It's legal for companies to make hiring decisions based on the results of personality tests. It's legal for them to make other personal decisions, such as promoting, firing, giving raises etc. It's legal to make these kinds of decisions based on personality tests that have poor scientific evidence in their efficiency. It's legal to ignore the tests and not make decisions based on them. Largely companies use this as a cover-your-ass tactic. The employer is buying ammunition for future legal fights over employment.
There's really only one set of personality traits (The Big 5) that has a strong scientific backing. Of those only being high in conscientiousness is a signal for being a good employee. Employers screen for that all the time via proxy, such as having a college degree. They don't need to test for it directly. There are however many not-big-5 popular personality tests that are sold to companies. I don't want to call out any specific one, but you should be highly skeptical of their validity.
At best these tests are management by covering your ass. At worst these tests are actively filtering against populations that it is illegal to filter for. For example, the IQ test was once given as part of the immigration process for the United States. Considering that the tests were administered in English they were mostly used as legal justification to turn away non-English speakers.
Ok so you’re partly right and partly wrong. In California it’s flat-out illegal (Tit. 2, § 11071) and attempts to perform more diluted assessments have been found to infringe upon California’s right to privacy.
As for other states, the ADA is likely the biggest threat to these practices and it’s not hard to imagine that a lawsuit will eventually find aspects of many of the current practices to already be illegal. But you’re right that for the “average” person there are generally no protections.
> the IQ test was once given as part of the immigration process for the United States.
This is a myth. There were some attempts at IQ testing in the 1920s but they failed due to language barriers. What was adopted was a trivial wooden puzzle to screen for severe cognitive impairment. That said, the purpose of this test was eugenicist, aligning with the politics of its day.
>I'm confused, I thought I was very critical of these tests in my comment.
It wasn't until the last sentence of your 2nd paragraph where you make any negative remark about them. Up until that point, your comment reads like it is justifying the tests because they are legal. At least that's how I read it.
There's really only one set of personality traits (The Big 5) that has a strong scientific backing. Of those only being high in conscientiousness is a signal for being a good employee. Employers screen for that all the time via proxy, such as having a college degree. They don't need to test for it directly. There are however many not-big-5 popular personality tests that are sold to companies. I don't want to call out any specific one, but you should be highly skeptical of their validity.
At best these tests are management by covering your ass. At worst these tests are actively filtering against populations that it is illegal to filter for. For example, the IQ test was once given as part of the immigration process for the United States. Considering that the tests were administered in English they were mostly used as legal justification to turn away non-English speakers.