Should you use DISC for Hiring?

Adam Stamm

DISC is an incredibly simple, yet powerful tool. Because it is cost effective and easy to use, we understand why teams and organizations decide to use it as a selection tool for hiring or promoting. But should they? 

The short answer is; no. 

For those who don’t have time to read this full article, here is an overview: 

  • Humans are complex. The DISC model will only show you the behavioral side of a candidate, not their cognitive capacity. DISC can’t predict if a candidate can do the actual work. It only tells you the style in which they are likely to approach it. 
  • Companies should have a tool that measures multiple aspects of a candidate, predicts a candidate’s success, and offers strategic uses.

For those who have the time, continue reading for the full answer to the question of using DISC for hiring.

The History of DISC Theory and Hiring

To understand why you shouldn’t only use DISC as a hiring tool, it’s important to note that one of the earliest uses of DISC theory was actually as a selection assessment. 

Wait, what? 

William Moulton Marston originally developed DISC theory as a way to understand normal behavior (Marston used the word emotions). 

However, Marston’s theory wasn’t used as an assessment to measure behavior until 20 years after it was published when Walter Clarke used it in his own hiring assessment. Clarke used Marston’s theory to validate his hiring assessment called the Activity Vector Analysis (AVA).

Subsequently, when Clarke created his first version of the AVA he combined Marston’s theory with a seperate theory from Prescott Lecky on motivation. 

This means that the earliest hiring assessment that used DISC theory discovered that DISC wasn’t enough on its own to determine if a person would be a good fit for a specific position. 

After all, DISC only measures a person on two-dimensions of their behavior. It was clear back in the 1940’s during the original AVA that job fit required understanding a person’s behavior and motivation. Since that time, selection and hiring assessments have expanded on what is measured.

Determining a Candidate’s Fit

Harvard Business Review conducted a 19-year study that watched the performance of over 360,000 individuals that were hired for sales roles to determine why certain candidates are successful over other candidates. This study was monumental because it offered direct evidence on how  our biases might hinder us from finding the best candidate for a particular role. The study showed that the following characteristics were poor indicators of success:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Race
  • Education

Today, we take this knowledge for granted (hopefully), but the study continues to challenge organizations to look for how a candidate fits a position rather than making judgments based on intuition (bias).

Why You Can’t Determine Job Fit with DISC

DISC Basic Graph

To test this idea, let’s imagine we are hiring for a sales position using DISC to qualify our candidates.

When using DISC, we could use it to understand both their Behavior and Emotional Intelligence. For example, let’s imagine that we are only going to interview candidates with a D-Style, i-Style, or a combination of the two.

In our interview, we will use candidates’ DISC results to ask questions specific to each candidate’s style to better understand their emotional intelligence. For our D-Style candidates, we could ask them how they would respond if someone questioned their knowledge on a particular product they are trying to sell. Or, we could ask our i-Style candidates how they would respond if a potential lead seemed uncomfortable with small talk and always responded in short blunt statements.

Overall, this process doesn’t sound too bad. 

As a standardized hiring process, it could help eliminate interviewer bias. Using a candidate’s DISC results can help determine interview questions that are specific to the candidate.

However, this isn’t an effective way to hire. After all, DISC can’t predict if the person can do the job.

Here is what you might miss about your candidate if you rely heavily on  DISC in your hiring process:

1. Thinking abilities

In this sales role, does the candidate need to explain complex technology? Product knowledge will come over time and with training, but will your candidate be able to make connections about the product and explain it in a way that solves a potential clients’ problem?

DISC can’t determine thinking abilities.

2. Interests or Motivations

In this sales role, are there many administrative tasks because of a long sales process? Or, does the sales process require a lot of technical support once the sale is made. Again, some of this knowledge will come with time on the job, but employees who don’t enjoy what they do won’t stay in the position for long.

DISC can’t determine interests.

3. Determining Candidate Success

Once a candidate becomes an employee, what happens if that employee is fired or resigns? How does your organization measure what went wrong? With DISC, you only have a limited number of measurements to adjust for the future hiring process. If your tool measures an individual in multiple areas, you can adjust what you are looking for in a candidate.

DISC isn’t a good benchmark for employee success.

For these reasons, a standard DISC assessment might actually hinder your hiring process.

Determining Job Fit with a Validated Hiring Assessment

Today, a validated hiring assessment should measure Job Fit from using multiple scales. Here are a few ways that candidates are assessed:

  1. Thinking Abilities (Cognition, how a person understands and uses information; not just what they know)
  2. Behavior
  3. Interests (or motivation)
  4. Emotional Intelligence

At a minimum, we recommend that you find a selection assessment that measures a person based on their behavior and thinking abilities. Here are a few things that your hiring assessment should be able to tell you:

Job Fit Prediction

Whatever you choose to measure to help you predict a candidate’s success, ensure that those measurements are being used to predict “Job Fit.” A validated hiring assessment should provide a percentage that estimates the likelihood of success for a candidate in the position for which you are hiring.

Comparison Tools – Roles

As a hiring manager, you want to be  able to strategically evaluate your candidates. Many candidates are applying for multiple jobs for a multitude of organizations. For that reason, they might have applied for a job at your organization and they missed an opportunity for a position where they would be a better fit for. Don’t let a great candidate get away! Your hiring tool should be able to measure a candidate against multiple positions giving you the flexibility to see where else they may fit in  your organization. This ability to compare a candidate to multiple roles will also help you with succession planning and determining what sort of coaching an employee may need following a promotion.

Comparison Tools – Candidates

At a minimum, you should find a tool that helps you compare your candidates with ease. All of the data that you collect on your candidates will lose it’s value if you or your organization can’t use it effectively.

Validated for hiring

Ensure that your hiring assessment was tested for reliability and is validated for hiring. Laws for hiring vary based on locations, and it’s always important to know what your local laws are when using a hiring assessment.

How should you choose a hiring assessment?

The most important aspect to choosing a hiring assessment is making sure that you or your organization are able to use it effectively. We have evaluated multiple tools and would love to discuss the tools we feel are most effective.