Perhaps you have seen the recent Time magazine cover story regarding XQ, or at least heard about it (“How High is Your XQ?” June 22, 2015 http://time.com/magazine/us/3917693/june-22nd-2015-vol-185-no-23-u-s/). The gist of it is that now more and more companies are looking at not just IQ or EQ when selecting a new hire, but also XQ, or rather, how the person performs on a personality test. I was excited to see an entire feature article informing the public about the field of industrial-organizational psychology and the work we do. But I am afraid that using “XQ” to label the process of personality testing is misleading. With both IQ and EQ, it is obvious that the higher you score, the better. The same cannot be said for personality testing. For any given job, you will want people to be higher on certain characteristics and lower on others. For example, if you are hiring someone for a sales position, they are more likely to be successful if they are extroverted and sociable rather than cautious or reserved. The reverse may be the case for a different job (i.e. accountant). Therefore, XQ is not about one score, but about several dimensions of personality. Therefore, implying that XQ is one score is misleading. Whereas your IQ and EQ can be identified as one score, and you can see how “high” or “low” you are on each, the same cannot be said for XQ.
Therefore, while the article did a decent job presenting a balanced view of the benefits and concerns regarding personality testing, I fear that some people will take the label of XQ and, without reading further, will ask each other “how well” they scored on the XQ, or if their XQ is “high enough” to get a job. Labels introduced in a public way such as this, and then supported by professionals in the field, have a way of sticking, along with whatever meaning that label implies.
Therefore, I would like to propose a question for you—Do you feel that XQ is a label we should embrace and promote for personality fit? And if not, what ideas do you have for a better label, or do we need a label at all?