topic: Using Personality Tests in Selection Settings
Industry remains hesitant to utilize personality tests in applicant screening due to low criterion validity in predicting job performance. An expert panel is consulted on the use of personality tests in selection settings toward improving criterion validity and offers recommendations promoting the use of personality data in selection.
Kevin Meyer

The Role of Theory in Advancing Personality Assessment at Work
Toward making innovations “stick,” 4 leading personality researchers discuss the role of theory in advancing personality test use in work settings. Key issues include why theory is especially important in this area, which theoretical principles are important, hurdles blocking utilization of theory, and the future of personality assessment at work.
Robert Hogan

FRIDAY, APRIL 12

Leadership Assessment: Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Demonstrating Value
Identifying and developing leadership talent continues to be a key concern for organizations. Recent advances in technology and research have spurred the development of automated assessments and models to leverage data, making leadership assessment more accessible and affordable. This session explores opportunities to demonstrate the value of assessment to organizations.
Ryan Ross

Why Is the Leadership Development Industry Failing?
Since 1995, leadership development has grown 30% into a $12B industry in the U.S. In the same time, public confidence in leadership has declined 30%, and most corporations report lacking adequate leadership capacity. This session discusses why the leadership industry seems to be failing and what to do about it.
Robert Hogan

Industry Differences: Mine Is Unique…Right?
Organizations believe important differences between industries exist and request industry-specific comparisons. This symposium will explore the size of differences in personality traits, values, competencies, and attitudes between industries. Job function and managerial level differences are also presented. Implications, including those for selection and development, are discussed.
Steve Nichols, Jeff Foster

Advances in the Use of Personality to Predict Workplace Criteria
Although research relating personality to work outcomes has progressed, more is needed to refine the criteria that are predicted by different traits and relevant boundary conditions involved. This session presents 4 papers that approach the issue of what is understood about using personality tests to predict criteria from different perspectives.
Ashley Palmer

SATURDAY, APRIL 13

Linking Personality and 360 Assessments to Coach and Develop Leaders
This session examines the combination of personality and 360 (multirater) assessment for the development of leaders. Two empirical studies demonstrate how coaching insights are produced by the convergence of the 2 types of assessments. In addition, 2 large-scale organizational case studies demonstrate the application and practical utility of the approach.
Rodney Warrenfeltz

Destructive Leadership: A Holistic View for Minimizing its Toxic Influence
This session focuses on consolidating current research on destructive leadership to support a more comprehensive definition. It emphasizes the importance of considering leaders, followers, and the environment in the destructive leadership process. Moreover, it examines this process in a specific context to gain insight into preventing destructive leadership in organizations.
Robert Hogan

The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory identifies the core goals, drivers, and interests that determine what gets people to the office each day. The MVPI consists of 10 primary scales, which are further divided into five item themes. The MVPI item themes provide additional interpretive power by categorizing participants’ responses to the questions that compose each MVPI scale.

MVPI Item Themes:

• Lifestyles - The manner in which a person would like to live
• Beliefs - “Shoulds”, ideals, and ultimate life goals
• Occupational Preferences - The work an individual would like to do, what constitutes a good job, and preferred work materials
• Aversions - Reflects attitudes and behaviors that are either disliked or distressing
• Preferred Associates - The kind of people desired as coworkers and friends

Read more about interpreting the MVPI Item Themes

Most people have experienced some form of office politics, and it's wise to view other’s motives with a healthy amount of skepticism. But where is the line between skepticism and paranoia, and at what point does that paranoia interfere with a person’s career?

Our latest ebook, I'm too skeptical? Where's the proof?, evaluates potential performance implications and describes how to manage the highly skeptical.

An individual’s ability to exercise leadership is hinged on his or her ability to persuade others to follow. According to the Hogan Leadership Model, followers look for four essential qualities in a leader: integrity, judgment, competence, and vision. Of these, integrity is most essential.

In a recent survey, Hogan asked more than 1,000 individuals about the qualities of their all-time best boss. Eighty-one percent of respondents said trustworthiness was their most important personality characteristic. Conversely, 50% described their worst boss as deceitful.

“People need to know that the person in charge won’t take advantage of his or her position,” said Dr. Robert Hogan, founder of Hogan Assessments. “That they won’t lie, steal, play favorites, and betray subordinates.”

In a separate study, Dr. Hogan and Hogan co-founder and former vice president Dr. Joyce Hogan gathered personality data and performance ratings from the immediate supervisor and subordinates of 55 managers at a large transportation company. Statistical analysis revealed that subordinates ratings of their managers’ overall effectiveness was directly tied to the degree to which a manager was trusted.

Unfortunately, as the as the past decade of scandal, corruption, and Congressional hearings proved, there are an alarming number of dishonest people in leadership roles. Our latest complimentary eBook, Trust and Betrayal, examines who these people are, and how companies can prevent them from damaging their workforce.

Hogan and the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) partnered to launch Reflect by GMAC, the first self-directed, personality-based development tool designed to bring the power of self-awareness to B-school students.

Reflect evaluates personal and professional qualities deemed imperative in today’s workplace by 800 corporate recruiters. It provides concrete action items to help individuals learn more about themselves, improve their strengths, and address their weaknesses. The Reflect tool is the only interactive platform that goes beyond results to provide a personalized action plan, library, and benchmarking data from 14 job functions.

The assessment measures 10 key competencies:

• Innovation - generates new and unique ideas
• Operational Thinking - works efficiently and effectively
• Decision Making - selects best course of action
• Strategic Vision - combines own ideas with others
• Strategic Self-Awareness - recognizes own strengths and weaknesses
• Resilience - performs well under pressure
• Drive - holds high standards for self and others
• Interpersonal Intuition - adjusts communications to audience
• Valuing Others - builds trust-based relationships
• Collaboration - promotes team accomplishments

More on Reflect by GMAC, powered by Hogan

In their book chapter “The Mask of Integrity,” published in Citizen Espionage: Studies in Trust and Betrayal, Drs. Joyce and Robert Hogan, outlined four characteristics that typified the ideal betrayer:

Charisma – According to Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, vice president of research and innovation at Hogan, there are three ways to influence others: force, reason, or charm. Force and reason are rational – even when people are forced to do something, they obey for a good reason. Charm, on the other hand, is based on emotional manipulation and has the ability to trump rational assessments.

Self-absorption – The second characteristic of an ideal betrayer is an unusual degree of self-absorption, or, more to the point, a relentless drive for self-advancement. Betrayers possess a ruthless dedication to self-advancement to the extent that other people lose their value as humans and become objects to be manipulated.

Self-Deception – The third characteristic that typifies the ideal betrayer is self-deception. A major tenet of psychoanalysis and existentialism is that people are prone to deceive themselves about the reasons for their actions.

Hollow Core Syndrome – The final characteristic of the ideal betrayer is a pattern of personality characteristics called the hollow core syndrome. The hollow core syndrome refers to people who are overtly self-confident, who meet the public well, who are charming and socially poised, and who expect others to like them, but who are privately self-doubting and unhappy.

Unfortunately, this charm, confidence, and talent for ingratiation provides betrayers the tools they need to find employment at and quickly ascend the ranks of large, hierarchical organizations, and the private self-doubt associated with the hollow core fuels their pursuit of the money, power, and prestige offered by senior management positions. Trust and Betrayal, a new eBook from Hogan, examines what companies can do to identify and mitigate the effects of betrayers in their ranks.